8-27-19 Deer Lodge, MT II

Several of the t-loggers have told me that they can’t post on the blog.  Since I “own” the blog, it is not possible for me to duplicate the problems.  If any of you have instructions that can help, please write it in the “Comments” block below.  Second, I wrote that the Warden was “mortally wounded but survived.”  OK, OK, I get it.  You can’t survive being “mortally wounded.”  His throat was cut and he nearly bled to death but didn’t.  How’s that?

It is very windy, here, and it gets cold at night.  The thermometer read 34F first thing this morning, it warmed up to 74 during the day but it is much too windy to use the bbq.  Fortunately, Louie’s world famous Montana pasties came to the rescue.  Louie creates chicken and beef pasties stuffed with meat and vegetables and wrapped in a flaky buttery crust.  The freezer is also stocked with six more and a supply of brown gravy to slather on top!  Perfectly tasty pasties!

Lunch with all the animals

Louie’s bake shop is coincidentally (and conveniently) located across the street from the Elk Ridge Brewing Company.  Well, well, well.  Here, with my name on it, I found a “Cow in Heat Jalapeño Cream Ale” on draught and hubness sipped a Kölsch.  Just the ticket for a pleasant lunch surrounded by elk and moose heads on the walls.

His Mooseness

If Deer Lodge can claim no other fame, it has the corner on museums.  The Toy Museum was a worthy stop where, on display, were memories of hours of childhood playtime.  There were hundreds of dolls and buggies, train sets clicking around through tunnels and around the bends over bridges, and who can forget Tinkertoys, tops, tricycles and cap guns?  If you have precious toys that you would like preserved and protected, you can contact Melanie Sanchez, the Curator, at 406-846-3111.  I’m sure she would like your old hula hoop, clamp-on roller skates (with key), Lincoln logs, baton, pogo stick and paint-by-numbers kits!

The Car Museum was just across the street, next door to the territorial prison.  Another beautiful collection.  Perfect vehicles, some restored and some original, go back as far as 1886.  There were many manufacturers early on before the big three rose to the top, some names I don’t recognize at all.  More than that, there were stories. 

1913 Cole

There were a lot of these signs
located on the trail
across the country

The Yellowstone Trail traversed the USA in 1915, in my mind similar to Route 66.  The route took adventuresome travelers across the northern sections of the states from Plymouth Rock to Seattle.  If there are two cars on the road, at least one of them is racing, right?  And so in 1915, one group of hardy souls that entered the Yellowstone Trail race drove a 1913 seven-seater Cole.  How they refueled on such a long journey is a mystery to me.  There couldn’t have been filling stations along the way in those early days.  (Not everyone was a fan of the horseless carriage.  Some naturalists wanted cars to be banned from Yellowstone Park, calling them “engines of death.”)

Map of the Yellowstone Trail

So while some were racing, others were getting into “automobile camping.”  They packed up their goods and duds into their vehicles and headed for the hills.  And the plains.    On the subject of “connecting the dots,” one of the places where these early adventurers chose to camp was an empty piece of land in Deer Lodge, MT.  This land is now the KOA where we have been parked for 3 days.  There is an old brick building adjacent to the campground and I wondered about it.  Cass, the KOA proprietor, told me that it was the campers’ “pavilion” back then, where socials and other events took place.  Since that time, the government has claimed rights to the building and they store road maintenance equipment and other machinery in this pretty building.

"Automobile camping" in 1925
on the current KOA campground

Rob, Noobee and the Jeepster
on the 2019 version of the
"automobile campground"

City Pavilion next to the
KOA campground

1910 Model T Turnabout

1916 Dodge Brothers
Touring Car

Some of you have probably
been pursued by one of these?
1977 Plymouth Gran Fury

1965 Pontiac GTO

Remember these?

And these?

There were beautiful late-model vehicles in the museum as well but the very old-timers captured our fancy most.  After many hours on our feet, time to head for the ranch, a cold toonie, a hot pasty and a good night’s sleep so we’ll be ready for our next adventure:  Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.  Rob got us a place at Blackwell RV Resort, one of my fave parks.  Tonight, we’ll celebrate my 852 months on the planet at Cedars, a floating restaurant!  Yay!

PS-If we had launched this trip in the clockwise direction, my original idea, we’d be bracing ourselves for Hurricane Dorian right now.  Timing is everything and wisdom is not optional!

8-26-19 W Yellowstone, MT III & Deer Lodge, MT I

Fountain Paint Pots

A few more things about Yellowstone:

I described “mudpots” in an earlier story.  I thought I would send you a picture of one called “Fountain Paint Pot.”  It is a big one, famous for the reds, yellows, oranges and browns of the mud due to oxidation of iron in the soil.  Nearby, Clepsydra Geyser, is active almost all the time.  These two are features of what is called the Lower Geyser Basin.

Clepsydra Geyser

Beryl Spring and 2 geezers

You don't want to fall in here!

On the way back from Mammoth Hot Springs, another monster spring caught our attention.  It is called Beryl Spring.  It was named this because of the color of the water.  When the sun shines just right, the pretty pool is aquamarine, the color of the gemstone beryl.  This is the hottest spring in the park;  the water can reach 196F.  You don’t want to fall into this puppy!  The huge steam vent just above the boiling pool blows out steam with a huge roar, like a smoke stack or a steam boat.  This spring is in the Gibbon Geyser Basin where the Gibbon River flows.  Way down in the canyon, the Gibbon Falls drops 84 feet and the river continues on its way. 

Gibbon Falls - Runable only by salmon
(or maybe not)

Gibbon River continues on its way

Reluctantly, we leave the Tetons and Yellowstone behind but the memories live on.

Switchback on the back road to
Deer Lodge, MT  Yikes!

Driving to Deer Lodge, MT is a white knuckler!  We deliberately stayed off the freeway and took the little roads and to be sure, the scenery is beautiful.  No time for the driver to stare at scenery, though.  The roads, once again, were squiggly with switchbacks, steep grades and 180 deg. turns at 15 mph.  And of course, drop-offs with no Armco barriers.  Noobee was up to the task but the steering wheel got pretty sweaty.

Nobody escaped from this one!

The Montana Territorial Prison was built in 1870 in Deer Lodge.  The original building was so badly damaged by an earthquake in 1959 that it was leveled.  The original wall around the prison was wood, nothing that could retain somebody who really wanted out.  So, although Montana was still a territory not a state, Congress allotted money for a block wall.  The prisoners were conscripted to build the wall, 24 feet tall, three feet thick at the top and 4 ½ feet thick at the bottom.  It was impossible to tunnel under the wall because it extended 5 feet underground.  The prison was small and a new cell block was constructed in 1912, designed to hold about 200 more convicts.  Each cell was intended to hold one prisoner but later, they added more beds and many of the small cells held two.

The average cell

Three part shower:  wet down,
suds up, rinse off

Mug shot camera

Cell block built in 1912

For its time, it was a rather “modern” prison;  they had hot water, for example.  The showers were production line:  the first spigot got you wet, the second spigot soaped you up and the third spigot rinsed you off.  There were rewards for the well-behaved prisoners, like time in the craft shop, for example, but the more obstreperous types were put in solitary, maximum security confinement.  They lived in total darkness and got bread and water twice daily for as long as ten days at a time.  Rats were their only companions.

We read the history of some of the convicts at the prison.  There were a number of them that were imprisoned during WWI for “sedition,” speaking out against the war and the country.  “Fuck the USA, I hope Germany wins!”  Some of today’s Congressmen would be felons by those standards!  One guy got 6 years for stealing a horse.  In the women’s cell block, Della McCoy was convicted for being a prostitute, a felony in those days, also known as a “sporter, sporting woman, street walker or sporting house keeper.”  Well, they had a sense of humor, anyway.  Sex IS a sport (if you do it right).  Another chick, Sarah Hughes, was convicted of murdering her husband.  He showed up alive afterwards.  (He faked his death in a fire by stealing a body from a nearby cemetery.)  Meanwhile, Sarah had married somebody else.  Nope!  Can’t do that!  She did time for being a bigamist.  Another chick wanted her boyfriend to move out of her house but decided to speed up the process by shooting him and killing him.  She got 3 years for that.

There was an uprising at the prison in 1908 in which a Deputy Warden was killed and the Warden was mortally wounded but survived.  Two inmates were hanged for that one, George Rock and William Hayes, on the “jerking gallows.”  The jerking gallows dropped a counterbalance of 300 lb. of rock that jerked the guy up and was supposed to snap the neck.  It didn’t work so well.  It took the two guys who were hanged 10 minutes to die of asphyxiation.  Jeez.  Trap doors worked.  If it works, don’t fix it, as we say in the biz.

8-24-19 W Yellowstone, WY II

Yellowstone is bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined and is the oldest national park, founded in 1872.  It isn’t the biggest of the national parks, those are in Alaska.  It got its name from the Minnetaree Indians who named it for the yellow rocks found in the park’s “grand canyon.”  Trappers interpreted the Indian word into English, “Yellow Stone.” 

The poor mountain, nothing but
pick-up-sticks

The highway heading north away from Old Faithful takes us to Mammoth Hot Springs for day 2.  Along the way, the mountains tell the tale of the fire of 1988.  The sides of the mountains seem to be covered with pick-up-sticks, thousands of them that used to be trees.  Slowly, reforestation is taking place but the bark beetle is the new enemy.  Another enemy is flooding that takes place when some of the hot springs get overexcited.  The flood waters have so much acid and mineral content that it kills the trees. 

"Bobbysox trees"

When the waters recede and evaporate, the trees are dead and have a white ring of silica around the lower trunk.  They have been nicknamed “bobbysox trees.”  Cute but they’re sort of dead and I doubt they appreciate it. 

There are a number of springs along the way.  The water is so crystal clear and deep in some of them that the ponds are beautiful dark blue, turquoise or emerald green.  It depends on the temperature of the water because some thermophiles can live at certain temperatures.  If no bacteria are present because the water is too hot, the water is crystal clear and reflects blue just like the ocean does.  If the water is bright green, it might mean that the sides of the spring have yellow colors in the rocks.  The colors also change depending on the amount of sunshine. 

Roberto at Sapphire Pool

The blue, blue water of Sapphire Pool

The Palette Spring was the most spectacular of the terraced springs.  It resembles a natural amphitheater with white, yellow, orange and brown tiers stepping downward to the flat where we could stand on the boardwalk. 

Devil's Thumb at Palette Springs

Various thermophiles create the many colors as the boiling water flows over stalactites at the top and down over the terraces, living and changing with the deposit of the colorful minerals.  Devil’s Thumb, a dormant hot spring cone, rises in this group of terraces.  I suppose it is called “dormant” rather than “extinct” because it could always get all activated and springy again.

Palette Springs

Palette Springs

Also at Mammoth Springs is an extinct hot spring cone called Liberty Cap.  It was named for the hats that guys liked to wear to the French Revolution.  It is 40 feet tall and has been extinct since before the park became a park in 1872.  What a greeting:  “Hi!  I’m Liberty Cap!  I’ll be your stunning monument for the day!”

Liberty Cap (Looks just like a hat, hey?)

   

Orange Spring Mound

Along the drive back, we encountered Orange Spring Mound.  This is another active, living spring with bright orange colors created by the thermophiles they call cyanobacteria that love the temperature of the water here.  Everything is so precious and fragile.  We were very careful not to park or even step in the wrong places. 

Boiling water springing from Orange Spring Mound

They cautioned us that just touching the water to feel the temperature can alter the ecosystem.  (This was after I’d done that, shame on me… Sorry, God.  FYI, the water is freezing in places and hotter than hell in others).

It was a long drive home, delayed by the natives:  elk and buffalo.  I guess the locals get used to it.  I am far from that, nearly hypnotized by the majesty of these beautiful animals.  Tomorrow, we will be off to Deer Lodge, Montana to see what there is to see.

 

8-23-19 West Yellowstone, MT I

I am turning into a huckleberry hound.  Everything is huckleberries up here, even huckleberry coffee, which we took for a test drive this morning.  Actually, this is also phyllo country.  Everything is wrapped in phyllo dough:  elk and bison (pasties), huckleberry strudel, you name it.  I don’t know about bears and mooses.  (Meese?)  I think people eat those, too, but I haven’t.  Yet.

Mister Buffalo, Sir!

This time of year, lookin' for Miss Right!

There are lots of warnings on the highway to be careful of wildlife.  Twelve bison collisions have occurred so far, this year.  When we arrived, we hooked up and a news story on TV featured a private video taken by a motorist showing a bison stampede slamming into cars that had stopped to look.  This had happened the evening before our arrival.  Final score:  buffalo – 5, cars – 0.

Yellowstone Grizzly RV Park lies just to the west of the entry gate into the park.  We passed through the gates of Yellowstone and the Tetons several times.  At $35 each, that would have racked up a few bucks but fortunately, years back, we purchased a permanent Senior Pass to all national parks for $10 and over the years, it has saved us a pantload.  So through the gates we go again, across the home where buffalo roam, where the deer and the antelope play and other critters just sort of stand around (unless they’re hungry or pissed off)… like bears, wolves and meese.

Excuse me, Mister Elk, she's right here!

The contrast between the two parks is notable.  It seems to me that the Tetons are known for breathtaking jagged peaks and deep blue lakes in all directions and Yellowstone is the land of mudpots, hot springs and geysers.  Yes, there are mountains but they are more rounded and covered with trees.  Many of the trees are fairly young now due to the fire 30 years ago that destroyed thousands of acres of Yellowstone, but the signs in many places indicate that the forests are “naturally reseeded by wildfire 1988.” 

Reseeded by wildfire

The majority of the world’s active geysers are in this area.  Old Faithful is not the tallest geyser in Yellowstone but it is one of the most regular.  She blows her top every 60-90 minutes.  The eruptions last between 1 and 5 minutes shooting 4-8,000 gallons of boiling water 185 feet into the air.  Simply astounding.  She is a phenomenon that must be seen more than once in a lifetime and we stayed to watch her again.  We picked a place as close as the rangers would allow, for safety sake and to protect the fragile ecosystem.  The curators of the land warn to stay on the designated boardwalks and paths.  The underground rivers and streams lie not so far below the surface and the upper crust of minerals is very thin in places.  So thin that, over time, a dozen foolhardy people have taken their chances, fallen through and hard-boiled themselves to death.

Old Faithful, step one

Old Faithful, step two

Old Faithful, step three

Old Faithful, step four.
Go for it, grand old lady!

Old geezers and an old geyser

Beehive geyser erupts only twice daily.  It is different than Old Faithful.  Its cone is shaped more like a nozzle and it jettisons gallons of boiling water 200 feet into the air.  Old Faithful is more fluffy.  Beehive erupted at the same time as Old Faithful.  A short time later, Lion erupted.  Lion geyser got its name from the sudden gush of steam that creates a roaring sound just before he blows.  All three of them before our bewildered eyes.  We couldn’t believe our incredible luck!

Beehive, blowing it's top!

Mudpots are another geological feature of this land.  Certain microorganisms (“thermophiles”) that have adapted to the hot, acidic environment modify the gasses that arise from deep down and alter the rocks into clay.  (It’s been awhile since I was in the Bugology business and I’m only 70 years old but I have never heard of “thermophiles.”)  Later, more hot gases rise to the surface of the soupy clay mud and cause it to bubble and make plopping noises like a big pot of boiling banana pudding.  It doesn’t look or smell as appetizing as banana pudding, trust me on this.

I believe, in my heart, that
this is where pickleballs are formed

8-21-19 Moran, WY & The Grand Tetons

The Fireside Buffalo Valley RV Park is southeast, just a bit, from the Grand Teton National Forest.  This is our third day here and we’ve been on the road for 10 weeks, tomorrow.  Yesterday was the first day I’ve worn shoes, socks and blue jeans.  It has been sunny and hot, by and large, so far (except for a few yellow and red cells that have missed us by a gnat’s ass), and shorts and sandals have been the name of the game.  Until August in Wyoming.  It was 42F this morning;  10 degrees shy of a snowfall.  So which is favorable?  Intolerably hot with 100% humidity or coats and mittens?  We’ve run the gamut.  Call me Princess Me Wanna Go Home to Pahrump Teepee.

The view from Jackson Lake

The Tetons are magnificent.  Anywhere you go, coming around the next bend evokes a gasp, “Oh My God!”  Yes, this is God’s Wonderland.  He was working overtime when He created the Tetons.  Over the millennia, they and adjacent lakes, canyons and valleys were formed by shifting plates, glaciers, ice ages and the usual, global warming.  There are many spectacular peaks in this range, the South and Middle Teton, Teewinot, Owen, St. John, Moran, the Cathedral Group and the grand-daddy of them all, The Grand Teton which towers toward the stars 13,775 feet.

Cunningham cabin

Cunningham cabin, built in 1888

On the way to our first adventure, we came upon Cunningham Cabin.  It was built by J. Pierce Cunningham and his wife, Margaret, during the days of the Homestead Act in 1888.  The Homestead Act basically said that if you could go out there and survive for 5 years, the 160 acre piece of land was yours.  The Cunninghams did it on their land in their (once considered “modern”) cabin, raising hay and grasses for their livestock to carry them through the unforgiving winters and cultivating healthy range grasses in the moderate seasons.  When ranching reached an economic low point in 1925, Cunningham and other ranchers proposed selling their ranches to the feds to create a national recreational area.  It turns out that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was the money guy who really was responsible for funding the project and creating a national park of the Teton Range and its valley.

Rob traveled with his family to Jackson Hole, WY when he was 13 years old, just a few years back.  I have never been there.  It was on my bucket list.  I thought it was a ski area but I was mistaken.  Jackson Hole is a valley that was scraped out by the glaciers and through which the Snake River snakes its way, all surrounded by beautiful peaks.  One of them is Rendezvous Mountain. 

This mountain has been “conquered” by humans:  a tram carries summer visitors and winter skiers to its summit at 10,450 ft. at Jackson Hole Resort in Teton Village.  Obviously, we had to ride the tram!  At the top, you can see God.  The Grand Teton towers grandly in the distance.  A thousand trails (un-skiable by me) take one back to the base.  Later, Rob began to feel tippy with the altitude so I rode the Teewinot chair by myself.  Bikers load their bikes on this chair lift, ride to the top and bike down to the base.  Yes, they do this.  Why?  We’ll just have a beer on the outdoor deck and watch.

Have a beer and watch, Roberto!

The Grand Teton to Lindy's left

To the left is Mt. Teewinot, in the center is
Grand Teton (it looks shorter because
it is further away) and to the right,
the one with the glaciers,
is Mt. Owen

Nez Perce Mountain,
aka "Howling Wolf."  Do
you see it?

There is a boat tour and guide around Jenny Lake, another one of those deep blue lakes formed millennia ago by shifting plates, glaciers and global warming.  Jenny Lake is 260 feet deep and the beautiful mountains drop directly down into the water.  Our boatman explained many things about the geology, wildlife and the Teton Fault that changes the configuration of the peaks, even now.  We kept our eyes peeled for moose, bears and eagles but alas, we came up empty.  And not a single alligator.  The guide did tell us that many hard-core outdoors-men scale the peak of the Grand Teton on a regular basis, some in one day and some in two days.  “Because it’s there.”  True story:  a climbing ranger from Rocky Mt. National Park holds the record for bagging the Grand Teton:  2 hours and 53 minutes up and back.  Our boatman spends his free time in the winter climbing up the mountains with his skis on his back and skiing down onto the frozen lake.  Sixteen feet of snow per season makes this possible, or impossible, depending on your point of view.

They say the bears are "harmless and
afraid of humans,"
however, you can obtain your
bear spray at the General Store.

Stop sign ala Wyoming

At last, livestock!
A couple of white pelicans.