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!