Wendy's Washington Adventures: Montana trip

Kelly and I had the opportunity to go to Montana and stay in a friend's cabin last week. Our 22nd anniversary is this month so it worked out nicely as an anniversary trip.

I-90 crossing the Columbia River in central Washington.

Wild Horses monument by the Columbia River.

We stopped in Spokane for lunch at Riverside Park, the site of the 1974 World Expo. It was a fun place to walk around. There was a classic Corvette show going on and lots of people there to play in the fountain in the 100 degree weather. Watch the slide show:

Lake Coer d'Alene.

We stopped at this mission for a picture but didn't go in.

It was late when we finally got to the cabin because of the stops we made on the way down. We also stopped in Missoula to get groceries for the week and stopped at ShopKo there because we could. There were forest fires near Missoula that made the moon look bright red!

Views of the cabin in Polaris, Montana, 150 miles from Yellowstone and 140 miles from Idaho Falls. It is a small but very nice place. It sleeps 6 and has all the amenities, including a washer and dryer. The owners, my friend Holly and her husband Craig, rent it out when they are not staying there. (I can put you in touch if anyone is interested.) I am sewing drapes for the cabin so they very graciously let us stay there for free.

Awesome scenery on the Pioneer Scenic Byway above Polaris. We were a little disappointed that we didn't see any moose or elk but we did see lots of deer, a couple of coyotes, and some wood chucks.

We drove 5 miles on a dirt road and hiked another half mile to the ghost town of Coolidge. It was a mining town in the early 1900s. It was quite large and we didn't even see it all because it was getting late. Here are a few views:

The next day we drove a little more than an hour to Butte to check things out. We weren't very impressed with the town (it's a really rough place) but we found some interesting things there.

Historic uptown Butte.

A couple of neat old churches.

We got a kick out of the sign on this one. It was an ad for for the movie Evan Almighty that said, "Help is near."

The Dumas Hotel was a brothel until 1982. We wanted to visit the museum inside but it was closed. Notice the madam (mannequin) in the window.

Our Lady of the Mountain is a 90 foot statue of the Mother Mary that stands on the mountain top overlooking Butte. We wanted to drive up there but discovered that only private bus tours (on a scary looking bus) were allowed up.

We came upon this archaeological dig while driving around. They are excavating a site where Chinese immigrants had a mission in the 1800s-1910. They showed us a bunch of items they had discovered, an intact light bulb from 1910, medicine bottles, games pieces, etc., and let us go in to watch them dig.

This woman is sifting through the dirt to find relics. She found a brass filigree button and a couple other small items while we were there.

Walking through a tunnel to view the Berkeley Pit.

The Berkeley Pit is a former copper mine filled with water over a mile wide and 900 feet deep. The water is about as acidic as vinegar.

We got a kick out of this sign.

A couple of amazing meals Kelly barbecued. The steak and shrimp was our first dinner at the cabin. It was so good that we didn't even care about eating out after that. We barbecued every night.

We visited Bannack State Park, a ghost town that has been preserved. We were able to go in a lot of the buildings and it was pretty awesome. Here are some pictures:

We spent a couple of hours at Crystal Park, a state park where you can dig for quartz crystals. The digging is easy. I used just a fireplace shovel and a screw driver.

No, I didn't dig this hole, just dug IN it. We found a handful of crystals, the biggest being about an inch long. We thought that was really good until Nancy (the caretaker at the cabin) saw them and said they were "cute" and preceded to tell us about crystals she had found that were 6 inches and more! I was ready to go back and try again with a bigger shovel!

These plants were all over on the trail up to the dig site. They all had swarms of these butterflies on them.

The trip home.

On the way home we saw this nest with 2 young peregrine falcons in it. The mother was not happy that we stopped to take pictures. She was screaming at us and circling.