8/4/10
I’m not doing so well on keeping things up to date as I had hoped I would, but bear in mind, once my mother had children, she lost interest in this task also.
Once we arrived in Montana, our spirits picked up, and we all felt like our trip had finally started. On the 2nd, two nights ago, we set down in Southside RV,
where a tow-headed teenage boy in a World War II era jeep showed us where to pull through. There was a little creek running through the park, and we let the dogs walk in it.
When the trailer is unhitched, it’s like the world is our oyster. We toured downtown Dillon, Montana, the home of the University of Montana Western (Go bulldogs!), and it was very cute, in general. The major amenities were a little way off the freeway, and except for the Safeway, all the stores were different from home.
For dinner, we ate at the Lion’s Den Supper Club, which was quite good. The waitress was pretty funny -- Dad wanted to make sure he got enough Splenda for his iced tea, so she brought out a whole soup bowl full of it for him and wanted to know if that was enough. Mom and I had fun with the typos on the menu: Such favorites as “graver” (gravy) and “sautéed nad tossed” (sautéed and tossed) and “100%beef.”
After dinner, we jay-walked across the street to the Rocky Mountain Supply Store, which was a gas station and an everything store. They sold pizza inside, and jeans and candy. The lady behind the counter was nice too.
The next day, we went on An Adventure in Montana. We went to Bannack State Park,
which was an old mining ghost town that they are refurbishing. It was still being used, like the houses and stuff, up until the 50’s, so when we went inside the houses, there was linoleum on the floors, and fabric on the walls instead of wall paper, all right over the raw wood of the original building. The Masonic temple/schoolhouse was in excellent condition, whether from the Mason’s quality construction, or the refurbishing, I don’t know.
The Gibson house was once used as a quarantine hospital for the seriously ill, and a lot of babies died there. It was all rotted out, the floors shook, and there were holes in the walls where the sunlight could get in, but I went up the narrow, tall steps to the upstairs anyway. It was scary, especially with the creepy baby-crying sound my dad kept making. Totally worth it, though.
There was a bunny on the bridge on our way in too, and it wasn’t afraid of the
truck, so we were all yelling, “MOVE, Bunny, MOVE!” Finally it ran away after Dad backed the truck up and I was halfway out of the backseat trying to get it to flee. It was a cute bunny.
We had some cheese, crackers, Cokes and plums before we continued down the lonely road to Crystal Park.
We got to go 70 all the way. Crystal Park is a state park that is in the mountains. You basically pull off the main road, walk up the path 300 feet or so, and all along the hillside are holes people had dug. It reminded Mom of the movie “Holes.” All we had to do was borrow their shovel and their sifter, scoop up some dirt and look for shiny stuff in it. They are just little quartz crystals, so they aren’t worth much, but they are pretty cool.
We did a lot of shopping that day too, and went to Uncle Bob’s Outdoor store -- I forget what we went in for, but the guy let me handle some of the guns even though the sign behind him said ‘18 and over’ and I said I was waiting ‘til I turned 18 to buy. But, whatever. Dad got some more shirts, which he needed, and I got some lotion, which I didn’t. Then we went to Quality Supply, which was another everything store. We got a tarp, a Moon Pie, a Mag-light and some other stuff. We bought the batteries for Brodie’s shock collar, so maybe she’ll stop annoying us so much.
We went home after that so Mom could get some work done, and I made dinner. We had borrowed ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’ from the RV store, so we went into the laundry room to run our clothes, watch the movie, and let Mom finish working. It was funny, but not great or anything. It made the time go by faster.
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