Helena, Montana

My friends Lori and Suzann were participating in the Race for the Cure at the Montana State Capital Building in Helena and invited me along for a girls' weekend! We left after work on Friday. Our first item of business was to get a tasty dinner in Bozeman. Needing plenty of carbs for the race (I didn't race but I didn't want to wake up hungry ;) ) we decided on Old Chicago! We arrived in Helena just after 10 p.m., checked into the hotel, and crashed for the night.


Suzann and Lori woke up early and headed out to the Capital. I slept late, had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, enjoyed watching some TV, and then headed outside around 10:20 to catch a glimpse of Suzann and she raced by! Lori soon followed. They looked great and inspired me to attempt a 5k sometime in the near future! Here is a pic of some racers going by the Red Lion Hotel:
After the race, all three of us headed out to explore Helena. Our first stop was the Montana History Museum:

My favorite was the exhibit of artist C.M. Russell. Russell was born is St. Louis and dreamed of being a cowboy in the West. He moved to Montana when he was 16 and never left. In his lifetime, he completed over 4,000 pieces of work. Here are some of my favorite from the museum:

There were a lot of items from Glacier National Park in the museum. The most interesting to me was the bear trap:

2 women were killed by grizzly bears one night in 1967 at two different locations in Glacier N.P. This started an agressive back country bear management program in the park. Closing of garbage dumps in the park and strictly enforcing food storage and garbage disposal were some of the first measures taken. Problem bears around tourists in the "frontcountry" were trapped in the above culvert-pipe trap and relocated to the backcountry.

There were also some Plains Indian exhibits. Suzann and I tested out the seating in a teepee:

Some Plains Indians would hunt bison by herding them off the edge of cliffs as seen in this awesome art work:

Bison were also used to decorate the homes of the white man. The arm rest of this chair is made up of bison horns:

After the museum, we headed over to the Montana State Capital Building:

Who's that on top of the Capital you ask? I have no idea and neither does the State of Montana! Apparently, this statue arrived on the train in Helena during the construction of the Capital. Although no one knew who was depicted in the statue, they thought is was a good idea to stick it on the dome of the Capital.

We were lucky to stumble into a guided tour of the Capital. Below is a statue of Montanan Jeannette Rankin, the first woman in the US Congress. She was first elected in 1916, just before WWI, and again in 1940, just before WWII. She voted AGAINST the entry of the US into both wars and was the only Congress member to vote against WWII. With emotions and patriotism high after Pearl Harbor, this didn't make her a very popular person. She was never re-elected.

"I want to stand by my country, but I cannot vote for war. I vote no" - Jeannette Rankin

The interior of the Capital is quite impressive. The dome and interior is full of beautiful murals and stained-glass.

There are many paintings of famous people throughout the Capital. In the rotunda, one of my favorites is a painting of Mountain Man and tall-tale-teller, Jim Bridger. An expert explorer, he was one of the first white men to see the Great Salt Lake and the area that would become Yellowstone National Park. He found Bridger's Pass which shortened the Oregon Trail by 61 miles and would later become the route for the Union Pacific Railroad and Interstate 80.

Jim Bridger mural in Capital rotunda

Lori and our tour guide

These paintings above and below are of President Ulysses S. Grant driving the final golden spike of the Northern Pacific Railroad in Central Montana... We were lucky to join the tour. Our guide had access to areas that would have otherwise been off limits to us. For example, the Senate Chamber... ...and the Old Supreme Court Chamber:

The Supreme Court now has a new home in a new judicial building so this room now holds special session meetings. The Old Supreme Court Chamber had a beautiful stained-glass ceiling and murals all around. The middle painting below is Lewis & Clark seeing the Rocky Mountains for the first time. The other two pertain to Montana becoming a territory and the other earning statehood.

More paintings from the Old Supreme Court Chamber:

Old Supreme Court Chamber ceiling:

Wow!

Back in the rotunda...

Our tour guide also let us into the House of Representatives. This was a historical room as the huge painting behind the podium is by artist C.M. Russell who is mentioned above. To preserve the art work, we couldn't use flash photography. We also couldn't sit in the wooden Representative's chairs.

How do I look as Speaker of the House?

The view of Helena and surrounding area from inside the Capital:

After the tour, we headed downtown for a tasty lunch at the Mediterranean Grill. We walked off lunch in Reeder's Alley.

Gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch in 1864. Gold miners soon swept in to stake their claims. One of them built the Pioneer Cabin, Helena's oldest documented dwelling, seen below:

Business and other dwellings soon followed...

Downtown area of Helena. All of Montana's "cities" are small towns...

We visited the Cathedral of St. Helena. I didn't get very good pictures of the outside and none of the inside because a ceremony was scheduled for that evening. It is a very impressive building. We did get to peek inside and it is the prettiest cathedral I've ever seen. To view pictures of the awesome stained-glass from inside, visit their website.

St. Paul, Father Damien, St. Joan of Arc

We saw an ad for a Roller Derby being held at the fairgrounds. We headed over to the fairgrounds:

Who knew Roller Derby was such a poplular event? We waited in the ticket line for 15 minutes or so only to have the Sold Out sign pop up right before we got to the window. We headed to the movies instead and watched a chic-flick, Something Borrowed. After the movie, we had dessert.

Sunday morning, we all slept in before having a late breakfast at Perkins. The drive back was gorgeous along Hwy 287. After a dreary, gloomy Saturday, we had sunshine and big white puffy clouds. Do you see the bunny rabbit? Suzann and Lori said it was playing leap from with a cloud-frog, but I don't see the frog! lol

Everytime I see a train, I think of Granny and how she would snap a picture of every train we saw when we visited the West for the first time on a family vacation! I get my love of picture taking from Granny!

A country church...

Neither farming or ranching is possible out here without irrigation pipes.

Dirt roads...

Do you see the swan?

Wheat bins...

Over 12,000 acres of wheat is farmed in the Three Forks, MT area for Wheat Montana, a local bakery and deli. We stopped and ordered sandwiches and cinnamon rolls to go! Oh my, they were delicious!

I heart Montana! Good times!

The Three Musketeers in Missoula, MT

Rebekah, Kim and I headed to Missoula before Rebekah moved to another location in the park for the summer. We left after work on Friday and arrived late after a 4.5 hour drive west on I-90. We woke up early on Saturday and headed downtown. We walked up and down Higgins Ave.

We mostly did window shopping, but we did browse the Fact & Fiction bookstore for quite some time.

We headed to Caras Park for the Farmer's Market. I bought a tasty pastry for breakfast. Although we had an overcast day, Missoula was so much warmer than the park.

Heading down to the Market...

There were jugglers, musicians, and vendors. People out enjoying the day!

Mid-day, we sat on a hill overlooking Brew Fest and the Clark's Fork River. Great place for people watching and soaking up the intermitten sunshine...

Clark's Fork River running through Missoula...

After a tasty lunch at a mexican restaurant, we walked both sides of the Clark's Fork River...watching kayakers...

Late in the afternoon, we headed to our hotel, had dinner at McKenzie River Pizza Co., and enjoyed watching TV. TV was quite the luxury as we don't have TV in the park.

Sunday morning, we decided to visit Garnet Ghost Town. From Missoula, there are two ways to get there. One is to take I-90 East and then head north up to Garnet. Since we came along I-90 Friday night, we decided to see more of Montana and take Hwy 200 northeast from Missoula and then head south to Garnet...

Scenes from Hwy 200 East of Missoula...

Pretty farm and ranch land nestled against snow-capped mountains.
Just before reaching Greenough on Hwy 200, the access road turned south. So far, so good. The road was clear to begin with...

...but then was snow covered 3 miles in.

We decided to turn around, head back to Missoula, and try accessing Garnet via the southern route along I-90.

We exited off I-90 at the Bearmouth exit. Thinking this southern route right off I-90 would be more travelled, I didn't think we would encounter any snow along this route...

The access road was 10 miles from the main highway turnoff. The first 7 miles looked great! Road was clear, wide, and dry!

About 3 miles from the town, snow starting piling along the road. Obviously a snow plow had been through, so I still wasn't worried. However, I was unable to take any pictures of the snow/ice-packed and muddy roads that just so happened to appear as we rounded a corner while steeply climbing higher and higher in elevation all at the same.

Might I also mention that the road became a one-lane road with no pull-offs or places to turn around. It didn't matter that Kim from Georgia had a white knuckle grip as she fought to stear on the ice...there was no place to turn around and we couldn't slow down much less stop for fear of getting stuck in mud or losing all momentum and having no traction on the icy roads. Still not quite to the town...

Kim did a great job of getting us to the top safely! I was shaky and tense for quite some time after we arrived at the town!!! The whole time that I was walking around looking and snapping pictures of the buildings, I was praying that the Good Lord would get us back down safely! Mostly, I prayed that we wouldn't meet another car coming up the hill as were coming down the hill because neither of us would have any place to go. I, of course, imagined the worse like us losing control and sliding off the side of the mountain. I really couldn't enjoy the ghost town because I was so worried about having to drive down the mountain!

I did manage to snap a few pics, though!

Kelly's Saloon

Look at all that snow in MAY!

This makes me wonder how families survived during the winter here in the 1800's.

This is the original hotel and we could see a headboard and curtain in the upstairs window.

Davey's Mercantile

In 1898, Garnet had some 1,000 people who called it home. By 1905, the gold was almost gone and only 150 remained. In the years to follow, a fire and hard times sent people packing out of town.

Can I just say that after 2 years in living in MT/WY maybe I should have thought twice about heading to a mountain mining ghost town in May. However, the website did say that the roads were open to vehicles starting May 1st and that the visitor's center was open daily. Well, the visitor center above was not open...

The time I dreaded came when we had to head back down the hill. I put the car in the lowest gear possible and creeped down. Prayers were answered and we didn't meet anyone along the road! Rebekah helped calm me down by keeping a good conversation going over the icy stretch!

We headed a few more miles on I-90 to Drummond, MT. We stopped here for gas at a station across the road from Mentzer's Used Cow Lot!!!


From here, we detoured along Hwy 1 for a more scenic route.

Scenes from Hwy 1...

Hwy 1 brought us to the cute little town of Philipsburg, MT.

Main St. on Mother's Day

Philipsburg is home to the world's largest candy store and an indoor sapphire mining shop!

The Sweet Palace is the candy shop. They made some of the best taffy I've ever had!

More of the Sweet Palace

Wooden street signs...

Lots of cool buildings:

Had a late lunch at Doe Brothers Restaurant. I had a chicken salad sandwich with sunflower seeds, mandarin oranges, and sprouts. Yum!

Doe Brother's Soda Fountain:

Continued on Hwy 1 through Anaconda to Butte and I-90. Mountains surrounding Butte:

Butte is still a big mining town:

Mine in Butte

Despite the gloomy weather, it was a great weekend! A big thanks to Holly J. for drawing me a great map of Missoula and making some great suggestions of things to do!