The Museums of Deer Lodge, Montana

Deer Lodge offers "more museums and historical collections than any other town in the Northwest." My last post told you a little about the historic Grant-Kohrs Ranch Ranch, on the outskirts of Deer Lodge. That alone would keep a museum go-er happy for a long time--but wait, there's more! Much more. This town has something to capture almost anyone's imagination, and it's easy to get to, just off I-90 between Missoula and Butte. Be sure to allow lots of time, because there is much to see.

A high, convict-built stone wall, guarded by turreted stone towers, surrounds  Old Montana Prison . The prison was home to convicted felons for over 100 years, until operations were relocated to a nearby location in the late 70s. 

Accommodations were rudimentary and privacy almost nil. Showers were taken at assigned times in a large shower room edged by open stalls, with a guard controlling the water.

 If a prisoner behaved well, he might be allowed to enjoy a television show in the t.v. room. The program choice was up to the guard, and in the barred cubbyhole to the right of the television was an armed guard to make sure order was maintained. The chair was for Turkey Pete , a legendary prisoner whose grasp on reality became tenuous as he imagined himself a grand entrepreneur during his life sentence for murder.

This chapel/classroom was monitored by guards who prowled the adjacent underground passage. The passage also provided views of the television room and dining hall.

Upstairs in the 1912 cell house is the Law Enforcement Museum.

A single admission fee includes admission not only to the Old Prison, but to the adjacent car museum and a row of museums across the street.

The Montana Auto Museum has over 150 vehicles, including cars from the famous Towe collection. Edward Towe owned the world's largest Ford collection. At one point the collection had been transported to California to be housed there, but as a result of a lengthy tax dispute with the IRS, the collection was broken up, sold at auction to satisfy the IRS lien. Towe's advice: "Don't fight the IRS; you can't win."

 America's love affair with cars, along with the birth of the National Park system, led to vastly increased opportunities for people to enjoy camping...

which naturally led to RVs.

Across the street, the Frontier Museum has displays of cowboy, gambling, wild west, and native American memorabilia. There is yet more western memorabilia in Desert John's Museum . Wait--we're not done yet. 

The Powell County Museum houses a very nice historical collection, an absolutely enormous salt and pepper shaker collection, and an amazing collection of woodcarvings, all from the knife of one man. The Twenty Mule Team is especially impressive.  All from a sheepherder who began whittling in his early forties! Cottonwood City is an open air display of historic Montana buildings. Currently the interiors of 2 are open to the public. Visit Montana's foremost doll and toy museum at Yesterday's Playthings . Besides hundreds of dolls, there are trains and toy trucks, as well as a clown collection.

Did we visit enough museums today?

Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site

A Glimpse into Montana's Ranching Past

Part of the National Park System, Grant-Kohrs National Historic Site is a real working ranch where visitors can see and hear about Montana's ranching heritage.  Established in the 1850's, this ranch was once the headquarters of a 10-million acre cattle empire. It is located on the outskirts of Deer Lodge, Montana.

As we approached the ranch buildings, I was fairly trembling with anticipation. I love to visit old houses, and if I can see the inside, I am ecstatic. The brochure in my hand stated that there were guided tours of the house interior (and that was the only way to see inside), so I asked a ranger when the next tour was to be.

" Didn't they tell you?" she asked sympathetically. "There are no tours of the house just now." In my disappointment, I listened to her explain that the powers that be had declared that the structures must have a sprinkler system installed, which necessitated removing the contents of the buildings and closing the structures to the public while the work was done. It should be finished sometime in November. No, they hadn't explained, and I hadn't noticed any such information when looking at the Ranch website a couple days earlier. So this is as close as I came to seeing the inside.

As I inwardly resolved that I would visit again, we toured the rest of the ranch. My husband, being a friendly sort of guy, struck up conversation with every park guide we encountered. Being a more reserved type, I took pictures. Behind the house was a chuck wagon, complete with campfire and campfire coffee, should we care to sample some.

As a veteran of home cooking and a culinary school graduate, I inspected the food preparation facilities the chuck wagon offered and imagined preparing 3 squares over an open fire for a crew of hungry cowboys.

I will leave you today with some more scenes from the Grant-Kohrs Ranch. I'm thinking spring would be a lovely time to return to this gem of western history.

Happy trails from The Accidental Trailerist!

 

Philipsburg: A Visit to a Charming Old Mining Town

We stayed two nights in an RV park in Garrison, MT, using it as a base from which to explore some real Montana history. The first day, our destination was Philipsburg and two ghost towns, Granite and Garnet. Our route took us over the Pintler Veterans' Scenic Highway , through Anaconda, with its commanding smokestack visible from miles away, over sage-clad hills and forested mountains, frequently skirting sparkling lakes and streams. Last time I saw Philipsburg, it was an anemic vestige of past glory days, but now this mile-high mining town is all dressed up to welcome visitors to historic restored buildings and inviting shops, galleries, and restaurants, including a microbrewery and a candy factory. We arrived too late in the day to visit the history museum, as it closes at 4 pm, and we arrived at 3:50. We weren't too late, however, to enjoy a couple scoops of ice cream in the inviting main street restaurant and soda fountain. They even serve phosphates.

 In the hills above Philipsburg is the ghost town Granite. We decided not to visit it when we learned that it had decayed to the point that there was practically nothing left to see. There will be other ghost towns in the next few days. Also, there was quite a haze over the hilltops, as you can see in the distance in the photo above, due to forest fires burning in the area. We were advised to also skip Garnet, the other ghost town we had planned to visit, due to forest fire in the area.

Continuing the scenic route, this fellow caught my eye. I pulled off the road and walked over to capture his picture. I really wished I had a carrot or an apple, as he began braying indignantly when I walked away.

Isn't he incredibly sway-backed?  A few feet away was this sign.

The next day I learned that Elwood, who lives near Hall, MT, is something of a local celebrity, being something like 35 years old. I suspect he really was indignant that I had nothing for him, being used to attention as he apparently is.

The Accidental Trailerist Is Finally, Truly On the Road

How I Became an "Accidental Trailerist"

After 10 months of full-time RV living, we are finally on the road. I've promised friends and family that I would share our journey with a blog, and since I have only a vague idea how to blog, I'll approach it like the old way of learning to swim: JUMP IN! I figure finesse will come later, if I can just keep afloat while I learn the strokes.

Which is kind of how we found ourselves living in our travel trailer; we just JUMPED IN!

Last year, we found ourselves suddenly on our own (things can change unexpectedly), with an empty house we didn't really want and that was really too much work and took too much money to run for just the two of us. 

Meanwhile, we had this large travel trailer that we accidentally bought the previous year. I pride myself on being financially cautious and on making a dollar work hard, so I'm kind of embarrassed about how we came to have this trailer. Just heed this warning and draw your own conclusions.  Do not, I repeat DO NOT, go to an RV show just for fun, or just to look, unless you have seriously considered the possible outcome of your outing. If you do not have a plan, or if there is any chance you and your spouse could misunderstand each other, and you still persist on going to an RV show to see all those gorgeous rolling palaces, do not--did I say DO NOT?--take more than a little pocket cash. Do not take a checkbook, even if your account is almost empty (they take postdated checks). Do not take a credit card. And do not let them just see what kind of loan you could qualify for. Oh, and did I mention, do not buy an RV  for which you will have to buy a new tow vehicle, because what you have couldn't possibly pull something that size?

Anyway, 10 months ago, we packed ourselves into our travel trailer and headed for the Washington coast, where we spent 7 months in mostly rain while we helped my daughter and her husband during an international adoption of two special needs boys. Most of the time we lived in the trailer and were on hand to help with whatever they needed, except for a month or so that we moved into the house to take care of their first 3 children while they traveled to Ukraine 2 or 3 times. I say that because my son-in-law went twice, and my daughter 3 times (the third time to bring their new sons home). I went with her for that trip, and my husband and son-in-law managed to make it through 2 weeks of childcare, housework, cooking, and everything else. They sure were happy when we came back. You can read all about their wonderful adoption adventure here.

After that, we traveled back to the house, which is in Eastern Washington, where we spent 2 months on painting and repair (well, much of the time we spent waiting for the rain to stop), still living in the trailer, as we have a wonderful renter in the house. The house looked so good when we got done, we thought about moving back in, but we got over it. Finally, at the end of July, we traveled to northwest Montana, where we both grew up, and visited family and enjoyed a family reunion.  Last Wednesday, we finally took to the road. So, while we have been living in the trailer for 10 months, we've really only just begun our journeys. 

Please join us--we're not sure where we're going, but you're welcome to come along. 

Our Little Home

 

Here's our little house. It's a travel trailer. If a trailer is a fifth-wheel trailer, it's called a fifth-wheel trailer. One like ours is called a travel trailer. This one measures 34' from rear bumper to the front of the hitch (the trailer part is about 30' long), and has 2 slides (slide-out rooms). It's not a "Four Season" trailer, which we would have preferred but we didn't know what we were doing when we bought this. Trailers have varying degrees of weather protection, including so-called "Arctic" packages, with heated, enclosed water and waste tanks and better insulation to better handle cold weather--I'm sure they handle hot weather better, too. In a year or 2 or 3, if we decide this is the life for us, we will upgrade to more of a "Four Season" model with more full-time amenities. While I have seen people in Montana winter in something like this, it's grim. We did quite well last winter in Aberdeen, Washington, where it only occasionally freezes, and then only maybe down to 28F, and it's thawed by the end of the day. I don't believe we'll attempt wintering in any more severe winter than that, at least not in this trailer.

Behind the trailer you can see our tow vehicle. Here's another lesson learned the hard way: be sure to buy an adequate tow vehicle. When we bought the trailer, we had a Ford F-150. We knew it wasn't up to this job, so searched out and purchased a very nice Ford F-250. Unfortunately, we again didn't know what we were doing, and while it had a tow package, it really didn't have enough power and we were right there with the big rigs, crawling along, by the time we got to the top of any significant hill. So this spring, having learned more about what we really needed, we bought this 2002 Ford F-250 with a 7.3L diesel engine. It is our first diesel vehicle and we love it. It has the power we need, although we do miss the 4-wheel drive our previous F-250 had. Well, at least we're on the road with a capable tow vehicle, and didn't I just say we weren't going to spend the winter in cold, snowy places?