After awakening in our motel room in Dillon, we packed our bags, had breakfast in town, then hit the road.
The question might arise, why did we choose to stay in Dillon on this trip? The answer is because Don did a thought piece several years ago about potential places to establish a homestead bug-out in the event of a "bleep hit the fan" scenario. He searched through many criteria, including population density, crime statistics, weather conditions, rainfall, etc., and one of the "winners" was the area to the west of Dillon, with the concept of using Dillon as a base. Yet we had never visited this corner of Montana and were curious to see if it lived up to these expectations.
To this end, we took Hwy 278 out of Dillon in a large loop west and then north, to see what we should see. At first the landscape was flat and agricultural...
...and then gradually transitioned to dryer conditions. Definitely cattle country.
In fact, though the land was lovely and the population gratifyingly low, it was drier than what might work for a bug-out homestead. But hey, that's what we wanted to confirm.
We passed a sign for something called Bannack State Park and impulsively decided to visit it. Why? Because the sign indicated it was a ghost town, and while Don has seen many ghost towns, I hadn't. We had no expectations for this park. It was mere curiosity.
The park was three or four miles down a side road. We were early and the park office wasn't open yet, but we paid our park fee and set off to explore.
And oh my, this turned into one of the most interesting stops on our trip.
The ghost town wasn't just a couple of deserted buildings here and there. In fact it was a whole town, empty but preserved.
Lots of wild bunnies.
On the outskirts, cross fences rose dramatically up the hills.
This town, which was "the site of Montana's first major gold discovery
in 1862 and Montana’s first territorial capital," was located in rugged but
pretty territory. A tree-lined creek skirted the edges.
The main street was lined by boardwalks.
A group of workmen were engaged in installing new sections.
There were dozens and dozens of buildings ranging from the modest...
... to the impressive.
At first we merely traipsed along, politely peering into windows, until one of the workmen commented, "You do know you can go into the buildings, right?"
Into the buildings? Really? The man confirmed that any building that didn't have a lock on the door was considered safe enough to explore.
Yowza. Don and I love old buildings, so we were in heaven.
We started with the hotel, possibly the finest building in the town.
The interior was predictably beautiful, with the kind of workmanship missing from modern construction.
Lathe-and-plaster walls.
The upstairs hallway.
We speculated this spacious home might have belonged to one of the town's wealthier residents.
That's what we did during our entire visit – speculated who lived where and what they did for a living. (It wasn't until we were leaving and the visitor's center was open that we were able to secure literature that described each building, who lived there, and its purpose.)
An old root cellar. (I was jealous.)
Even the back sides of the buildings were interesting, since we saw outhouses, chicken coops, storage areas, pig pens, and other evidence of daily life from the late 1800s.
Look at these hand-hewn beams!
The jail cell was grimly interesting.
(Notice the prisoner.)
Look at the beefy construction!
Both the floor and the ceiling were stoutly nailed, to prevent breakouts.
One of the cells.
In the same building is a separate room, apparently for much more dangerous criminals. It had shackles embedded in the floor.
Another building (we learned later) was a blacksmith's shop, with brands on the wall, presumably to test them.
This large building was a schoolhouse on the first floor, and a Masonic Lodge on the second.
The schoolroom.
On the blackboard was written the strict rules for teachers (starting with "You will not marry during the term of your contract").
Access to the Masonic Lodge was via an outside staircase leading to an indoor hallway. The lodge room itself was off limits...
...but peering through the glass, we could see all the accouterments on display.
Don and I spent hours poking around the town. I'm fairly certain we walked through literally every available building
on site. Ironically, another couple about our age left in disgust after the workman clarified the
buildings were open to the public. Why? Because "there was too much to
see" and they didn't have time. I kinda get that if one's time is
limited, but wow, I'm glad we had the time because the place was
fascinating.
On the way out, we stopped at the now-open visitor's center and asked questions and poked through the artifacts and literature on display. I took a (poor) photo of this view of the town during its heyday.
We left the park, deeply impressed. Definitely recommended.
Back on the road, still interested in noting how this corner of Montana lived up to Don's bug-out research, we were pleased to see lots of agriculture.
We passed many serious collections of round bales, which presumably will be tarped and used for winter fodder.
The distant mountains are the east face of the Bitterroot range.
A picturesque farmstead.
If this isn't named Round Mountain, it should be.
We took the junction of Hwy 569 to cut over to the town of Anaconda, a 24-mile stretch. Interestingly, the road started out excellent, and then descended into very rough conditions. It's not a road I would recommend for, say, large RVs.
Anaconda was another spontaneous stop on our last road trip, mostly because we wanted to learn more about the massive Anaconda Stack, visible for miles around. (You can read more about it here.) Approaching the town from the back, the Stack was just visible over the hilltops.
At Anaconda (a charming company town), we turned west on Hwy 1 and started climbing a pass toward the Discovery Basin Ski Area. At the top, too, was Georgetown Lake. We pulled into a parking lot for a boat launch and got out to stretch our legs.
There was a bench looking across the lake, and we just sat on it for a while, enjoying the scenery.
Some mighty big vacation homes on north shore.
We finally fetched up to our final destination on this trip, the town of Philipsburg. This was another unexpected discovery from our last road trip. We had arrived too early (in either the season, and/or the day) for anything to be open. But we were so charmed by the town itself – an old mining town restored in exquisite detail – that we wanted to return and explore it when things were open.
The weather was threatening, with rain and thunder predicted.
Don booked us into another historic hotel, the Kaiser House Hotel.
The first floor was a store (with a wine cellar in the basement), and the second floor were the motel rooms. Our window was the last (fourth) on the left in the above photo. Needless to say, the room was gorgeous.
(The window in the bathroom is fake, just to add visual interest to the brick wall.)
This was the view from our window.
This is the second-floor lounge, open to hotel guests, with coffee and tea always available, and a continental breakfast served each morning.
The stairs leading up to the hotel rooms on the second floor were very steep. To aid guests with their luggage, we were encouraged to use the dumb waiter. Nice!
The dumb waiter held all our luggage without a problem. I wonder how many kids took sneak trips in this gizmo?
We dumped our luggage and set out to explore the town. Our first stop was the Montana Law Enforcement Museum, which was closed on our earlier visit but which we wanted to see.
The museum was manned by an elderly and presumably retired law enforcement officer. We were the only visitors, which was a shame because it was an outstanding museum, extremely informative. I was particularly touched by this set table dedicated to missing officers, reminding us of how dangerous law enforcement is.
A nearby placard explained the significance of each item on the table.
I liked this Security Police Prayer:
This framed article immortalized the catching of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unibomber, who terrorized people with a nationwide mail bombing campaign for over a decade and a half.
Brief side note: I have a very, very vague connection to Kaczynski. His trial was presided over by Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. I worked for Garland when I was a legal secretary at Stockman Law Corporation in Sacramento in the mid-80s, and you never met a nicer man. One time he was having a really rough day at work, so I went outside to where some bushes in the parking lot were blooming and gathered an impromptu bouquet of flowers, which I plopped in a cup of water and brought to his office to ease the stress. He almost had tears in his eyes as he thanked me.
After Don and I were married, we bumped into Garland in a grocery store (I remember he wore a T-shirt saying "I know karate ... and other Japanese words"). At that point he had just been appointed to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. He invited Don and I to tour his chambers, then we had lunch with him.
So when the nationwide spotlight turned on Garland during the Kaczynski trial, I was tempted to send him some flowers (we were living in Oregon by this point) to ease the stress, but I suspected such an offering would be intercepted and misinterpreted during such a high-profile case. But I have very fond memories of the Garland. He was a brilliant attorney and a darned nice fellow.
Okay, back to Philipsburg. We made an obligatory stop at the Sweet Place, "the World's Greatest Candy Store."
Needless to say, this was a very popular place.
By this point it was beginning to rain and we were getting hungry (nothing to eat since breakfast), so we went back to the hotel long enough to snatch umbrellas, then headed for Brick's Pub for dinner.
Don had a beer and I had a glass of wine, then we each ordered a pasta dish. I have a weakness for fettuccine alfredo, and it was one of the best fettuccine alfredos I'd ever had.
And that was our trip around Montana. Early the next day, we got on the road and blasted home.
I apologize it's taken me this long to get photos of our trip up on the blog, but it's been a chaotic month since we returned. I hope you enjoyed following us on our journey!
