Helena, Montana

Day 24 April 24, 2006

'Orphan Girl' Mine Derrick

We stayed last night in Livingston, MT at Osen's RV Park (John's wife is from Vermont and he had spent time 20+ years ago in the Marlboro-Bennington area. The park had a very large fenced in dog area, so the two 'dales had a great time romping and using some of that pent up energy. They loved it. But it was cold and snowy when we arrived with a biting wind. Again, the cabin heater was wonderful.

After stocking up on food and gas, we headed for Butte where I spent a couple of hours at the World Mining Museum, really a fascinating place at the site of the Orphan Girl Mine which operated until the '50s, when nearly all underground mining of gold, lead, zinc and copper was halted in favor of a huge open pit operation which created a VERY big hole and one of the largest Superfund sites in the U.S. (I owned a few shares of stock in Anaconda Copper when ARCO bought the company and closed the pit mining operation in Butte). The Museum is really quite spectacular with outdoor and indoor exhibits of tools, machinery, equipment, stores and shops all created with the original equipment and goods of the times. It is well worth seeing if you are ever in Butte.

Then on to Helena where we are sharing a nice RV park with one other rig. It's much warmer tonight, in the 40s. Last night it was in the 20s. I think we are at much lower altitude than in Livingston and the weather was clearing a bit at sunset after cloudiness all day with spitting snow depending on the altitude.

Tomorrow we will continue toward Glacier Park and take our time about it. In the last two days we have only traveled about 340 miles total.