Montana and Idaho–July, 2013

We departed Ennis under cloudless skies and headed northwest on U.S. 287 to pick up the Interstate near Whitehall.  It was a leisurely drive with plenty of pretty scenery to admire, including stretches along the Madison and Jefferson rivers.  Traffic was light on the Interstate and we made good time to Missoula where we checked in at Jim & Mary’s RV Park, one of our favorites thanks to a group of flower enthusiasts who keep the sites blooming with all manner of posies.  With a nice balance of open and shaded sites, we were happy this time to have one of the shady sites in the front row.  Missoula had just emerged from a string of hot days and we appreciated being able to sit outdoors and enjoy the late afternoon breezes.

Prior to our arrival in Missoula, we experienced another one of those serendipitous coincidences that so often happen to RVers.  While sitting at a Flying J in Milltown, I was seized with the urge to call Linda and Don.  We hadn’t heard from them since Gillette and I was curious whether they had scrapped their western trip and headed home or if they were bound for Glacier National Park.  Inquiring minds want to know.  It turns out they had just hopped on I-90 at Deer Lodge and were less than an hour behind us.  They made a split-second decision not to turn off toward Helena and to head to Missoula instead.  They got into a spot right across the road from Jim & Mary’s and we were able to spend a couple of evenings with them, catching up on our wanderings and adventures.  They’ve had some pretty substantial issues with their coach which has taken the bloom off their travels to a certain degree.

No stop in Missoula would be complete without a visit with Fred and Kathy.  They live very near the campus and at least that part of town still looks familiar.  The rest has grown and grown, sprawled and sprawled.  Kathy had prepared a lovely dinner for us one evening; we dined al fresco in their shaded yard.  And the next day we four  trolled in and out of all the interesting shops along Higgins Avenue downtown.  Except for a few new buildings and the now-empty Mercantile, time has managed to stand still.  Many of the buildings have been repurposed and many are on their second or third incarnations.  The campus, of course, has swollen beyond imagining.

Although there’s so much to see and do in the area, we weren’t able to stay more than a couple of days.  One of the reasons for routing us along I-90 was in order to pay a visit to the historic old mining town of Wallace, Idaho.  Some big-deal music festival created a shortage of campsites so we had to stay in St. Regis, Montana which is 30 miles east of where we wanted to be.  It’s such a short drive from Missoula to St. Regis  that we were settled in at our RV park with plenty of time to spare before dinner.  So we went into town to check out the mega-gift shop at the casino and two antique shops with tons and tons of really nice things.  It was totally unexpected to find such interesting items.  I fell in love with an oak parlor table with brass claw feet clutching glass balls.  Alas, it wouldn’t fit in the coach.  But I did find two eggcups to add to the collection.

On Saturday we headed west, up over Lookout Pass, and down into Wallace, Idaho for a visit to the Oasis Bordello Museum.  Wallace was, and still is, a silver mining town.  Although never legal in Idaho, prostitution was once big business in town and The Oasis was the last brothel to close its doors.  Originally built as a hotel and saloon, the upper floors soon began to serve as a brothel.  In 1988 rumor of an FBI raid sent the girls scattering and when things blew over, the madam decided it was time to retire and so the Oasis never reopened.  Some enterprising soul bought it lock, stock and barrel and reopened it as a museum leaving everything just as it was when the girls beat a hasty retreat.  Some clothing items have been added to the display and a few mannequins posed in the rooms but few other attempts have been made to “stage” the display.  There are dirty dishes in the sink and groceries that haven’t been put away. 

With blues music rocking the downtown area, we strolled over to the Northern Pacific Depot Museum, a nicely restored facility.  The station master resided on the second floor and had, for the era, very fancy living quarters with indoor plumbing (a nice touch for Idaho winters).  The town’s visitor center features a mining museum.  We covered it all and then headed back up over Lookout Pass to our secluded campground in the woods.  My idea of “camping” begins and ends with sleeping with the bedroom window open at night so it was pretty exciting to be told that all the garbage receptacles got emptied before 7:00 p.m. to discourage the bears from dropping by for a snack. 

Our next stop was at a posh new RV resort in the Idaho Panhandle where we enjoyed a week’s stay on a promotional basis.  From here we paid a visit to Farragut State Park in the town of Athol.  Thay this very thlowly or you will offend thumb one.  Farragut was once the second largest naval training station in the United States.  It was in the planning stages before Pearl Harbor but that attack put the rush on things and it was soon the largest city in Idaho with a population in excess of 55,000.  Six enormous training buildings were constructed; there are no photos of the interiors – how they managed such large structures with no interior support was a well-kept secret.  Toward the end of the war the facility housed approximately 800 German POWs.  Many found the experience so pleasurable that they have returned for reunions in recent years.  The Navy still maintains an acoustic testing facility on Lake Pend Oreille but all that remains of Farragut is a water tower, a few cement block ammunition storage sheds and The Brig, which now serves as a museum.  Everything else was sold and hauled away.  Even the railroad spur line from Athol to the base has disappeared.

As nice as this facility is we are looking forward to returning to reality on Monday.  “Reality” has more than one t.v. channel and isn’t 30 miles from the nearest Walmart.  Our next stop is Moses Lake, Washington where temperatures are predicted to be into the triple digits…a little something to toughen us up before we start heading back to Phoenix.