It was not a good night's sleep. I woke up every 2 hours. I don't know if I was finally on mountain time, if it was my normal trouble sleeping in a new place, or if it was the bed. In any case, it was not a great night.
We got up at 7:15 to get ready for the breakfast we'd requested at 8. What a nice breakfast! A bowl of perfect melon balls with plastic wrap over it was at each of our places. There was orange juice and cranberry juice. A crocheted Christmas table cloth was over a red cloth. Lovely crystal glasses and vase on the table. The room was full of great things to look at- hutches laden with teacups and serving pieces, cabinets of glassware, glass vases on the windowsills. The owner had told me last night that the house had been in her family for a long time. It looked like they had saved everything!
The cook, who was much younger than the owners, came out to ask what kind of toast we each wanted. Not long after, she brought us each our plates. Mine had the raisin bread toast I'd requested, along with two sausages and a half slice of orange and what she called "egg rosettes", which were eggs that had been cooked in muffin tins obviously that had been lined with strips of ham on the sides and bottom. Absolutely delicious! She stayed and chatted, telling us where she'd lived, when she'd left Butte for a time. We talked about the Star Wars movies, too. As we got up to leave, a young couple came in for their breakfast.
We packed up and my daughter hauled everything back down again. It was chilly out- 52 degrees according to the car, when we drove off at 9:08 with 2497 on the odometer. As we drove through town, I pointed out houses that I wanted my daughter to take pictures of for me.
We passed through the Montana Tech campus, home of "The Diggers", of course! Just outside of campus was our destination- the World Museum of Mining with its cool entrance.
We parked next to the entrance building at 9:15 (2499). As we went inside, I saw on a big sign listing what was in the museum, some mention of dollhouses and dolls, but I thought nothing of it. Once again, AAA saved us money and we paid only $15 for the two of us.
The first room we went into was to the right just out of the gift shop. What we found shocked and delighted me- a room full of dolls and dollhouses!! Immediately to the right of the door was a glassed in wall with shelf after shelf of Star Trek dolls from each of the series, the movies and even some specific episodes!
Further down the case were the dolls you'd expect, but also short Christmas trees with Hallmark house ornaments. Along the other walls and in the center of the room were glassed in cases with dollhouses above and character dolls below. There were dolls from
Happy Days,
The Honeymooners, Mork and Mindy,
Welcome Back, Kotter,
Charlie's Angels ( in their playhouse) and more. It was freaking awesome!
The biggest dollhouse represented the Civil War era and the second biggest was of Sherlock Holmes' building, complete with Data and Geordy from
Star Trek: The Next Generation in appropriate garb on top. Other houses represented some of the buildings in the old mining town outside. They were wonderful! All of these were built by Samie Keith, who had also collected the dolls. She was the first Secretary of the museum.
My daughter helped me tear myself away to go across the hall to a room that contained something more in keeping with a mining museum- mineral samples.
There were some really beautiful rocks in and a side room had some that glowed in the dark. They were fascinating!
When we stepped outside, we found ourselves in an old western mining town, complete with boardwalks. We found ourselves climbing up and down these boardwalks and peering in the windows of the building at the appropriate rooms set up behind the glass. They were very interesting, but impossible to photograph because of the glass.
We wandered up the hill to the mining equipment. We read all the signs, trying to understand the workings of the machinery. We learned about the dry room, where the miners, soaking from the water used to tamp down the dust of the copper mining, would dry off, so as to not have to walk home in sub-zero temperatures in the winter like that. Mining was more dangerous in Butte than anywhere else- one man a day died. The town was laced with mines, too. We learned the origins of "honey pot" and "chippie", as well.
In the gift shop, we picked up some rock samples for ourselves before leaving at 11:28. It was 68 degrees, but we didn't need jackets, because of the sun.
Our next destination wasn't very far up the road. We arrived at 12:05 (2536) at Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site. It was 70 degrees and the sky was a gorgeous blue with a few fluffy clouds. There's no fee to get in, but I did make a $2 donation and bought a few postcards at the small visitor's center before we strolled the 1/4 mile to the ranch proper. Talk about scenic!
We had decided that we could not afford the time to hang around to take the tour of the ranch house. However, we "moseyed" around the buildings and exhibits, as we'd been encouraged to do. We enjoyed the exhibits behind glass of what the bunkhouse would have been like back in the day. Even though it is a working ranch, they don't use the bunkhouse now. We chatted with the cowgirl, who lives in Missouri in the winter and volunteers here at the park in the summer. She told us, that the animals we saw were yearling (!) Hereford and short-horn heifers. It's the closest I've ever come to one of these and I was amazed at how huge they were.
The cows were in this fenced in area to eat down the grass, which they were doing quite well, to get it ready for use for branding. She assured us that branding does not hurt the calves. The sound you hear is the mother cows calling for their babies. Most of the herd was off grazing.
Pretty close to our planned time, we left at 1:33. We wanted to have lunch in Missoula and look around a bit. My daughter directed me to Wheat Montana Bakery and Deli, which is evidently a chain. We'd seen one of their actual bread bakeries, when we'd left I-90 on our way to Helena. Behind the counter of baked goods were lists of the sandwiches you could order. I parked at 2:46 (2618). Inside, I chose the John Deere Greens ($7.75), which turned out to be like a delicious salad on bread. My daughter chose the Big Rancher, a roast beef sandwich, for $8.50. My daughter knew that they had good cinnamon buns, so she got us one to split. We also split our sandwiches, both of which I liked. On the way out, I bought bagels for our use at Glacier National Park and a 1 pound bag of chia seed, because I hadn't found any at Sam's the last time. I wondered how the TSA folks would react, when they found the bag in my luggage.
It was 4:01 when we left and I drove around a bit trying to find the charming downtown my husband had told me about. We couldn't find it and got back on I 90. Not knowing what the facilities would be down the road, we stopped at 4:25 (2630) at a truck stop off Exit 99 for a pit stop.
We were back on the road at 4:34. We'd left some time to make some stops as we headed up the road, which was important for our photographic record of the beauty we were seeing. Our first stop was at 5:01 (2658) at an Interpretive Overlook on Us 93. The signage wasn't that informative about the Mission Mountain Range that we were looking at. We continued on at 5:13, but took another photo pause at 5:27.
At 5:42, we stopped for photos of Flathead Lake, even though I was beginning to feel pressed for time. The lake just had to be photographed, though, and we were back on the road in just 4 minutes.
We headed for the right-hand side of the lake, as the GPS directed. It was also supposed to be more scenic. Not having the advantage of seeing the other side, I couldn't say. However, our side was lovely and the views were great. At one point, I slowed down enough to take a photo out my window, by stopping in the middle of the road. (The traffic behind me was far enough back, that this was safe.)
We saw plenty of signs for cherries, so they must have been in season.
Ever since we'd left Kalispell, we'd been racing a plane. So, I got very frustrated by some of the drivers ahead of us who just couldn't do the speed limit. If I had to, I'd go straight to the airport, but checking in at the hotel and dropping our luggage was my optimal goal. Being able to get dinner quickly became impossible. As we got closer to Kalispell, I had my daughter check on the plane's arrival. Assured that we had the time, even though the plane was to get in earlier than expected, we changed the GPS to get us to the Hampton and arrived at its very attractive entrance at 6:59 (2743).
The desk did not have the keys ready for my room, 238, or my daughter's, 236, even though we'd both checked in on the app. While at the desk, I checked again and the plane was coming in even sooner. The clerk told us it was only 15 minutes to the airport, so we took the time to put our luggage in our rooms.
We left at 7:19 and it was a warm 84 degrees. The clerk obviously didn't consider Saturday evening "traffic", as it took almost 20 minutes to get to the airport. Checking on line, we saw that the plane had landed at 7:31. Not wanting to pay to park in the small parking lot of Glacier International Airport, I circled the drive a couple of times. On one pass, we managed to find where we would drop the car, when we fly out. The address we'd been given had not been along the road and that worried me. Seeing where to drop the car did not really explain how to do it. So, I dropped my daughter off near the baggage claim to go in and ask Hertz. I circled one more time, then pulled over to the side near the terminal, creating a "cell lot".
Eventually, at 7:51, I got a text from my daughter saying she had them and drove back down to baggage claim. She did, indeed, have them- my husband and younger daughter who had flown from Orlando to join us for the rest of the trip.
We decided to check on the location of the church before heading back to the hotel. It wasn't long before my daughter and I were saying that things had gone a lot more smoothly, when it was just the two of us.
We still needed dinner, even if they didn't. So, we went to the Arby's in front of our hotel, as it had curly fries that my daughter wanted. We arrived there at 8:15 (2765). I got my self a Classic Roast Beef Sandwich, curly fries and chocolate shake and got my husband an apple turnover and water for $8.58 total. We chatted and ate.
At 9:17, with the odometer reading 2765, we were back at the hotel for the night.
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