Mostly Photos

Sunday - Sept. 9

Morning walk - Dike along the Columbia River

We reach Haines street, short distance from where Tom grew up,

view North - first dike built in 1948 due to flood that year and was on top Haines Street

View South, this permanent dike was built later, the walking path added much later

Family fishing off one of the docks along Amon Park

Tour riverboat stopped overnight at Amon Park

Our first stop on our planned vacation was at Sprague where we leave off some things with our Daughter and kids

Front porch project on 1906 house, showing basalt rock foundation stones

Grandkids: Eli... Adah & Sam in background

We stay in Coeur d'Alene Idaho

Monday, Sept. 10

We soon are into Montana, our first touring is a drive through the National Bison Range

It's quite a drive through the hills

Pronghorn Antelope

We take a trail out to a viewpoint

On the way back down we pass a sign showing the high point of Glacial Lake Missoula that formed during the Ice Age. So this huge space was once a lake blocked by ice. Multiple break-ups over time caused massive floods that rushed towards the Pacific across Washington State changing the landscape.

Pronghorn Antelope

Two more antelopes...

and a glimpse of a Badger

Close up of bison as we near the end of our drive through the range

We continue on north past Flathead Lake for our visit to friends in Bigfork, Mary & Dan

Mary takes us into Bigfork where do a little touring and have dinner. We visit the studio of Eric Thorsen, the clay sculptures are used to create molds for final metal castings.

We run into an old University of Washington Huskey coach, Jim Owens who lived here. A copy of the same sculpture is at Huskey Stadium.

On the way back to Mary & Dan's place

Dan unfortunally was not able to be at home while we were here... that's his chair on the left.

Tuesday - Sept. 11

Tom drives Mary & Dan's van across Glacier National Park on Going to the Sun road

Mary takes a photo of work being done on the road - it was only a few days before the road closed for the winter.

Close-up of worker hanging by ropes from above photo

Viewpoint near Logan pass

Photos taken on our hike towards Hidden Lake above Logan Pass

We are heading on the trail that goes towards the peak in the distance

A little ice left in this pond

A dusting of snow is on the higher peaks

Mountain Goats next to the trail

Our high point (7200 ft), Hidden Lake below

One of the many old tour busses "Red Jammers" that were restored by Ford in 2001 with new chassis and converted to run on propane.

We go on down the East side of the pass to St. Mary Lodge and eat dinner

St. Mary Lake

St. Mary and the Bear?

Short hike to viewpoint on the way back

Wednesday - Sept. 12

We leave Bigfork the next morning and head towards Kalispell

First visit is to the Museum at Central School Museum with it's exhibit about Frank Bird Linderman, author of many Indian folktale books... and a friend of Charlie Russell

Then we take a tour of the excellent Conrad Mansion in Kalispell

On the porch their tortoiseshell cat reminds us of our Cappi

The start of our excellent tour - the mansion is unique in having over 90 percent of it's original furnishings

Original electric dishwasher - note servant signal device above the guide

Note interior stained glass window on the second floor

View of window from the other side from 2nd floor room

The guy's room

Early electric clothes washer

We then head south around Glacier National Park and to the 1913 East Glacier Park Lodge where we spend the night

The Lodge was based on the 1905 Forestry Building at the Lewis & Clark Centennial Expo at Portland, OR with Douglas-fir columns from the Pacific Northwest

We walk the short Running Eagle Falls nature trail and then drive to Two Medicine Lake

A person with a telescope is there, and gives us a view of a grizzly bear mom and cub...

Square is where the bears were, and inset is the best photo I could take, with circles around the bears

Two Medicine Lake

Thursday - Sept. 14

Sunrise view out our window at East Glacier Lodge

After breakfast porch view towards the Rockies

So we were on to Browning and the Museum of the Plains Indian on Thursday, Sept. 13

Medicine Rock - Blackfeet left gifts to propitiate the unseen spirits at this rock

Next stop, Bynum and the Two Medicine Dinosaur Center

The Seismosaurus reconstruction - barely fits in the small building with its head and tail near each other

Picture from web page of the reconstruction

Baby duckbill bones discovered nearby

Next to the museum is the Trex Agate Shop - Rocks and fossils!

I picked one out of this box to buy (not in this photo) - it appeared to be in once peice, but the the head or "cephalon" was on top of the thorax, it was cemented in place with clay.

From a web page, the basic look of a Trilobite similar to mine - there are over 20,000 described species!

They were hard shelled creatures, now extinct, that shed their exoskeletons as they grew.

Information from http://www.trilobites.info/index.html

Only part of the head structure was present - I epoxied the head to the thorax after carving a hollow in this piece of cedar to fit.

Weather was great as we arrived in Great Falls, had dinner and walked along the Missouri river.

Friday, Sept. 13

The next morning we visited the C.M. Russell Museum (excellent!), no photography inside but how about this Grizzly!

We then visited the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center - quote from one of the displays inside.

Life size display of how Lewis and Clark's men would have hauled their dugouts around the falls.

Copied this map as it shows the tribes in Washington and Oregon.

Old photograph of one of the falls.

View of the Missouri from the museum gardens.

Note the change in sky color from the previous day - smoke had returned.

Insets showing pelicans & Canadian geese

Now we drive south towards Helena, where we will stay at Montana City

There we meet with Mike & Jennifer, Mike a son of Mary & Dan of Bigfork and who was a tech aide at Rose Hill Elementary - There we are posing in front of the former Clancy Miner Newspaper office where my Great Great Uncle Addison Williams was editor and publisher. We ate at the well known Chubby's Bar & Grill with them across the street.

The next morning, Saturday Sept. 15, sun filtered by smoke before heading toward Clancy again

Air quality doesn't look any better looking south

The excellent Clancy Elementary and Middle school where we meet with Terry who has been researching Clancy history.

This is a map of the mining claims in Lump Gulch area (inset) which includes Lump City (no longer in existence) and Clancy to the south

Terry shows in her classroom her copies of the Lump City Miner and the Clancy Miner which were both published by A. M. Williams. Photo she is holding is the only one I have of Addison, he was visiting relatives in Chicago.

On to Butte

The outdoor World Museum of Mining in Butte

Click on the picture to read the note about the car Tom is standing beside.

This was a good 26 ft. or more long... read the details!

Old print shop...above and below

All the buildings you view through the windows - this a saloon

At the music store, looks like a clarinet. Perhaps two in the same case, for different keys - with an ivory section.

Headframe - over the mine shafts... lot's of them around Butte.

Interesting pass through - there are thousands of historical commercial and residential buildings from the boom years in downtown Butte.

Viewpoint of the pit mines which were started in the mid 1950's.

Farther up the hill we found a monument to those who lost their lives in the mines...with a view of the vast size of the pits dug later.

We stay the night at the Copper King Mansion, home of William Andrews Clark, in a three room suite.

Clark became rich by helping miners manage their findings such as recording claims and making loans.

His portrait in our bedroom... the home estimated to cost about $500,000, and represented a half day's income for him at the time. He served a single term in the U. S. Senate - in responding to criticism of bribery he is reported to have said "I never bought a man who wasn't for sale."

Staircase up to the second floor

All different bird carvings are above the staircase and on the bannisters

Stained glass window on the second floor landing

American Gothic? Very few furnishings in the house are original, the sitting room is in view, then there is a large bathroom.

Sunday, Sept. 16

Breakfast comes with the room, it was $125 for the night

After breakfast we got a tour of the house

The other couple that stayed the night used this original shower.

Guide is telling us about the time card machine - collections of antiques in the attic.

Comb made design on the plaster throughout the house - the inset shows his initials "W C."on one wall. He did contribute to the community and the state in various ways.