End of Trail - Portland

Day # 11 - Missoula to Portland

Breakfast Report - Best Western yet again - a big motel - and in the large breakfast room there were plate choices. In front, a stack of styrofoam, behind them a stack of china plates. The room was pretty full of breakfasters....and nearly everyone had reached over the stack of styrofoam plates to the china ones. There were mugs as well as styrofoam vessels - and nearly everyone had chosen a mug. We felt pretty classy.

We made it to Portland - and Lewis and Clark made it as well, then got themselves back to St. Louis where the politics of the times took over their lives… without a happy ending for Lewis. If I were a high school history teacher, I would make the book required reading.

So now an occasional Portland travelogue for 12 days before we begin the trek back – thru Wyoming and Utah. I’m not sure how we will manage without Lewis and Clark – will try to find another absorbing audio book.

The Idaho pass pretty and piney – lovely scented air - then into parched eastern Washington where the temperature began to climb. The car thermostat reached 104 as we went along the Columbia River Gorge into Portland.

I think the food might get better......

Taking the Pulse of America to be continued........ tho maybe Portland too exceptional at one end of the spectrum

make up (mllg)

in the interest of full disclosure, the dumas brothers establishment was closed in 1982, so I've heard, but you will be happy to know that the Fin's are still hanging in there waiting for a boat to evacuate them.

Our Kind of Town

Day 10 - Butte to Missoula

Breakfast Report

No Best Western delights - to Great Harvest Bread store, a chain based in Montana - no ciabattas or baguettes - American bread, dense and good…if not great. Maybe the thing I liked best is that they offer tastes of several varieties next to a big ole hunk of butter, positioned to be slathered on as desired. We did the toast test – white, Dakota wheat/seeds, sourdough and jalapeno . And the butter, real butter – a portion in a plastic cup, but no lid to dislodge. They had lattes and espressos – and I’m not sure how I feel about that. That’s not what you drink with all-American bread.

And before we could get into town we passed a pastie shop – a meat pie brought here by the Cornish. Lunch – snack? A just in case. Oh…and we also bought a donut as they were bronzed from deep-frying.

Butte was a very rich town in the heyday of mining – they went thru gold, silver then copper phases. And a stream of immigrants came into town – much as they had in Calumet, Michigan. It was a rough and wild place . Most of the old buildings, many of brick, still remain in various states of disrepair. And the little Victorian houses, tho very sad and in need of care, are charming. They need a savior.

We spent most of the morning in a bookstore and in the town archives department. There I bought a map of the nationalities in town – by neighborhood – and also a cookbook of all the ethnic specialities. Irish were the most numerous – as one of the copper barons was named Daly – but also Cornish, Finnish, Croat, Czech, Serbian, Greek, Italian, Chinese, Black and more. I think someone guessed that there were 40 languages spoken in the town at one point – no doubt some of them dialects.

We were about to leave town when we saw John’s Pork Sandwich window – with a crowd around it. I remembered that it was a Roadfood recommendation. Fried round of pork with everything toppings. I’m not sure you could tell what the meat was - but it was good – or maybe I just like the mishmash of flavors in the condiments.

And now we are in Missoula, not very far up the road - a laid-back mountain town of 60,000 with university - a bit too big for our tastes – we prefer towns between 6,000 and 30,000.

I think it is a salad night….those pasties a hardy snack – bland beef, gravy (Campbell’s) and potatoes in a nice pastry – needed something.

TAKING AMERICA’S PULSE

Fox News 5 of 7

Mozz stix 5 of 7

The Brothel

Lunch

Montana Souvenirs

Cool Cowboy Wear

Butte (mllg)

My favorite city in Montana is Butte, an old copper mining town that has seen better days but has left some notable landmarks. It reminds us of Calumet, Michigan where Dina Barsanti landed from Lucca in 1909, married Louis Procissi (who was born in Calumet) just after he graduated from engineering school at the Houghton School of Mines and had Estelle, Florence and Dorothy.

There was a large Italian population in Butte along with Irish, Brits, Chinese etc. and a strong labor union tradition. The Irish were predominant because the owner of the mines was an Irishman.

During the labor strife in Calumet in 1913, the Butte unions stood in solidarity with the Calumet unions and eventually became much more radical.

There was a lot of labor exchange between the two mining locations, with Calumet miners moving to Butte in 1906-7 for better wages and again in 1911. This migration was possible because of the N. Pacific Railroad line ran from Milwaukee and Chicago to Butte.

This same railroad line brought homesteaders to Ismay and Mildred (see earlier posting).

Most of the miners returned to Calumet where working conditions were better, the air was cleaner (Calumet copper had no sulfur compounds to pollute the air) and the housing, schooling and community life was more family oriented (Warning, some of the pictures may require parental guidance).

Foothills of Rockies - Day 9 - bjg

Day 9 Montana Foodhills

Breakfast Report, Best Western, Laurel, MT.

We ate with the Harleyite couples – each and every one wearing a something or two with Harley Davidson emblazoned, or Sturgis, their mecca. They are quite a club, and there is something appealing about their “hobby.” But oh! the noise. Same ole, same ole breakfast buffet – the styrofoam plates did not bend – the hardboiled eggs were chilled, the sausage gravy may have been the best bet, but the biscuits were sorry-looking…and how many plates of sausage gravy can you eat in a week? Just tasteless spread for the frozen French toast. …I’d rather eat lard. TV turned to CBS.

ASIDE - I know I am out of touch with something – but having to unwrap all the little restaurant plastic containers and wrappers of things is wearing me down. Even in nice restaurants – steak meal, even cloth napkins….and there I sit – trying to open the salad dressing packet – of course spilling it on the table, which I use my napkin to clean up. Then the baked potatoes come with a packet of butter to unwrap, and I’ve got butter on my fingers and then the sour cream…and there I go again… And breakfast is a marathon of unwrapping. And I won’t get into the waitress’ usual inquiry. “Are ya still workin’ on that?”

Some pretty wide valleys along the Yellowstone River as we drove west….but not of the heart-stopping kind. Maybe we are plains people, rather than mountain people. I loved Iowa – that Ohio upbringing?

Stop in Bozeman - some sophistication there – artsy western town – a great western bookstore where we browsed and eventually bought a book. I got sidetracked by a book by the daughter of Stephen Ambrose - on the underestimation by Lewis and Clark of how important Sacagawea was to the success of the journey. She went on to say that Lewis was an unusual man, a strange man – this confirmed by many who knew him and the expedition party after their return. She proposes that he had Asperger syndrome, and was prone to depression – Jefferson had previously noted this – and sometimes seemed to have no common sense.

This is not to demean Lewis’ tremendous accomplishment – and maybe it took an unusual, even strange, man to do what he did. The deprivation was hard to fathom. After eating 9 pounds of meat a day – they joined up with the Shoshones who ate roots and fish, and most of the party got very sick, including Lewis. And Ms. Daughter of Ambrose also emphasized the good happenstance of Lewis’ finding a woman who accepted him as he made first contact with the Nez Perce while trying to find the headwaters of the Columbia. His success seemed to depend totally on his rapport with the various tribes he encountered.

Lunch iin Bozeman was terrific – a Mexican place on Main Street – Mott said it was the best food he has had on the trip.

We headed for Virginia City – a frontier gold mining town that has been preserved by the National Historic Places Trust. The buildings and signs are wonderful – but do they have to sell T-shirts and trinkets in every other one? And the parking was all along the street, totally spoiling any attempt to get the feeling of an 1860’s street and town.

Idaho City – ditto – except you had to pay to get in and walk around old buildings, many of which weren’t original to site. We kept on driving and decided to take a gravel road loop over to an Interstate – which became much longer than we thought – 30 miles – no–one – barren fields – a few cattle…Mott kept looking at the gas tank. No cel service. Reminded us of New Mexico – this an unlush part of Montana.

And now we are in Butte, Montana –we like it – old mining town. Now decrepit, but remnants of past grandeur – exploring tomorrow. Deciding we hadn’t moved enough during the day to deserve to dine – sowe had a pizza in a funky place.

Taking the Pulse of America

Fox News watchers 4 of 7

Mozz Stix offerings 5 of 6

Detrius

Breakfast Decor

La Tinga - Bozeman

Virginia City - did Ruby do laundry?

Tourists

Backroad Loop

Broadway Cafe - local microbrew beer

where are we, its 3 am ! (mllg)

The motel window is wide open to catch the cool montana air tonight. Covers (light) needed. Then the commerce begins !

I'm sure the train isn't more than 200 yds from my window, and i have the bed closest to the window which you know who insisted be open.

one train contributes to the atmosphere, but a new one every 5 minutes ? I can hear them hooting off in the distance . . . this will never work... the window gets shut as soon as i finish this entry. (its triple glazed, i guess this isnt a new phenomenom.

fortunately the keyboard is lit, that way i'm not disturbing her by sitting at the computer.

Great Expectations- Day 8 - bjg

BACKROAD DRIVE - ISMAY TO FALLON

Breakfast Report: Holiday Inn in Miles City, MT

The usual motel offerings -Styrofoam plates, bending dangerously, as did the forks, scrambled eggs held and held and held in a warmer – only non-dairy creamer for the weak coffee. A busload of senior citizens shuffling around and making a run on bananas. TV tuned to the Weather Channel.

Backtracked to Ismay for a scenic gravel road loop. …5 hours of it. Looking for those endless plains of grass to the horizon. Instead, the land is hilly , even craggy, with broad fields inbetween, but hardly to the horizon…a disappointment Only for a few 1/2 mile interludes on our trip have we seen horizon to horizon grassland . Perhaps we need to be farther north

On our route along the Yellowstone River and railroad we felt the West. Lots of pasturage and black angus, some hay and wheat - and we think barley - antelope in abundance and birds of many kinds, including what we think was an eagle. Jerusalem artichokes lining the road.

In the ghost town of Mildred (these towns named for the RR track layers’ family) the small wood “homes” collapsing – not so for the brick bank – looking substantial and unfaltering. The church appears to have been in operation later than the 1930’s when the homesteaders left. But it is now abandoned – and left open. The kitchen in the basement looks staged , implying instant abandonment -like a Pompeian tragedy.

We found what we hoped would be the perfect local place for lunch. In a so-called town – with a cluster of houses and a leather repair shop. The Lazy JD Bar had all the personality you could ask for – but the food was lackluster, chicken-fried steak sandwiches may have been overreaching….although the nicely margerined and toasted sandwich buns were a plus. The 8 locals in there gave us some insight into the Montana year - “what a change in the barley this week!” “yeh but the grasshoppers are here – winter wheat should be fine, but I worry about the spring crop” –“at least we got a lot of rain, so the hayin’ is good”

all intoned with a trace of Minnesota o’s and interjected with some jahs. TV tuned to CNN.

Lewis and Clark plodding along, the travails never cease, getting into Shoshonean territory in the foothills of Rockies – the bountiful meat supply dwindling and hoping Indian woman, Sakacaweh(?) in party will help them trade for horses to get over the Continental Divide to the source of the Columbia.

Also began Willa Cather’s “My Antonia” which Mott downloaded onto the IPod from his local library – ( technology amazing). An elegiac story of an immigrant family from Bohemia starting from scratch, including the language, on the barren Nebraska plain. Land hustlers and shysters abound, the goodness of people is the hope for survival.

To Laurel, MT (passed by the city Billings to this small town) for the night, a Best Western -the only motel - where the receptionist was just sure we would love DJS Palace Bowling Alley –“ a really good steakhouse she continued…really the only place in town. Why…not one person that stays here has a single complaint, well maybe one lady said there weren’t enough tomatoes in her salad. ..and I said to her, ‘why didn’t you ask for more?’”

We went, we ate, and weren’t very impressed – except for the wedge of iceberg salad – that I laughed at -“fresh-cut daily” emblazoned on menu. And the waiter said “we buy it fresh every day.” And I laughed some more. But you know….embellished with a little tomato, crumbled bacon, and crunchy housemade onion “hangers” - it was great!!

Fox News report 4 of 6

Mozz. Stix 4 of 6 unless Mozz wheels count – then we have 5, I think I’ll add them

MILDRED, Montana

Lazy JD Bar, Fallon MT

DJ's Palace

Homesteading in Montana (mllg)

The Chicago and Milwaukee railroad built its transcontinental line late in the 19 th century and flooded US urban areas and European cities with brochures lauding the wonderful agricultural land available in the Northwest to anyone who would pay $18 to the government and settle on 320 acres for 5 years. Of course, the land was promoted as rich and abundant with plenty of rainfall.

Thousands of people, most without farming backgrounds, headed west and many settled in eastern Montana near the new railroad towns of Ismay (a contraction of the president of the Railroad's daughters names and Mildred (maybe his mistress ?).

Rainfall did not live up to expectations and the harsh winters (temperatures to 50 below zero) and heavy winds combined to blow what little topsoil there was into oblivion.

All settlers left Mildred and all but a family or two left Ismay.

The railroad still runs from Ismay to Mildred, along the Yellowstone river to Miles City and westward.

On our 30+ mile dirt road trip today we met a rancher from Wyoming who is leasing land for 800 cattle in the area, because he was “droughted out” of Wyoming, visited an open praire church, stepped onto the front porch of several abandoned houses, drove up to the abandoned jailhouse, saw some wildlife and enjoyed Montana’s big sky.

The people from Mildred left in the 1930’s, leaving behind what furniture and accessories they could not carry.