bridge across Columbia River east Washington

A beautiful Sunday morning with warm temperatures and the sun shinning. At present we are in Butte Montana. Butte is the birthplace and final burial place of the great motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel. He was quite famous when I was younger and did all kinds of stunts and movies. He died at the age of 69, not of broken bones (which he had lots of!) but of lung problems. So every year they have a festival in Butte honouring Evel. Lots of motorcycles, music etc. That was this weekend, so the campsite was full of motorcyclists who had come for the festival. They ended it off with a fireworks display at night. Butte is an old copper and silver mining town; very prosperous in the early 1900's with lots of saloons etc..It is now much smaller with still one mine in the area operating.

Evel Knievel

Just to review: on Fri morning we left Seattle for our return trip traveling east. We are following the interstate highway 90, which pretty well stretches from west to east all the way across the continent.

Late Friday afternoon (July 25) we were looking for a place to camp for the night. We were still in the state of Washington. We turned off the interstate at a camping sign and followed the road into the country. The landscape at this point was very remote, very desert like with few houses and trees. We drove through a little village which looked like a ghost town. Only the post office and a grocery store were open; it looked like the setting of an old west movie. I was rather creeped out and really wondered where we would end up! We finally saw the campground, which looked almost deserted and had a for sale sign in front of it. Rusted old cars and trailers hap- hazardly strewn around, everything looked old and worn.

The owner of the campground  was elderly, with many tattoos gracing her arms and legs. She had a thick accent and acted gruff and stern. Yikes! She showed us to our spot, and we were glad to notice that there were other campers around. I figured since they were there, the place couldn't be that unsafe and stopped whining that I wanted to find another place. So actually it turned out ok, except for the fact that we were right beside a train track and I am sure I heard the train whistle and noise every hour on the hour all through the night! There was also a small lake onsite, with fresh water pelicans swimming around. A couple who had the campsite right beside us were from California. They were both ex military, he was a quadraplegic in a wheelchair. They had been traveling for 2 months already and expected to go another 2 months. They had just been at Yellowstone park, so were able to give us all kinds of good tips about where to go and what scary mountain roads to avoid. Interesting encounter!
Driving back through the town Saturday morning we stopped to look a a large collection of old trucks that someone had collected. Surrounded by barbed wire, for I am sure some of them were quite valuable!

trucks anyone?

old old old

Deserted stores on "main street". There was a sign on the store that said the store could be opened by appointment only since the owner was home taking care of a sick husband and lived only 2 miles away! The buildings looked like they had not been touched for at least 100 years.

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inside the deserted store: an "American Pickers" dream!

You can tell you are in Montana when you can go into any store to buy a gun!