Fast trip to California

Sorry for the silence, dear readers! I just returned from a fast trip to Southern California to visit my parents.

This trip was paid for courtesy of Younger Daughter. She had some leave from her European duty station. For the last few years, every time she asks if she should visit us, I encourage her to visit her grandparents instead, since they won't be around forever. This time she talked me into meeting her down in California and even paid for my ticket. How could I refuse?

It was a lot of hopping from flight to flight to get to my destination. Here we're landing in Seattle.

Unfortunately I have no way of knowing what lake this is. It's in California somewhere, that's all I know.

Sunset over the ocean.

Well as you can imagine, seeing my family was wonderful. My youngest brother picked me up at the airport. My oldest brother was visiting my dad. My middle brother called at one point, and we were able to catch up over the phone.

I wondered if my mom (who is now in a nursing home) would recognize me since I haven't seen her since last April. And she did! She lit up and started crying with happiness when she caught sight of me. It was lovely.

Younger Daughter arrived about 36 hours after I did. Needless to say, she had severe jet lag. Nonetheless, we took ourselves off to the beach to see the sights.

The snowy plover nesting season was over, though we found what we presumed was a plover egg shell.

All the birds were actively foraging on the shore.

Younger Daughter is fascinated by kelp.

With good reason. It's fascinating stuff.

As we walked back to the car, I noticed this graffiti spraypainted on the back of the beach signs.

Except for the beach expedition, the rest of the time was spent visiting my mom and helping my dad, including some medical appointments. On my final evening, my youngest brother (who is an excellent cook) brought dinner and we had something of a party.

Then I said my goodbyes, my youngest brother brought me back to his house, and early yesterday morning I caught the first of three flights to come home again.

Volcanic mountains dot the Cascades in Oregon. This is two of the Three Sisters.

I think this is Mt. Jefferson, but I'm not sure.

And, since we were approaching Portland, I'm assuming this is Mt. Hood.

On the second leg of the trip, I had an aisle seat, so no photos. The third leg passed over some rugged landscapes in central Idaho.

After landing, it was another 2.5 hour drive from the airport to home, so a total of 12 hours of traveling. Whew, I'm wiped! Nonetheless, it was a wonderful trip.

And that, dear readers, explains my silence.

The Lewises go to lunch

Don and I took a day trip today. We decided to take a scenic route to a small town, have lunch, and then come home. Right now we're about halfway between my birthday (Sept. 6) and Don's birthday (Oct. 5), so we called it a joint birthday celebration.

It might also be worth noting this is the first meal out we've had since I lost my online job in February, so we were determined to make the most of it.

We left around 9 am. The day was bright and sparkling, warm but not hot. Much of our drive was along a beautiful river.

Periodically we saw bridges across the river – most of them private – and envied the fortunate souls who had the ultimate privacy barrier.

This stretch of road has amazing power lines. They swooped along steep slopes, they climbed mountains, they bridged the river. I don't know how the utility crews did it.

It was about the point where we stopped at a foot bridge across the river that I realized I had a very dusty camera lens. Grunt.

Dusty or not, the view was gorgeous.

We passed many steep and dramatic slopes.

Photos just don't do justice to the scenery.

We stopped at one point along a sun-dappled stretch of water with beams of sunlight streaming through the trees.

We had it all to ourselves.

The shore was covered with a variety of whitish metamorphic and igneous rocks (says my geologist husband).

After a couple of hours of driving, we fetched up to the small town which was our destination.

And here ... the Lewises went to lunch. Woot!

In truth, the food was generous but mediocre. Don said his burger and fries were fine. I had chicken-fried steak, hash browns, and sourdough toast. The potatoes were underdone and tasteless (I didn't finish them), and the toast was completely dry (no butter). But hey, we were in such a happy mood that we didn't care.

Afterward we drove around some of the town's outskirts. One home we passed was little more than a junk yard, go figure.

We went in a different direction and skirted some broad meadows which offered beautiful views.

Very Idaho-esque, no?

Another junky place. Sadly, they're fairly common in even the prettiest rural areas.

We retraced our route out of town and down the windy road....

...admiring the dramatic vistas as we went.

So that was our lunchtime excursion. We were home by 2 pm. As birthday celebrations go, it was great ... despite those awful hash browns.

On the road again

I'm sitting here at an airport, waiting for a plane. Yep, I'm on the road again.

My mother is not doing well, and my brothers (who live considerably closer than I do) have been wonderful in helping my dad care for her. A couple weeks ago, when her degenerating health reached a crisis point, she was transferred first to the hospital and then to a nursing home. We are not certain yet whether she will come home.

So, I need to visit, if for no other reason than to support my dad while he deals with this new stage in life. My parents have been married – more like joined at the hip – for 66 years, so as you can imagine he misses her fiercely.

Anyway, this is to explain why Don and I left at 8 am this morning and drove to the airport (over four hours away). We didn't need to leave this early since my flight doesn't leave until 6 pm, but we both wanted him to be able to drive home during daylight hours.

So here I am, with three more hours to kill before my flight.

Fortunately I have my laptop, so I'm working on my daily half-chapter for my next Amish Inspirational. With this much time to kill, it will likely turn into a full chapter.

Meanwhile the dude you see walking away has paced back and forth at least 15 times, having a rather loud conversation with a business associate on one of those bluetooth gizmos where he looks like he's talking to himself. It's hard to tell whether it's a legitimate business conversation, or he's just showing off his technology. Probably a little of both.

I won't arrive at my destination until 10 pm tonight, and my youngest brother will pick me up and I'll spend the night at his house.

My goal for the foreseeable future is to make myself as helpful as possible to my dad as we assess my mother's future care.

It's hard watching one's parents approach the end of life.

Road trip, Day Four

After awakening in our motel room in Dillon, we packed our bags, had breakfast in town, then hit the road.

The question might arise, why did we choose to stay in Dillon on this trip? The answer is because Don did a thought piece several years ago about potential places to establish a homestead bug-out in the event of a "bleep hit the fan" scenario. He searched through many criteria, including population density, crime statistics, weather conditions, rainfall, etc., and one of the "winners" was the area to the west of Dillon, with the concept of using Dillon as a base. Yet we had never visited this corner of Montana and were curious to see if it lived up to these expectations.

To this end, we took Hwy 278 out of Dillon in a large loop west and then north, to see what we should see. At first the landscape was flat and agricultural...

...and then gradually transitioned to dryer conditions. Definitely cattle country.

In fact, though the land was lovely and the population gratifyingly low, it was drier than what might work for a bug-out homestead. But hey, that's what we wanted to confirm.

We passed a sign for something called Bannack State Park and impulsively decided to visit it. Why? Because the sign indicated it was a ghost town, and while Don has seen many ghost towns, I hadn't. We had no expectations for this park. It was mere curiosity.

The park was three or four miles down a side road. We were early and the park office wasn't open yet, but we paid our park fee and set off to explore.

And oh my, this turned into one of the most interesting stops on our trip.

The ghost town wasn't just a couple of deserted buildings here and there. In fact it was a whole town, empty but preserved.

Lots of wild bunnies.

On the outskirts, cross fences rose dramatically up the hills.

This town, which was "the site of Montana's first major gold discovery in 1862 and Montana’s first territorial capital," was located in rugged but pretty territory. A tree-lined creek skirted the edges.

The main street was lined by boardwalks.

A group of workmen were engaged in installing new sections.

There were dozens and dozens of buildings ranging from the modest...

... to the impressive.

At first we merely traipsed along, politely peering into windows, until one of the workmen commented, "You do know you can go into the buildings, right?"

Into the buildings? Really? The man confirmed that any building that didn't have a lock on the door was considered safe enough to explore.

Yowza. Don and I love old buildings, so we were in heaven.

We started with the hotel, possibly the finest building in the town.

The interior was predictably beautiful, with the kind of workmanship missing from modern construction.

Lathe-and-plaster walls.

The upstairs hallway.

We speculated this spacious home might have belonged to one of the town's wealthier residents.

That's what we did during our entire visit – speculated who lived where and what they did for a living. (It wasn't until we were leaving and the visitor's center was open that we were able to secure literature that described each building, who lived there, and its purpose.)

An old root cellar. (I was jealous.)

Even the back sides of the buildings were interesting, since we saw outhouses, chicken coops, storage areas, pig pens, and other evidence of daily life from the late 1800s.

Look at these hand-hewn beams!

The jail cell was grimly interesting.

(Notice the prisoner.)

Look at the beefy construction!

Both the floor and the ceiling were stoutly nailed, to prevent breakouts.

One of the cells.

In the same building is a separate room, apparently for much more dangerous criminals. It had shackles embedded in the floor.

Another building (we learned later) was a blacksmith's shop, with brands on the wall, presumably to test them.

This large building was a schoolhouse on the first floor, and a Masonic Lodge on the second.

The schoolroom.

On the blackboard was written the strict rules for teachers (starting with "You will not marry during the term of your contract").

Access to the Masonic Lodge was via an outside staircase leading to an indoor hallway. The lodge room itself was off limits...

...but peering through the glass, we could see all the accouterments on display.

Don and I spent hours poking around the town. I'm fairly certain we walked through literally every available building on site. Ironically, another couple about our age left in disgust after the workman clarified the buildings were open to the public. Why? Because "there was too much to see" and they didn't have time. I kinda get that if one's time is limited, but wow, I'm glad we had the time because the place was fascinating.

On the way out, we stopped at the now-open visitor's center and asked questions and poked through the artifacts and literature on display. I took a (poor) photo of this view of the town during its heyday.

We left the park, deeply impressed. Definitely recommended.

Back on the road, still interested in noting how this corner of Montana lived up to Don's bug-out research, we were pleased to see lots of agriculture.

We passed many serious collections of round bales, which presumably will be tarped and used for winter fodder.

The distant mountains are the east face of the Bitterroot range.

A picturesque farmstead.

If this isn't named Round Mountain, it should be.

We took the junction of Hwy 569 to cut over to the town of Anaconda, a 24-mile stretch. Interestingly, the road started out excellent, and then descended into very rough conditions. It's not a road I would recommend for, say, large RVs.

Anaconda was another spontaneous stop on our last road trip, mostly because we wanted to learn more about the massive Anaconda Stack, visible for miles around. (You can read more about it here.) Approaching the town from the back, the Stack was just visible over the hilltops.

At Anaconda (a charming company town), we turned west on Hwy 1 and started climbing a pass toward the Discovery Basin Ski Area. At the top, too, was Georgetown Lake. We pulled into a parking lot for a boat launch and got out to stretch our legs.

There was a bench looking across the lake, and we just sat on it for a while, enjoying the scenery.

Some mighty big vacation homes on north shore.

We finally fetched up to our final destination on this trip, the town of Philipsburg. This was another unexpected discovery from our last road trip. We had arrived too early (in either the season, and/or the day) for anything to be open. But we were so charmed by the town itself – an old mining town restored in exquisite detail – that we wanted to return and explore it when things were open.

The weather was threatening, with rain and thunder predicted.

Don booked us into another historic hotel, the Kaiser House Hotel.

The first floor was a store (with a wine cellar in the basement), and the second floor were the motel rooms. Our window was the last (fourth) on the left in the above photo. Needless to say, the room was gorgeous. 

(The window in the bathroom is fake, just to add visual interest to the brick wall.)

This was the view from our window.

This is the second-floor lounge, open to hotel guests, with coffee and tea always available, and a continental breakfast served each morning.

The stairs leading up to the hotel rooms on the second floor were very steep. To aid guests with their luggage, we were encouraged to use the dumb waiter. Nice!

The dumb waiter held all our luggage without a problem. I wonder how many kids took sneak trips in this gizmo?

We dumped our luggage and set out to explore the town. Our first stop was the Montana Law Enforcement Museum, which was closed on our earlier visit but which we wanted  to see.

The museum was manned by an elderly and presumably retired law enforcement officer. We were the only visitors, which was a shame because it was an outstanding museum, extremely informative. I was particularly touched by this set table dedicated to missing officers, reminding us of how dangerous law enforcement is.

A nearby placard explained the significance of each item on the table.

I liked this Security Police Prayer:

This framed article immortalized the catching of Ted Kaczynski, the infamous Unibomber, who terrorized people with a nationwide mail bombing campaign for over a decade and a half.

Brief side note: I have a very, very vague connection to Kaczynski. His trial was presided over by Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. I worked for Garland when I was a legal secretary at Stockman Law Corporation in Sacramento in the mid-80s, and you never met a nicer man. One time he was having a really rough day at work, so I went outside to where some bushes in the parking lot were blooming and gathered an impromptu bouquet of flowers, which I plopped in a cup of water and brought to his office to ease the stress. He almost had tears in his eyes as he thanked me.

After Don and I were married, we bumped into Garland in a grocery store (I remember he wore a T-shirt saying "I know karate ... and other Japanese words"). At that point he had just been appointed to a new seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California. He invited Don and I to tour his chambers, then we had lunch with him.

So when the nationwide spotlight turned on Garland during the Kaczynski trial, I was tempted to send him some flowers (we were living in Oregon by this point) to ease the stress, but I suspected such an offering would be intercepted and misinterpreted during such a high-profile case. But I have very fond memories of Garland. He was a brilliant attorney and a darned nice fellow.

Okay, back to Philipsburg. We made an obligatory stop at the Sweet Place, "the World's Greatest Candy Store."

Needless to say, this was a very popular place.

By this point it was beginning to rain and we were getting hungry (nothing to eat since breakfast), so we went back to the hotel long enough to snatch umbrellas, then headed to Brick's Pub for dinner.

Don had a beer and I had a glass of wine, then we each ordered a pasta dish. I have a weakness for fettuccine alfredo, and it was one of the best fettuccine alfredos I'd ever had.

And that was our trip around Montana. Early the next day, we got on the road and blasted home.

I apologize it's taken me this long to get photos of our trip up on the blog, but it's been a chaotic month since we returned. I hope you enjoyed following us on our journey!