For the quilters among us

Here's a post for the quilters out there. I haven't been including the shopping stops along the way so thought it was time to put that all together and share the fun I've had!

I usually browse shops and pick up a piece or two of fabric that I just can't resist, and of course, one of the fun fabric license plates. I've collected several of the row-by-row patterns in the past, but so far this year I haven't run into any I felt drawn to.

I decided on a different approach to the fabric buying for this year. I purchased a yard of a fabric called Rancho Toile several years ago. I pull it out often, look at it, can't decide what to do with it, then put it away again. I decided it was time to move ahead with something, even it it's wrong!

First, I narrowed the project down to two patterns that would allow me to use large sections of the print, so as not to destroy the scenes.

Then, I packed up my little chunk of fabric and hauled it from one store to another, comparing colors, visual textures, and chatting with the shopkeepers about my project and getting their suggestions. Gradually a vision emerged. . . we'll see if I like it when I'm done. Ideally, this will be the learning project when I take a long-arm quilting class this winter.

On to the quilt shops!  First stop . . . . . . .



Rapid City, SD
I stopped at the Quilt Connection last year too, so I didn't pick up another license plate this year.

I remembered that they have a great range of fabrics and thought this might be a good place to start my search.

Success! I was able to pick up the first of several fabrics I need for this year's on-the-road project.  I'm calling it the Texas Rancho quilt.  I especially love that blue, which is from Moda's River Journey collection. It looks like birch bark.



Sturgis, SD
We're not so much into motorcycles, but one has to visit the world famous Sturgis if you're in the area. We took a drive around town and then looked up the quilt shop. Fabric Junction is a fairly small shop, square footage wise, but it's filled to the brim with fabric.

There are of course motorcycle theme fabrics, but they have everything else too, including flannels. I picked up another blue (a small star, Civil War style print) and a plaid to work into the project, as well as a western novelty print.    



Sheridan, WY
Quilter's Fix

I had high hopes for this shop, as Wyoming is true cowboy country, but the shop didn't meet my expectations by a long shot. I was able to pick up a gold check that works with the project, so the trip was successful, and I got their license plate too.

They have a minimal range of fabrics, and mostly not up my alley, but the frustrating thing was they don't have much online presence, making it difficult to know ahead of time what they have to offer. Their web site is out of date and not much going on with FB but the shop is definately open and worth a look. "Fabric Touching" hours are noted on their Facebook page


Livingston, MT
Back Porch Quilts

Now here is a quilt shop with personality!
It's located in a small strip mall that's designed to look like the old time western buildings. They carry a huge range of fabrics as well as yarn with a few embroidery supplies as a bonus. I picked up a fat quarter, some thread and a placemat pattern that I can't wait to show to my friend Chris, as it's similar to her "magic potholder" pattern.

The shop has a great selection of western and wildlife/outdoor fabrics, as well as juveniles, etc. and they have all of it online. It's a good thing we are limited on space and weight or I might have been tempted to "over collect" in this shop!


Rexburg, ID
Porters Craft and Frame
   
Wow, I've never seen such a huge craft store! It literally takes up an entire block! The building in historic downtown Rexburg was home to several businesses at one time, now each of the spaces is occupied by the various craft departments, including a really nice fabric/quilting section. Definitely worth a stop if you're a crafter of any type.

I browsed the the downstairs sale room and picked up a half-price template, then went upstairs to the main fabric department for the licence plate and bit of blue fabric that may or may not make it into the Rancho quilt. It's called Horsehoe Trail, so too bad I didn't have it earlier as the name really fits! I also purchased a yard of this year's row-by-row print. It's just too cute to pass up and may work out with all the license plates I've been collecting.


So what's been happening on the quilt  project so far?


The pattern I finally settled on has large blocks, alternating with pieced blocks (Baker Street, by Daphne Greig).

The quilt pattern has 9 inch blocks. I redrafted it to 10 inch blocks, which fits well with the repeat of the print and left almost no waste. I also replaced the checkerboard with pinwheels.

The finished quilt will be for our bed here in the RV, and I can adjust the finished size with the boarders to make it fit the area properly.

Here's how I set up in the RV- the padded area around the slide-out becomes my mini-design wall. Here are the first two rows, up for review.

Ooops! I did fix that upside down block.

Once four rows were sewn together I had to take it down as it was becoming somewhat invasive.

Working in such tight quarters can be challenging, and as the project grows the pressing and aligning become more difficult, so the boarders may have to wait until we get home. This project will truly be a souvenir of this summer's trip, and some of the scraps will probably find their way into the Civil War quilt I've started with fabrics I picked up last summer.

Here's what I have so far. There are another three rows to be added, those will repeat the first three already assembled. and then I have to calculate wide borders, as the original pattern isn't big enough for the bed. That will be another creative adventure!

the first four rows, assembled

I'll be sampling shops on the way home too, so no telling what fabrics and inspiration I'll find along the way!!

Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, MT

Saturday, June 17- 19
Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, Whitehall, MT

What a beautiful part of the country! We really enjoyed the looooong 27 mile drive from our last campsite. . . rough day, beautiful scenery!

The snowy peaks in the distance emphasize how late spring arrives here, but our campsite is in a valley, so the snow disappears behind the closer mountains and we're surrounded by green slopes and trees with a few limestone outcrops and beautiful puffy clouds, and wind. . . lots of wind.

The campground is fairly spacious - laid out in five wagon wheels, so to speak. The area includes a tepee and three log cabins for rent for those who travel without an RV.

Many of the park amenities were developed by the CCC back in the 1930's, in fact, this was the first state park the CCC worked in. Montana later developed a state program of their own modeled after the national CCC.

Though they didn't discover them, the caves are named for the Lewis and Clark expedition that traveled down the Jefferson River, which runs right by this area.

The caves, or caverns, here are limestone structures, thousands, probably millions of years old. We decided on the short tour and met our tour guide at the upper visitor's center. Our group took a short but fairly steep walk uphill to the entrance to the cave, then traveled long dark tunnel, which serves as an airlock to protect the cave. Entering a second door we had our first look at the cavern structures. Beautiful!

We had a great tour guide, with a real gift for delivering the information and stories regarding the caverns, and we really enjoyed the history of the lineage of the cave's ownership, and the stories about the early explorers.

These formations really are beautiful examples of the limestone stalactite/stalagmite type of cavern, and the lighting was better than several of the caves we've visited, allowing for much better photography. It's a little on the pink side, as that's the spectrum their lights put out, but at least you can see what the structures look like.

It seems the Montana state parks system is something like 48th down on the list of national funding for their state park system, so they have a partnership with Americorp. Our guide was one of the Americorp  program volunteers. There are several in the park, and they help make up for the lack of regular rangers, which the state can't afford at this time.

In addition to the beautiful formations the caves are also famous for bats. They are the small brown type, and they don't come as far down in the cave as our tour took us, so we didn't see them. We are thankful for their presence anyway - they eat 1-2,000 bugs a night. Lovely to be by a river and have almost zero mosquitoes!

Monday, June 19
In the morning we took a jaunt up to Whitehall. It's really the closest town for services. There's a grocery store, gas station, etc. They've livened the place up a bit with a few murals but most of them are now badly faded. We found the pups a place to play ball on the way back to the campground, so their day was complete.

Downtown Whitehall, MT

We have to give the wind some credit for the bug free weather I think. By evening the wind had calmed down and we enjoyed sitting outside, basking in the sun and admiring the snowfall of cottonwood seeds. By evening the bugs began to come out of hiding.

Tomorrow we head south, working our way toward Nevada.

Lewis and Clark Caverns album here. Lots of cave photos in the album!

Missouri Headwaters

Friday, June 16

We had a fairly long drive planned, so packed up what we could on Thursday, had a quick breakfast, and hit the trail. Stiff winds again - only from the side this time! Wow - bad for the mileage, and tiring for the driver.

This is beautiful country though. The grass is so rich, all the cattle and horses are fat. The farms and ranches are all well kept and prosperous looking. There are signs of harsh winters everywhere. . . the sally-port entrances to stores, jeeps in the driveways (no Smart cars), and snow still on the mountains that surround the valleys.

We're camped tonight at the Missouri Headwaters State Park, Three Forks, Montana.

A rustic little park, it's brimming with songbirds and other wildlife. We're tucked back in a little cove, carved out between willow bushes, wild roses, cattails, and other miscellaneous shrubs.

It was sprinkling while we set up, and while I took the dogs for a walk, but so far no real rain. The songbirds have been bashful, and I can hear more varieties than I have been able to see. I suspect there are warblers and blue birds - we've caught glimpses, but they are shy so we never get a good look. A sign in the campground warned of moose too, but sadly, we never saw any.

site of the confluence

Saturday, June 17
The day started out sunny, with the birds all trying to out do one another with their early morning song. By 6:30 it was clouding up again, but we had a bit of sun while we did a quick tour of the park trails. There are several walking trails, and the park is a long narrow one, so a short drive will also give a good overview.

We stopped first at the confluence of the Missouri, Jefferson and Madison rivers. This was the inspiration for the park in the first place. There's a lot of water moving by, but no crashing, foaming crush as there are in other similar confluences. Here, the waters just merge politely and move on.

The Missouri River has been the life-blood of so much of our country for generations, and so much history has happened along it's banks, it's certainly worthy of a park setting. We're back in Lewis and Clark Territory here, with quotations and namesake places all around us.

Our next stop was the pictograph trail. The two painted figures the trail leads to are quite faint due to time and weathering, in fact they are almost impossible to make out in the photos I took, but it still made a pleasant walk.

The signage is pretty good in this park, and the information kiosk and picnic facilities in the park are unique and very nicely done. There's a small newspaper style brochure available that's full of information too, so be sure to pick one up.

Front and side of the Sacagawea Hotel, Three Forks, MT

1. After leaving the park we stopped for fuel in Three Forks, what a nice town! They really play up the western and the Lewis and Clark history, and the Sacajawea Hotel is beautiful. We'll have to come back some time to fully explore it.

They really have done a nice job with their downtown, which looks very prosperous compared to many we've been through.  We're on our way to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park, our last stop in Montana for this trip.

Mural in Three Forks, MT

Aug 4-5 Forts along the Missouri River

Aug. 4
When you've grown up on the west coast, as we have, you don't think too much about commerce on the rivers. Here on the plains, surrounded by evidence of how important the Missouri river was to the westward movement, it is clear that river traffic and in later years the railroad, were essential to the development of towns and industry.

Where the boats could dock, towns sprung up, and later, any railroad stop, even if it was just a water stop in the days of steam engines, a little settlement would be

established.  Now, the river boats are done, trains no longer need water for their boilers, so along the river and the tracks we see many of those little settlements long abandoned.

This section of the Missouri was particularly critical is it was the end of the navigable section so supplies had to be off loaded and moved from the boats to another form of transportation. That lead to the formation of the settlement of the area.

Forts too, were established along those routes. Most were military forts, for the protection of westward moving citizens from the east, but many of the so-called forts were really commercial enterprises. The term "fort" in the historical sense means a trading post, and of course, as it had walls, warmth and food would have also been a refuge in time of need.

Leaving Great Falls, heading toward Havre (pronounced Hay-ver), we stopped to visit the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument visitor center. A short movie highlighted the importance of this river in the development of the west, touching on Lewis and Clark, the westward movement in general, the unique geology of the area, and the modes of travel necessitated by the river's character and the terrain. We don't think much about riverboats these days, but they were pretty essential at the time, as the river was very shallow in several places. A new riverboat design, with very little draft, had to be invented, which reminds me of the jet boats that now operate on the Rogue river in Oregon.

We spent the night at a great little campground on Fresno Reservoir, just a bit west of Havre. It's operated by the local chapter of Walleyes Unlimited (a walleye is a fish, for the uninitiated!)

Great, friendly folks. The campground asks for donations, but there's no set fee. We enjoyed visiting with the other campers and the hosts, and the doggies enjoyed a bit of freedom to play in the water.

Aug 5 - Friday
We pulled up stakes and headed east, still on hwy. 2. Our first stop was  Fort Benton , which bills itself as the "birthplace of Montana."

The actual fort is right in the center of town and surrounded by park area. It's restored and open for visitors.



In the middle of town, a block from the fort, next to the bridge, is this statue. It's titled "Rider of the Purple Sage".

It was donated to the town by the actor George Montgomery, who starred in many western movies.
He actually created it, as we was not only an actor but a sculptor and furniture maker, and a Montana native.


The museum in Fort Benton is a delightful blend of relics, memorabilia and historic items of all kinds that local people, and those with past connections to the area, have donated.

They are artfully displayed, and the topics range from the Indian wars to domestic issues like clothing and household goods. One of their prize items is the rifle Chief Joseph relinquished when he surrendered to the Army in 1877. Definitely worth a visit, and admission is free.

From town we followed signs to the Bear Paw Battlefield. This is the site of the last battle of the four month long Nez Perce War of 1877. The battlefield is part of the Nez Perce National Historic Park and the Nez Perce National Historic Trail.

We followed much of this trail in 2013 (in reverse order, due to where we started. You can read those posts here.) The trail follows the path of Chief Joseph and his band as they were driven from the Wallowa Mountains in eastern Oregon. Chief Joseph was an excellent tactician, and he outwitted the US Army at every turn, but in the long run, at the time of this final battle in the fall, the women, children and elders of his band were suffering.

This battle took place at the end of September, when snow had already come to this region. Looking and the windswept prairie, one can see there is little shelter available. With no food, no shelter, and little clothing, there was no way they could hold out any longer.

Chief Joseph sent most of his band north, to Canada, where they joined other tribes in safety, while he stayed here with the remainder and surrendered. They were all sent to Oklahoma, and were allowed to be "free" as long as they never went to Idaho or Oregon again.

The trail at the battlefield site is well marked with notations of events at each location, including survey tags marking the sites where several individuals perished.

At these sites one finds offerings made by Native Americans, who often visit as they consider this a sacred place. The offerings range from toys to favored items and "sweet grass".

The site has several memorials, all with historical information, and names important in the history of the battle.


Home for the night was an absolutely delightful, "free range" camping area on the shores of Nelson Reservoir, near Malta. It's a "pack it in, pack it out", low maintenance kind of camping area.

Drive up and pick a spot.... so we did. Very few neighbors, and the few that were there were spread out, and quiet.  The dogs enjoyed the water, and we enjoyed the view.

There were plenty of birds to watch - pelicans and seagulls primarily.

The water level must have dropped considerably in recent days, as there were clams of all sizes sticking out of the sand, as if they'd suddenly been left high and dry.

Leaving the campground we stopped at the Sleeping Buffalo, a historic stone placed near the road in the settlement of Saco.

The buffalo stone has incised markings that resemble the ribs, spine, and nostrils. This stone, and others like it, often were mistaken for real buffalo on the plains, and were believed to have moved on occasion. Similar stories exist regarding powerful stones in England.

The smaller, buffalo stone, is accompanied by a larger medicine stone. It is covered with symbols of all kinds, and visitors often leave offerings at both these powerful stones.

The Buffalo stone

Offerings left on the medicine stone, with carved symbols

Aug 1-3, Monday Great Falls, Montana

Aug 1-3, Monday
We arrive at Dick's RV, in Great Falls, in the early afternoon. It seemed like a good plan to lay claim to the laundry room before too many overnighters pulled in. I got things going and then soon struck up a conversation with another patron. She and her husband were just back from Alaska, it seems the rough roads pounded their little Casita to pieces, so they had repair work to do. We chatted while the machines worked, then I trundled back to the trailer, the laundry all finished for a week or so.  Dick's is OK for an overnight or two. The spaces are larger than average for an RV park, and all have grass and a picnic table.  The Sun River(a tributary of the Missouri) is right across the road, and there's a bike trail along part of it, allowing for some dog walking freedom. The train tracks nearby aren't in use except for storage, so there was very minimal traffic noise.

We took advantage of Great Falls "big city" resources and did chores like an oil change for the truck, groceries, and buying a new mattress!! Our old RV airbed (older than this trailer!) had decided it was going to leak no matter how many times we fixed it, so we had to work on a more permanent solution. Purchasing something that has to be shipped, when you have no permanent address, is always an interesting challenge. In this case the UPS Store in Rapid City, SD, was the solution. Now, we just hope that we, and the mattress, all show up in Rapid City, as scheduled.

I made a stop at Big Sky Quilts to pick up a Montana "license plate" for my collection, and also bought their row-by-row kit. There is a real story that goes with both.

Have you ever heard of Green Lights for Vets? It's a national program to establish visible, national support for veterans by burning at least one green light in or on a house, and for that reason the little house in the kit pattern has a green window.

 The license plate "MAJ STASH" refers not only to the fact that most quilters have major "stashes" (collected fabric) but one of the owners of the shop is a major! I didn't catch what branch of the military, but Malmstrom Air Force base is located here.

We also made a long-anticipated visit to the C.M. Russell Museum.

Oh-my-goodness. We've never before seen such a marvelous collection of western art all in one place. Paintings, sculptures, drawings, and casual whittled objects make up the collections. Coincidently, their current rotating display is the artists of the Going to the Sun Road, in Glacier, and their relationship to Charlie Russell, who had a cabin at the south end of St. Mary Lake, not too far from where we were camped on the west side of Glacier NP. (No photos are allowed in the museum and galleries, so you'll have to go to their website to see the offerings.) The profiles of each of the artists and the examples of their work were wonderful and really enriched the enjoyment of their individual works.    

The museum also houses a fantastic number of Native American artifacts. Many are displayed in glass cases, others in a multitude of drawers (their tops sealed with plexiglass) that visitors are invited to pull out and investigate. The beadwork, garments, stone weapons, ceremonial items, basketry, and more, were just amazing. Needless to say, by the time we'd finished our brains were numb. There was just too much to absorb, but it was a wonderful experience and we very much enjoyed it.

We had just enough umph left for a quick tour of Charlie and his wife Nancy's home, which is on the same property. It's furnished with period authentic items, though most didn't belong to the Russells. His log studio was under construction, being refurbished, so if we ever get up this way again we'll have to check it out.

From there we went to lunch at Bert and Ernies, a locally famous pub.

It's there we discovered Poutine, a Canadian dish that will melt in your mouth. Crispy fries with cheese curds, all topped with a flavorful brown gravy. 'May sound a little strange to some, but it was really good, and I can imagine really hits the spot on a cold Montana day.

Bert and Ernie's has a comfortable and interesting atmosphere. The restaurant has been there for something like 60 years, but no one knows how the name came to be - I though that was odd!

The ceiling of the restaurant, which is in the historic downtown area, is covered in the old tin panels. The tops of all the divider walls are covered with their collected bottles, and there are some very interesting ones. I'm afraid they put our collection to shame.


Great Falls is full of history and so we absorbed as much as we could.

The Lewis and Clark Interpretive center is very well done. Having spent so many years in Oregon we're very familiar with that end of the story, and this interpretive center filled in the beginning bits.    The city apparently did one of those charity drives that involves decorating a large animal. . . a buffalo in this case. We saw several interesting ones around town but this one is the only one I could capture for a photo.

The center is built overlooking the river, and one can see a portion of the "great falls" that inspired the town's name.

After "touring" for the day we were ready to settle in for the evening and get packed up for an early start in the morning.

Montana is going the way of many other northwest states and really developing a microbrew industry. We had to pick up a sampling of course, to work on while we packed!

Missoula, Montana

July 22-23  Lolo Creek Square Dance Center and RV Park

Designed as a center for square dancing activities, this park also welcomes "non-dancers"...like us!  The sites are varied, some fairly close together, some like ours, are like stopping in a park. We are out on the edge, where we have a lovely little mowed meadow that is actually part of the wiffle golf course (?) 'Never heard of it before, but they seem to like it here.  There are also families of wild turkeys that wander the grounds. Add a few wildflowers scattered here and there for color, and a creek running along the back side of the campground and you have a near perfect place to stop for a few nights.

Only a few miles back to the east, toward Missoula proper,

Quilt in Traveler's Rest museum

 Traveler's Rest State Park, on the Bitterroot River. It sounds like an RV park doesn't it? It's actually named for the fact that Lewis and Clark's exploration party stopped here in 1805. The visitor's center has a good many artifacts from the time and what a marvelous job they have done with their displays. Many of the items are displayed in a village-like setting that's been constructed inside the building. There's also a full size teepee, a lot of hands-on materials for the kids, and well written signboards explaining the importance of pieces in the collection.The volunteer docents are very helpful, as well as knowledgeable. There's also a walking path with additional information posted along the way. It's definitely a worthwhile stop.

We visited Traveler's Rest in the morning and then later in the day we toured Fort Missoula. Wow! Where to start with the history of this fort? We only knew it was involved in the Indian wars in this area. Established as a permanent post in 1877, it never had walls. It was an "open fort", requiring troops to actively patrol the area.
In 1888 the 25th Infantry arrived at Fort Missoula. This was a regiment made up of Black Soldiers. In 1896 they were organized as the  25th Infantry Bicycle Corps, to test the potential of bicycles as military transportation.

The fort was used as a training center during WW I, and then it was nearly abandoned before it was designated the Northwest Regional Headquarters for the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933.

We were surprised to learn that in 1941 it also served as a detention center for Italian Merchant Marines captured in WWII, as well as Japanese who were kept here along with American military personnel who were accused of crimes.   

Many of the original buildings are gone now, so the vast acreage is used to good advantage in multiple ways. Surviving buildings are all used to house permanent and rotating museum displays or other related activities. There are forestry displays, a collection of railroad cars and equipment, and a few pioneer cabins have been brought in. There's also one building remaining that was used during the Japanese internment camp era.

The fort was remodeled between 1908 and 1914 and many of the buildings remaining are from that era. The officers quarters, enlisted barracks and the hospital are currently occupied by various state and federal programs, such as the Lolo National Forest Service Supervisor's office.

 The one really unexpected touch....the Montana Iris Society has a garden here. The iris were past blooming, but here were other colorful plants making up for their absence.

Iris garden at Fort Missoula

Wow, what a day! Needless to say, our brains were full of historical information by the time we finished at the Fort,  so back to camp we went for a relaxing evening.

A few more views of the fort here.

The Nez Perce Trail

July 20-21 May Creek Campground, near Wisdom, Montana.

This is the closest campground to the Big Hole National Battlefield, a part of the Nez Perce National Historical Park.  We stayed two nights, so we could devote a full day to visiting the park's Visitor's Center, and the area in general.

Following our visit to Utah our travels have been organized according to the history of the Nez Perce trail. Steve had recently finished reading The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story (Elliott West) and was so impressed by struggles of the tribe, the overall importance to history of the Northwest and the country as a whole, that we decided to base part of our trip on the trail they followed as the government pushed them first one way and then another in an attempt to confiscate their land.

The teepee poles are in the exact center of the photo, on the light green area

The visitor's center has new displays, installed only a year ago, that are beautifully fabricated to convey the critical concepts of the events that took place here in a minimal amount of space. Having just read the history of this horrific battle, which left 90 Nez Perce and 31 soldiers and volunteers dead, it was hard to view battlefield. Teepee poles are in place where the village once was, making it easy to picture the situation at the time of the battle. But those of us who have not been in a war cannot imagine what it was like for the Nez Perce, but also for the soldiers. This is history we should not forget.

We're doing the "trail" from the middle out, as a result of scheduling commitments, but the history and the impact are felt none-the-less. The history of the subjugation of the Nez Perce is too involved to do justice in this blog, so I'll include a few links for those who chose to delve further into the subject. I will say, West's book, mentioned above is excellent: very readable, and West does not tell the story from only one side... he reports facts as they were documented. It's difficult to ready history without putting today's value judgements on it, but West does his best not to reflect today's political and social values in his writing, leaving it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. It was a hard time, for all involved. Could there have been better solutions? Probably. Unfortunately, as with all political and military actions, humans are involved and therefore decisions made and actions taken were imperfect.

Having lived in the northwest for 30 years, and being fairly well informed students of American history, we often find ourselves saying "I didn't know that", and are repeatedly reminded of how much of our history has been buried. Never taught in school, never mentioned. Unless you go looking for it and inform yourself, and your children, you'd never know any of this happened. That is why history repeats itself. We can't learn from it if we aren't exposed to it.

We, unlike those whose history we are here to learn, could retreat to the comfort of our campsite - a wooded haven, with a creek running nearby. Shiner and I indulged in a lengthy walk along the creek for each of the two days we stayed at May Creek.

A sad note on the forests in the area of Wisdom: the bug kill here is terrible. Another camper said they didn't see any damage last year, but we estimate about 30% or more now. Don't be surprised to hear of huge wildfires in this part of Montana in the future. On one of our walks one day the sky darkened with a weird peachy gray tone that means fire in the distance. It turned out to be over the Idaho border, so no immediate danger to us, but it was very creepy to be surrounded by so many dead trees and see smoke that color.

I do think this was one of Shiner's favorite campsites so far! She really had a good time visiting with fellow campers too, especially Bill and Jack, who seem to be fairly accomplished fishermen. They seemed to know exactly where to scritch her her ears to make her happy....or maybe it was fish perfume?

Jack with a German Brown

Following the Nez Perce trail further west (in reverse of the way it originated) we'll be going to the Missoula, Montana area next. If you can't travel to the Nez Perce sites the National Parks Service has made a virtual museum available on park website. There are some great photos of the items and each has a detailed description.

After touring the visitor's center we went into the little near-by town of Wisdom. Originally named for the near-by river, before they changed the name of the river to Big Hole River.

Wisdom's population isn't much over 100, but I suspect there are a lot of weekenders represented by all the buildings with antenna and other signs of activity.

Newer and older, shoulder to shoulder

There are a lot of really old wooden structures, lending the feel of a ghost town, but a still-active church, a couple of saloons, a small grocery store keep it alive. An interesting place to visit on the way to the battlefield.