Daily Life, Wednesday, 5/28/14 - Friday, 5/30/14

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Today was a slow day.  Chuck worked at the Virginia City Depot, but the train is still broke down so there wasn’t much action there.  At 11:00 a.m. he went to the gold panning operation and helped out because there were two elementary school group tours here today from West Yellowstone.  Chuck said they spent money in the gift shop and they all paid in change.  Cindy could relate to that because she saw the children at Nevada City and they all came in bearing baggies full of coins.  It took a while to count all that change when we made our deposits.  The children were all in fourth or fifth grade, and it was the cutest thing when the teacher showed them how to dance an old fashioned waltz and they danced to a tune played by an old player piano.   

We got off work early due to slow traffic, and when we got home we were met with bored inn mates.  We all took a walk around town and then returned home and played Mexican Train. 

Thursday, May 29, 2014

The weather today turned cold and we wore our jackets all day.  Chuck worked at the Gypsy Arcade and he saw about two hundred school children again today.  Cindy worked at the Virginia City Depot, but since the train is still broke down she was pretty bored.  We both got off at 3:30 p.m. and went home and washed the sheets and towels.   

Today is Cindy’s birthday, so Chuck and the inn mates took her out to eat Pizza in Ennis.  Here’s a rundown on the inn mates:

Connor is 19 and will be a sophomore next year at University of Montana, West in Dillon, Montana.  He is a history major and hails from Helena, the capital of Montana.  There were about 300 students in his high school graduating class. 

Daniel is 25 and will be a senior next year at Emporia State in Emporia, Kansas.  He grew up in DeSoto, Kansas, and there were about 120 in his graduating class.  He is a Social Science major with an emphasis in history and geography.  One of his teachers knew about the living history program here and encouraged him to accept an intern position for the summer.  He is the only one of the inn mates that is not getting paid, and he had to spend a lot of his own money to buy period appropriate dress as that is what he wears every day.  He also had to pay the university to receive credit hours and must send periodic updates to his teacher.  On his first day on the job, he was thrust into the blacksmith shop and hammered hot metal for the entire day.  He said that wasn’t exactly what he was expecting.  He has been escorting school children through Virginia City for the last two days.   

Jaimi is 20 and will be a senior next year at University of Montana, West in Dillon, Montana.  She is working on a history/teaching double major.  Her family home is in Cusick, Washington about an hour from Spokane.  She had 23 kids in her graduating class.  That number is about the norm for small town Montana as we read in the paper about three graduating classes in this vicinity and they ranged from 14 to 33 kids in each.   

Libby is 20 and will be a junior next year at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.  She is in the chemical engineering program, is an only child, and also hails from Helena.  She was a cheerleader in high school and her goal in life is to climb the highest point in every state in the nation.  This is Libby’s second year working in Virginia City, so she is able to answer a lot of our questions.  She has been on vacation this past week attending a wedding and climbing a mountain in Colorado.  We expect her back tomorrow.   

After returning to the Bonanza Inn, Duel came over and taught us to play some 1800’s poker type games.  We played Whiskey and Brag.  None of us knows the first thing about poker, so Cindy was really surprised when she beat everyone and won $142 in pretend money.  It must have been her lucky day.  Either that, or Duel let her win because it is her birthday.   

 

All these kids are really smart, and we have already learned to love them.  We seem to have fallen into the role of house parents, and we are having a grand time both on and off the job. 

 

Friday, May 30, 2014

 The sun shone brightly today, and it wasn’t as cold today as yesterday.  Chuck worked at the gold panning operation and Cindy worked at the Nevada City museum.   There are eleven buildings to be locked up at night in Nevada City in addition to shutting up the chickens in the chicken coop.  Cindy had to crawl around under a low fence in order to herd the chickens in their pen tonight.  Even the chickens are authentic interpreters as they are supposedly some breed that lived in the 1800's.  We got off work at 5:30 p.m. and ate a quick sandwich when we got home.   

At 7:00 p.m. we set off walking with the inn mates to the old Virginia City brewery building.  This building was a brewery from 1863 until prohibition.  The brewery building is now used as a live theater building.  The Montana Heritage Commission gave us all free passes to get into the show, so we decided to check it out tonight. 

The inside of the building is still very rustic, and part of the old brewing equipment is still in place beside the stage that was built for the performers.  There were about a hundred old straight backed chairs spread around for the audience and a bar in the back corner. The show was hailed as modern adult comedy and it lasted about two hours.  Parts of it were entertaining, but we were glad we didn’t have to pay for the tickets. 

Back Row - Libby and Jaimi

Connor, Daniel, Cindy, Chuck

 

 

 

A Second Serving of Yellowstone, Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

We left our hotel in Gardiner at about 9:30 a.m. and drove back in the north entrance to Yellowstone.  We were soon at Mammoth Hot Springs and spent about an hour walking the boardwalks and climbing lots of steps.  There is an upper and lower terrace and both are filled with magnificent boiling springs of various colors.  The terraces are like living sculptures, shaped by the volume of water, the slope of the ground, and objects in the water’s path.   

Today we drove south on the west side of the north loop and our next stop was the Norris Geyser Basin.  We saw several interesting geysers without doing much walking and decided to skip the next two geyser stops.  The Yellowstone Volcano is hidden under the ground, but it is very much alive and is one of the largest on earth.  You can see evidence of geysers just driving along and looking out at the scenery as steam often comes out of small holes in the ground. 

Continuing south we soon came to a traffic jam as cars were backed up on both sides of the road.  We felt very lucky to observe a huge wolf dining on an elk carcass, and it was even more dramatic to witness steam rising up from the ground in several places right behind the tableau. 

We saw lots of buffalo again today, and we also saw a stupid family with a camera stalking a lone buffalo way too close for safety.  There are signs everywhere advising people to stay back from the wildlife, but wouldn’t common sense tell them not to get so close?   

We exited the park into West Yellowstone, Montana at about 1:00 p.m.  West Yellowstone is a cute tourist town with lots of souvenir shops, hotels, and restaurants.  We stopped and ate lunch and played tourist for a while.  We met a couple from Dunnellon, Florida working in one of the shops and this is their fourth year working at Yellowstone.   

We headed for Virginia City at 3:00 p.m. and arrived home at 4:30 p.m.  Chuck washed the car, Cindy washed the clothes, and then we called it an evening. 

 

Yellowstone National Park, Monday, 5/26/14

Monday, May 26, 2014

 We left Virginia City at 8:45 a.m. and it took an hour and a half to arrive at the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park.  Soon after entering the park we passed into Wyoming and then the road became a parking lot for about an hour.  After creeping along for quite a while, we determined that the holdup was a herd of buffalo in the road. 

Our first stop was to see the paint pots and mud boils at Geyser Basin.  The sight and smell of the bubbling cauldrons in the ground was both eerie and amazing.  Next stop was Old Faithful.  Our timing was impeccable as we did not wait but about half an hour for the eruption.  Its eruption intervals range from 40 to 126 minutes.  We also got lucky and saw the Beehive Geyser erupt.  It is not as predictable as Old Faithful, but the sound and water eruption is way more intense than the former. 

We continued on the south loop through the park and climbed to an altitude of over 8000 feet.  There was still lots of snow on the ground, and we passed the Continental Divide two times.  We soon were driving along the shore of the still partially frozen Yellowstone Lake, and it was remarkable to see hot geysers steaming on the shoreline of the lake.  We took the North Rim Drive along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and stopped to view the Yellowstone River and some lovely waterfalls.

 Along our route today we saw lots of buffalo, a fox, geese, mallard ducks, two black bear, some elk and antelope.   

We exited the north end of the park into Gardiner, Montana at about 6:00 p.m.  Our plan is to go back into the park tomorrow and see some areas that we missed today. 

 

 

 

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Sunday, May 25, 2014 

When we got to the train barn this morning we found out that the train is still broke down.  At least Cindy got a chance to see the beautiful steam engine that is in storage as well as a 1911 steam traction engine.  Chuck worked again today at the Gypsy Arcade.  He had a good day and enjoyed seeing many Corvettes because the Corvette Club was in town.   

Cindy had a really busy day at Nevada City.  She worked at the counter in the museum selling gifts and entrance passes to the music hall and all the old buildings that make up Nevada City.  The living history volunteers were on site this weekend, and it was quite interesting to see their wide array of costumes and professions.  At first Cindy was enthralled to hear all the old automatic music machines as people fed them quarters.  However, the popular 1895 Gavioli Carnival Organ that played horns, cymbals, drums, and a xylophone was extremely loud and the new wore off pretty quickly. 

After Chuck closed up the Gypsy Arcade, he brought his money to Nevada City, put the chickens in their coop, and helped lock up all the buildings while Cindy prepared her deposit and paperwork.  We got off work at 6:30 p.m. and after eating a light supper we played Mexican Train with our inn mates.   

We are off work for the next two days and will be heading to Yellowstone National Park in the morning. 

 

I Love a Parade, Saturday, 5/24/14

Saturday, May 24, 2014 

We reported for work at 9:30 a.m.  Cindy went to the Virginia City train depot, and Chuck went to Nevada City.  The train was broken and not operational for the first day of the season, so many people were disappointed.  There was not much traffic, so at noon Chuck was sent to man the Gypsy Arcade in Virginia City.   All that is required of that job is to unlock the door and make change for people to put coins in the machines.  He enjoyed his time there and at 1:30 p.m. Cindy took her lunch break and walked down the street to join Chuck and watch the parade. 

The parade was really cute.  There were lots of horses, horses pulling wagons and surreys, and people dressed in period costumes including a mountain man and two ladies of the evening.  There was an old fire wagon being pushed down the street by several men and they actually sprayed out water from a hose on the carriage.  The older gentleman, Mike, who lives in our hotel and fixes all the music machines, was pushing a 100 year old Molinari Barrel Piano down the street.  He periodically stopped and turned the hand crank to make music.  Cindy took a turn at spinning the crank.

 In the late afternoon we got a rain shower with lots of pea sized hail and the weather turned cold in a hurry.  We counted our deposits, finished up some paperwork, locked up seven historic buildings and clocked out at 6:00 p.m.  We went home and ate crock pot chili with our inn mates and then played a game of Shanghai.  It was a good first day!

 

 

 

 

 

Friday, May 23, 2014

Friday, May 23, 2014

 Today was the nicest day we have had in Montana so far.  It was sunny all day and the high temperature was about 72 degrees.  We set off east over the mountains to Bozeman this morning.  We stopped and took a picture of the Madison River where we have seen people fly fishing every time we drive past this river.  It seems to be a popular spot and we saw lots of campers and boats here today. 

We drove to the Montana State University campus and went into the Museum of the Rockies.  The museum houses a huge collection of dinosaur bones and reconstructed dinosaur models.  Montana is supposedly one of the best places to find dinosaur fossils because the geographic structure of the land, coupled with the small population, was the perfect recipe for preserving these creatures of long ago.  We also saw Indian artifacts, several well preserved carriages, and some household items from the 1800’s and early 1900’s.  We think the exhibits in Virginia City are far superior to the ones here.      

After spending about two hours at the museum, we ate lunch at a barbeque place and then spent a while at Wal-Mart restocking our supplies.  We bought a crock pot and then came home and prepared chili to cook tomorrow while we are working.  We are planning to invite our co-workers over for supper so we can celebrate our first day on the job and compare notes. 

 

 

 

  

Wednesday, 5/21/14 and Thursday, 5/22/14

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Today was our least favorite of all our days in Montana so far.  In the AM, the whole team was required to work with a county employee in order to spray/pull weeds.   Chuck and a few others donned backpacks containing weed killer and went around spraying weeds.  We were each given a small booklet entitled, “Montana’s Noxious Weeds,” so we could attempt to differentiate between weeds and flowers.  Cindy’s job was to pull weeds.  Montana’s laws are very lax compared to Florida.  We are quite certain that we would not be allowed to spray poison in Florida unless we had received hours of training.   It was the same idea with emergency services as in Florida we surely would not be driving tourists to the hospital.   And then there are the speed limits.  Even on the back country mountain roads the speed limit is sometimes 75 miles per hour.  They don’t need too many cops here because most people cannot possibly drive more than 75 mph on these roads. 

Our employer provided lunch for everyone, and then we were assigned various lawn duties for the remainder of the day.  Chuck did weed eating and blowing of sidewalks.  Cindy mowed lawns and picked up sticks/garbage.  We were glad when it was time to call it a day. 

We went out to eat supper at one of the local restaurants with three of our college inn mates.  The food wasn’t the best, but the old west atmosphere was superb.  We have set 7:30 p.m. as game time every night and invited anyone to attend that is interested.  We had three new players tonight, and a good time was had by all.  One of the players is a college student from Kansas, and he just moved into the Bonanza Inn this afternoon.  He is an intern in the living history interpretive program.  Two of the new players are locals.  Duel, our co-worker whom you “met” earlier came with his girlfriend.  After our game, he showed us some card tricks.  His old west persona is that of a card sharp, and he has spent many hours practicing his craft.  The aim in historical living history presentation is for everything to be authentic down to the last detail.  Duel said that he dresses the part of an old west card dealer and sets up shop in the old saloon.  He challenges tourists to play with him and will usually win because he manipulates the cards.   However, he is honest and tells them they have been cheated if they don’t realize it on their own. 

 

Thursday, May 22, 2014

We are through with our training and have two days off until the big kickoff event on Saturday.  This morning we did some necessary laundry and housecleaning and then walked to the post office while waiting on the clothes to dry.  It is always enjoyable to walk the old wooden boardwalks of Virginia City and peer into the storefronts.  Some of the stores are starting to open now, so we went into a general store and had a good time looking at their wide array of items for sale.  They had some beautiful period style dresses that were offered for a mere $500 each.  Even the “every day” dresses were priced at over $200.  They had men’s clothing, and the famous dusters that you often see in western movies were offered at $125.  We went into the candy shop and it was amusing to see the wide array of candy on offer.  They had an old tin of “hunkey dorey” on display.  We often say that something is hunkey dorey, but we never knew that it was an actual type of candy.  We resisted making a purchase and headed back to our dwelling to finish the laundry. 

In the early afternoon, we drove about 20 miles north of here to Sheridan as we had a chiropractor’s appointment.  The chiropractor was a young man in his thirties who treats patients twice a week in Sheridan.  The office was small and he had no personnel--he greeted us, treated us, and took care of all the paperwork himself.  Not surprisingly for Montana, he did not even want to see our ID. 

On the way home from Sheridan, we stopped at another tiny town called Alder and had a late lunch.  The food was fair, but we have marked that restaurant off our list of eateries to visit again. 

After returning home, we took another walk through town and stopped at the local ice cream shop.  The ice cream is churned on site in old wooden ice cream freezers which are turned via a belt attached to a motor.  After eating some delicious ice cream, we walked off the calories by climbing up to Boot Hill.   There are graves there of five road agents who were all hanged inside a local building on the same date by a group of vigilantes in 1864.  We took pictures of the town of Virginia City from the top of the hill.  There are 150 year round residents in Virginia City including Dave Walker who spent two years with the band Fleetwood Mac.  Cindy was working with one of the locals (Joanie) yesterday, and they spotted Dave on the street.  He looked like an old drunk hippie to Cindy, but Joanie said he was very nice.  He will be performing tomorrow night at one of the local restaurants. 

 

 Upon re-entering town, we went into the local library and guess what?  We did not need ID to get a library card.  We checked out a couple of DVD’s and walked home via a back road and looked at some more historic buildings and read the corresponding interpretive plaques.