Getting Settled in Virginia City, Montana 5/14-5/16/14

5/14/14

We left Miles City at 9:30 a.m. and the weather was sunny and about 50 degrees.  We stopped at Sam’s Club in Billings to stretch our legs and fill up with gas.   We thought it was humorous (and geographically apropos) that they had horse corrals for customers to secure their horses while shopping.  They also provided kennels for dogs. 

 Just west of Billings we started seeing the edge of the snow covered Rocky Mountains off in the distance.  The landscape was very beautiful and inspiring. 

We stopped in Bozeman at 2:00 p.m. and called ahead to our employer in Virginia City.  She said to come ahead on and she would wait for us and show us our room.  So we got a bite to eat and headed that way.

We arrived in Virginia City at about 4:30 p.m. and it looked like a ghost town.  Diane (one of our bosses) took us on an impromptu tour of the city and it will take us many days to fill you in on everything there is to see here. 

 We unloaded the car, cleaned the surface dirt in our room, made a shopping list for tomorrow, and turned in around 10:00 p.m.  It’s going to be an interesting summer!

 

5/15/14

 We did not sleep too well last night.  The room they gave us had a set of bunk beds in it and also a twin bed.  The mattresses were cheap plastic crap, but we disinfected them and then put our queen size sheets (they told us that is what we would have) on the bottom two beds.  Diane (the lady we work for) told us that we could pick out other beds in another location and swap them around, but they were no better.

We have been informed that the Bonanza Inn where we are dwelling is purported to be haunted.  We awoke around 4:00 a.m. to a loud tapping noise.  It was not a ghost, but a woodpecker outside the window that continued beating his refrain for hours.   We got out of bed about 6:00 a.m. and since we didn’t have anything to eat or drink we decided to drive to Butte for supplies.  Butte is 71 miles northwest of Virginia City, and it was a beautiful drive through the snow covered mountains. 

We are going to be sharing our haunted inn with about 15 people and there is only one tiny kitchen for all.  There is also only one tiny refrigerator, one tiny stove, etc.  (You get the idea.)  We investigated cooking supplies and found one small decrepit saucepan, and two frying pans.  That’s it.  No casserole dishes or baking pans of any kind.  Much as we love to cook, Chuck says we are going to have to keep it simple.  Therefore, we bought salad and sandwich supplies, 10 pounds of potatoes, hamburger meat, some cheap knives, a colander, and some paper goods.  That’s about it.  We also bought some plastic storage bins to put our supplies in so we could label them and try to keep them separate from the other folks. 

We returned to Virginia City at about 2:30 p.m.  After unloading the refrigerated products, Cindy did some deep cleaning on the room which included mopping the floor with a wet Swiffer about 10 times.  Then we moved one mattress and three bed frames down into the cellar.  That was a trip.  The cellar door doesn’t open up too high and then one must maneuver down a set of steep steps.  The washing machine and dryer are also in the cellar, and Cindy is not looking forward to tackling those steps every time we do laundry.  She has already hit her head about four times.

We put two of the cheap plastic mattresses on the clean floor and topped them with a blow up queen size mattress that we purchased at Wal-Mart.  It is actually about the same height as a regular bed, but the queen size sheets didn’t fit too well because the mattress is 22 inches high. 

We spent the remainder of the day cleaning the nasty kitchen and organizing our purchases.  Cindy also cleaned the washer and dryer in the cellar and did a load of laundry. 

So far, there is only one other man living here with us, but several more are supposed to arrive tomorrow.  We were glad we got here early to stake out our territory. 

Bonanza Inn

Cellar Access

Cellar Steps

Plan A

 

Friday, May 16, 2014

We had another miserable night on our blow up mattress.  Since Chuck is heavier, he sank the mattress way down on his side and Cindy was riding high on the edge of the other side.  Either that or she fell down the hill and infringed on Chuck’s space.  We decided to go with plan B.  We went back to the other house that had extra beds and found two twin size mattresses and box springs that didn’t look too terrible and made arrangements with the boss to borrow a state truck later on to transport the furniture back to our room.  We then packed up the air mattress and headed back to Wal-Mart in order to return the torture device. 

We decided to go to Bozeman today which is about 60 miles northeast of Virginia City.  It was actually 15 minutes faster to get there than Butte and it is a larger city with more to offer.  After returning the air mattress, we then selected the necessary items we needed to complete our bed ensemble—a king size foam mattress topper, a mattress pad, and a set of cheap king size sheets.  We also purchased some cheap baking pans and a toaster for the kitchen, and a small refrigerator for our room.  So far, we have spent about $300 to make our life more comfortable while we are here for the summer but that is still way less than what we spent last year in Alaska. 

After returning to Virginia City, we moved the cheap plastic mattresses down to the cellar and trucked the other mattresses across town to our room.  The bed is now almost wall to wall and Cindy will have to climb out the bottom side to get out of bed.  Chuck has about six inches to spare on his side.  We are hoping for a better night tonight.  It is a good thing we got here a few days early to get organized.

 After eating a bite of supper, we walked two doors down to the building they call the rehearsal hall.  The upstairs portion is a nice meeting room and Wi-Fi is available there so we settled in to do a little surfing and blog posting.  We start our official training tomorrow.

Plan B

Rehearsal Hall

 

Using Wi-Fi in Rehearsal Hall