More Snow and Lewis and Clark Caverns, Wednesday, 6/18 and Thursday, 6/19/14

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Today was our day off, so we got up around 8:00 a.m. planning to drive to Bozeman to grocery shop.  When we looked outside it was snowing and evidently had been for some time as the vehicles were covered in snow.  We were just about to head out in the snow when Tanya, our crew leader, stopped by the Bonanza Inn to say all attractions were shut down due to the weather.  Daniel said this was the first time he had a “snow day” in June.   

Our inn mates decided they all wanted to go to Bozeman since everyone had the day off.  Tanya advised waiting a while since she had come over the mountain pass from Ennis and said the snow on the road was quite hazardous.  The kids watched a movie and we watched a different movie while we were waiting for the weather to clear up.  We watched “Little Big Man” starring Dustin Hoffman.  We wanted to watch the movie because a portion of it was filmed in Nevada City, but we thought it was rather boring.  It was a slow moving western and there was just one brief scene where we recognized Nevada City.   

At 12:00 noon we all headed east in three different vehicles as Libby planned to spend the night with a friend in Bozeman.  The mountains surrounding Virginia City looked very pretty with their fresh blanket of snow.  The snow on the road was gone, but there was still fresh snow on the trees and roadside.  When we drove by the Madison River, we saw several white pelicans and it still seems odd to see them here. 

We all met at Buffalo Wild Wings in Bozeman and Libby brought her friend Hannah to dine with us.  The meal was fair, but we had a good time.  After lunch we all trooped to Costco as Hannah is an employee there and we wanted to check out their prices.  We bought a couple of items and then parted ways.   

Our next stop was Wal-Mart where we spent about two hours shopping and then it was home to Virginia City.  The snow covered mountains were hugged by low hanging clouds and it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other began. 

We got home about 6:30 p.m. and unloaded our groceries.   The evening’s entertainment was a game of Shanghai with the inn mates.

 

Thursday, June 19, 2014

The ten AmeriCorps volunteers started scraping paint off our inn at 8:00 a.m. this morning.  We met the leader of the group.  She is 24 years old, but she looks like she is about 15.  She has two college degrees and is working on her master’s degree.  The group she leads has been together for nine months, so they have one month to go to fulfill their obligations.  AmeriCorps is a program sponsored by the federal government, and the kids are provided free housing, a food allowance, and a stipend of $5500 for the entire ten month period.  Kelly, the leader, said that the house they are staying in now is luxurious compared to their last assignment where they all slept in tents for a month.   

We left home at 9:30 a.m. and headed north to the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park.  It was about 55 miles from home and took us approximately one hour to get there.  We were disappointed to learn that Lewis and Clark never discovered the cave, but they traveled very near it so they were honored with the name.  We have discovered that many things out west are named after those great explorers.   

We arrived in time to take the 11:00 a.m. guided tour which covered two miles in two hours.  The trail to the cave entrance gains 300 feet in elevation and we had already driven three miles up to the parking area.  We took a great picture of the Jefferson Valley from near the cave entrance.  Inside the caverns there are 600 descending stairs.  The stairs were not always well lit and at one point in time klutzy Cindy missed a step, fell down, and knocked over a 60 something year old lady who was our tour guide.  We were neither one hurt, and Cindy is long past the point of being embarrassed as she falls around so much.   

The cave was very beautiful, and we saw lots of interesting features.  We had to bend and stoop a lot and at one point in time we had to sit and slide down a short area made of smooth stone.  

We arrived back in Virginia City at 3:00 p.m. and Chuck was asked to go to work for a couple of hours to cover our co-worker, Maria, so she could learn how to operate the switches on the train tracks.  Cindy went home and prepared a meatloaf, broccoli salad, macaroni and cheese and garlic bread. 

Today was Lucinda’s birthday, so she joined the inn mates for supper at 7:00 p.m.  We got her a birthday carrot cake yesterday while we were in Bozeman and we made her wear a birthday hat that we got at Buffalo Wild Wings.