Chuck Wagons and Women's Suffrage, Friday, 8/22/14 and Saturday, 8/23/14

Friday, August 22, 2014

It was in the forties when we got up this morning, and it did not get above 55 degrees all day.  It also rained again off and on throughout the day.  Chuck was on the train again today, and Cindy was at Nevada City museum.  There is no heater at Nevada City, so we both suffered from the effects of cold.  (Of course, the natives think that this is nice weather, and if we lived here in the winter we would probably think that too.) 

We got off work at about 6:30 p.m. and went home to check on Elise.  There were living history volunteers at the Bonanza Inn when we got there, so we decided to take Elise to Ennis and eat pizza instead of cooking tonight.  When we got back to Virginia City all three of us went to the rehearsal hall and sat around like nerds working on our computers. 

 

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Once again, it was cold and rainy and the temperature did not get above 48 degrees.  Chuck put fuel in the train, but the supervisor made the call not to run the train this morning due to the weather.  Cindy was supposed to work at the River of Gold, but Joni volunteered to switch venues with her and work on cleaning the troughs, and Cindy was most appreciative.  Since the train was not operating, Chuck went and helped Joni clean out the gold panning troughs in the rain and Cindy opened buildings in the rain.

At 11:30 a.m. Chuck arrived at Nevada City and found a heater for Cindy, so she was ecstatic.  We huddled up next to the heat between customers for the rest of the day.  There was not much business so Chuck went and gave some of the other employees a lunch break and then took his lunch break at the Bozeman Trail Chuck Wagon cook off so he could see the sights.  This year marks the 150^th anniversary of wagons arriving in Virginia City, and we bought tickets for the event way back in June. The chuck wagons are much smaller than the regular wagons used in wagon trains.   We were disappointed that there were only four wagons here for this event.   

The historical interpretation at Nevada City today was a women’s suffrage rally.  One of the women gave a speech about women’s right to vote.  After Elise attended the rally she came to the front to sit by the heater and visit with us a while.  She was wearing a cute new hat that made her look like Fivel. 

Chuck locked up the buildings in the rain, and we got off work about 6:30 p.m.  We went straight to the chuck wagon location so we could pick up our takeout meals.  The meal was served at 5:00 p.m., but the lady who sold us the tickets promised us that she would put aside two meals for us.   Unfortunately, she forgot about our food and there was not much left when we arrived.  We only got a bit of pork and some beans to take home which we shared with Elise.  The meat was good, but the beans were sadly lacking.

 

After supper, we took up our usual positions in the rehearsal hall until time for bed.