Monday, 8/18/14

 

Monday, August 18, 2014

 We did indeed get up this morning and eat breakfast at Chick-Fil-A, and it seemed like a really special treat.  We stopped at Sam’s Club to purchase a few items before heading north on Interstate 15.   The scenery was mostly farms with mountains in the distance, and there were not too many exits.  We were in Montana and mountainous terrain again by noon and we got to Dillon (where Jaimi and Connor attend school) at 1:00 p.m.   

Cindy has been hearing from customers all summer about a Patagonia outlet store in Dillon, so she insisted that we stop there and check out the sportswear.  The first jacket she looked at was $434, so she quickly realized that it was not her kind of store and we moved on.  We stopped at the post office to look at a WPA wall mural.  The mural was entitled News from the States, and it was painted by Elizabeth Lochrie in 1938. 

After traveling 535 miles in two days we were back home at the Bonanza Inn by 2:30 p.m.  We unloaded the groceries and Chuck washed the bugs off his truck.  After a short nap we walked to the post office to get our mail and check out some of the souvenir shops.  We didn’t see anything we couldn’t live without, so we walked back home to wait on the inn mates to get off work.   

Libby loaded up all her stuff in her truck and we headed to the pizza place at Ennis about 7:00 p.m.  Libby is going home to Helena tonight and then heading to Utah with her father tomorrow to climb a mountain.  Today was the last day of work for the inn mates, so we bought supper one last time for them and Duel and shared many memories of our summer together.  We were very touched when they presented us with a steel pan (used for gold panning) that they all signed as a memento.

 We really laughed when they told us about what they did yesterday at the River of Gold.  Jaimi and Connor worked together yesterday, and every time the train went by they performed skits for the passengers.  It started out simple with them juggling rubber duckies, playing ducky baseball with a stick, making music with five gallon buckets and steel gold pans, etc.  Then they called Elise (who wasn’t working) and asked her to bring them some props.  They once all dressed up as pioneer women (including Connor), and one time they wore their inn mate shirts and boarded the train as jail escapees.  Elise played the part of the Sheriff who captured them and put them in handcuffs.  The passengers all loved the entertainment, and those who rode the train early continued to ask what they had missed out on later in the day. 

There were hugs all around as Libby departed for Helena, and the rest of us went home for the night.