Hail, PBS Special, and Hanging, Sat., 8/30/14 through Mon. 9/1/14

Saturday, August 30, 2014

It was in the sixties and overcast all morning.  Cindy started off the day at the River of Gold and there was a steady stream of customers.  Chuck started his day being a garbage man and cleaning the bathrooms.  After Chuck relieved Joni for her lunch break, he found out the train had been fixed and was informed he was to start running the train at 1:00 p.m.  Joni was at the Nevada City museum, so Cindy was told to relieve Joni so she could work with Chuck on the train.  When Cindy’s relief arrived at the gold panning operation she walked over to the museum and the line of customers was out the door.   It didn’t get any better from that point forward.   

There was a hanging at 2:30 p.m. and the weather was looking really ominous.  It was reported that the hanging was over at 3:00 p.m. and the pseudo dead man was on the ground.  His widow came rushing down the hill on her horse and jumped off to grieve over the body of her husband.  At just that moment there was crashing thunder and lightning, and the sky opened up and deposited a torrential flood of rain and large hailstones all over Virginia and Nevada cities.  The weather turned cold after that and there must have been about 100 bodies milling around the desk where Cindy was working and they had just about every music machine going at once.  It was horrendous!   

Chuck’s experience with the hail was as follows:  He had just loaded up a trainload of people at the Virginia City depot when he saw the rain approaching.  He told everyone to get off the train and wait in the depot to see what happened.  The storm happened, but after about twenty minutes he determined that they could continue on their way.  At 4:00 p.m. the engine jumped the track again, but only one wheel went off the track so they were able to back it up onto the track again and continue on their way albeit a bit behind schedule.   

Cindy met 16 people today from Ryegate School and she thoroughly enjoyed talking with them.  Ryegate, Montana is northwest of Billings and there are 33 students in the whole school Kindergarten through 12^th grade.   There are 23 elementary students and 10 middle and high school students.  There are three seniors in this year’s class.  The middle and high school students along with six teacher chaperones left Ryegate on Thursday morning for a camping trip.  This is an annual event as the teachers think it helps build teamwork and comradery.  For the last couple of years they have camped in Yellowstone National Park, but this year they did a road trip to include Bannack, Elkhorn Hot Springs, Lewis and Clark Caverns, and Virginia/Nevada cities.  Since the school is so small, all of the teachers are required to teach two subjects or teach one subject at two schools.  Most of this information came from Ag teacher John Spizziri who teaches at two schools and also runs a ranch.  Cindy met the science and PE teacher who is also the head coach for track and cross country.  (Eight of the ten kids here today are members of the cross country team.)  There was a teacher here who teaches computers to all grades K-12 and also serves as librarian and activities director.  Most of the students live on farms and ranches and the furthest one away from school rides a bus 40 miles each way.    All Montana schools are required to teach Indian education and Ryegate School is given $1000 per year towards that end.  Some of the money for this trip was taken from that fund, but the teachers themselves foot much of the cost.  The kids in Ryegate will definitely not fall through any cracks in the education system there.   The picture below is of the librarian and Cedar who is a senior this year.   

We didn’t get off work until 7:00 p.m. and there were still piles of hail stones around town that looked like old snow.  When we got home there were lots of people about so we went out to eat again tonight in Ennis.  We arrived back at the Bonanza Inn at 8:15 p.m. and Chuck went to the rehearsal hall to watch some college football as he has been in football withdrawal lately. 



Ryegate Librarian and Cedar

Sunday, August 31, 2014

It was overcast this morning, but after a rainstorm about 1:00 p.m. it cleared up and was nice the rest of the day.  Chuck started his day at 8:00 a.m. at the train barn.  He and the local maintenance/restoration guy worked on fixing a wheel on the train.  After four hours they thought it was fixed well enough to operate again, but near the Virginia City depot it derailed again.  They got it back on the track, greased the problem area on the track and managed to keep it going for the rest of the day.   

Cindy and Joni worked together at the gold panning operation and it was one of the busiest days all season.  At one point we had 42 people panning for gold and 10 more waiting for a pan and a spot at a trough.  The most memorable customers came in early this morning.  It was a young couple and their two year old son.  They said that they were here gold panning six years ago on the Memorial Day holiday and the man planted a fake diamond ring under the dirt in his girlfriend’s gold pan.  When she found it in the pan he went over to her, got down on one knee, showed her the real diamond ring he had purchased and asked her to marry him.  Obviously she said yes, and this is the first time they have been back here since that momentous occasion. 

Chuck got off work at 5:30 p.m. and went home to take a shower as he was dirty and greasy from his train exertions.  He then picked Cindy up from work and we went to the Nevada City living history volunteer covered dish supper.  This is an annual year end event held to thank all the volunteers.  There were a few speeches, and after we ate the individual volunteers were presented with The President’s Volunteer Service Award.  There were approximately 50 volunteers in attendance and we ate on benches under the trees.  The volunteers were all still dressed in their 1863 clothing, and it was easy to imagine that we were at an old time dinner on the grounds.  Dan Thyer, the living history curator, was presented with a throw blanket which depicted people and scenes from some of the events this year.  The pictures were actually woven into the blanket and it was most impressive.

We got home around 8:00 p.m. and Chuck worked on packing up a few more belongings since our departure date looms near.   The living history people stayed busy until after 11:00 p.m. because a film crew from PBS came to film a portion of a documentary about the famous western artist, Charlie Russell.  Most of it was filmed in the saloon and a portion of it portrayed him exchanging sketches for drinks. 

 

Couple Engaged at River of Gold

 

Monday, September 1, 2014

 It was really nice weather today—sunny and in the seventies.  We worked together at the River of Gold and it was even busier than yesterday.  At one point we had about sixty people present, and there were not enough pans or troughs to go around so people were waiting in line. 

Chuck took his lunch break at 1:00 p.m. and went to see a hanging at Nevada City.  Every historical event portrayed this summer has been based on actual things that happened here in history, and Chuck thought that this was the best one yet. 

We got off work at 6:30 p.m. and went home to do some laundry and pack some more boxes.