Joe's & Julia's Adventures: 8/1/12

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Montana - Digging for Crystals

Crystal Park is a very interesting place. For $5/ car you can dig all day in hopes of finding crystals. From the park's website:

"Quartz crystals are scattered liberally through the decomposed granite of the unique 220-acre site that's been reserved by the Forest Service for the popular hobby of rockhounding. Quartz crystals are hexagonal (six-sided) prisms, with a pointed "face" at each end. The crystals found at Crystal Park can be clear, cloudy, white, gray or purple. They can be smaller than your little finger or up to several inches in diameter. Gray, purple and other colors are caused by minerals within the quartz. Gray crystals are known as "smoky" and the highly prized purple ones are called amethyst. Single crystals are most common at Crystal Park."

The place looks like it's been bombed or perhaps inhabited by giant gophers

You pick a hole someone else started or decide where to dig your own "fresh" hole

Click on these images for an explanation of crystals

Fruits of her labors - our granddaughter would have dug & sorted all day

We met a man who has been coming from northern Montana to dig in Crystal Park for 19 years. He was wearing a necklace with a huge purple crystal he found there. It's amazing that nature can produce such straight lines and sharp angles. We found some very pretty ones - nothing huge, but nice sizes.

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Montana - Philipsburg

One of the joys of traveling state routes instead of the freeways is discovering places like Philipsburg. It's a gem of a town (sapphires are mined in the area). This little town is about the same age as Garnet and older than Coolidge, the two ghost towns we visited. Philipsburg has survived and is trying to thrive as a community with people and businesses.

On the way to and from Patrick's we ate at an “old fashioned” (just never modernized) soda fountain and café in Philipsburg. On our first stop we noticed a huge bison head hung on the wall of the café. When we were there just two days later the head was gone. The waitress said the owner of the head came to take it home with him to Wyoming. She didn’t know how it came to be “parked” on the wall of their restaurant in Montana when it belonged to someone in Wyoming.

In 1997 and again in 2000, Philipsburg was named a finalist

in the contest for Prettiest Painted Places in America

On the third or fourth day of our trip, our granddaughter commented that we'd had ice cream every day. That's what happens when you travel with grandparents who have a sweet tooth. Towards the end of the trip we may have skipped a day.

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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Montana - Coolidge Ghost Town

"Coolidge was …. the site of Montana's largest and final silver development. … As early as 1919, the community of Coolidge had begun to thrive and at this time work was beginning on the mine tunnel. …

By 1922 the town had both telephone service and electricity provided by a power line running from Divide over the hill to Coolidge. With more families moving to Coolidge, the school district was organized in October 1918. A post office was established in January of 1922. Residents were entertained at the pool hall, or skiing and sledding during the winter.

By the time the mine tunnel and operation were ready to go, the national economy took a downturn and silver prices plummeted. In 1923, the whole operation had gone into receivership. W.R. Allen lost his personal fortune and control of the property. In 1927 a Montana Power Company dam failed and water washed out twelve miles and several bridges of Boston-Montana's railroad. The school district was abandoned and in 1932 the post office was discontinued…." More here

This ghost town was started later than many of the other Montana ghost towns we've read about. Coolidge is being allowed to go back to nature. No attempts are being made to preserve or restore the buildings (as they are at Garnet).

wonderful colors in some of the wood

Many of the buildings appeared to have dirt on the roofs -

extra insulation for Montana winters?

The school collapsed into the river

These tree roots grew around two fairly large rocks -

a reminder that we can "grow" our way around adversity

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Montana - Grand Coulee Dam

On our way home from visiting family in Montana, we stopped at Coulee Dam, Washington to see the Grand Coulee Dam.

About the dam - "Grand Coulee Dam, one of the largest concrete structures in the world ... After decades of planning, it was built over an 8-year period, starting in 1933, as a depression relief project.  Grand Coulee is a hydroelectric dam, and part of the Columbia River Hydro System, a series of 14 dams harnessing the energy of the mighty Columbia River. ... Grand Coulee Dam is the largest U.S. producer of hydro-electric energy... power that is supplied to British Columbia and hundreds of towns and cities in the western states. Grand Coulee Dam also provides water that irrigates over 500,000 acres of eastern Washington... Source

We stayed at the Columbia River Inn

"After Work" by Rich Beyer

Notice the dam in the background

There are two sculptures by this artist in Kirkland

Storyteller and Carousel

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That evening we walked across the street to the visitor’s center for the dam to watch a half hour laser show that was projected on the dam. The “narrator” of the story was the Columbia River. The river tells the story of how and why the Grand Coulee Dam was built.

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Grand Coulee - ancient riverbed in Washington. Coulee = a dry stream valley; a long steep-sided ravine

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Montana - Philippsburg

Montana - Garnet Ghost Town

Montana - Coolidge Ghost Town

Montana - Digging for Crystals

Montana - Family

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Montana - Garnet Ghost Town

Garnet is billed as Montana's best preserved ghost town

"In 1898, somewhere around 1,000 people called Garnet their home.... By 1905, the gold was playing out and only 150 people remained. A raging fire in 1912 and hardships on the home front during World War I sent most of the remaining miners, wives and children packing. Garnet slowly slipped into obscurity, despite a brief renewal of mining in the Great Depression of the 1930s." from Garnet's website