Zoe Cat misses Dad

So for those of you who have never heard my story about our Zoe Cat, I will share.

When we decided to bring Zoe Cat with us, Jamie brought her to me and she brought a baggie full of food until I could get to the store the next morning. At bed time I put a hand full of food in her bowl and trundled off to bed.  About 3:00 in the morning Zoe Cat wakes me up and has her baggie of food with her.  I got up and stumbled out to her food dish to find she had cleaned her bowl, so I filled her bowl and went back to bed.  The next night the same thing happened and ever since we have kept a handful of food in a baggie for her to haul around. 

 

Anytime she brings it to bed and I don't wake up she will nip at the back of my neck and pull my hair until I wake up and give her a couple pieces of her food. 

 

Zoe Cat also plays with very strange toys. Last Christmas I bought her a Christmas stocking filled with stuffed mice, balls with bells, and little toys with feathers, she has never touched one of them. Her all time favorite toy is a straw that dad gave her.  She also loves to play with the little green stoppers that Starbucks puts in your lid so you don't spill. 

 

The only time she ever meows is just after we go to bed.  She drags her toys off her "kitty entertainment pedestal" and throws them around and meows.

 

Anyway now that you know about Zoe Cat, on with the original story.  The night before last we were talking to my dad on Skype and Zoe Cat heard his voice and went nuts!! She was pacing and meowing and looked like she was looking for Dad. When she couldn't find him she crawled up on the back of the chair I was sitting on and started nipping at my neck and biting my shoulder.  The entire time we talked she was just acting totally crazy.  I think she really misses him.

 

 

 



Idaho Falls, Idaho

When we got to Idaho Falls we spent the first night at Walmart.  Jim as usual was busy checking out the surrounding area with the binoculars when he noticed what looked like an interesting sculpture so after dinner we took a walk to check it out.  The sculpture sets in the middle of a roundabout.  The whole area was kind of cool with the neat office buildings and the fancy roundabout.

 

 

 

 

  When we got back to the MH we visited with a very nice couple from Saskatchewan. They spend most summers here in the states and were currently on their way to Jackson Hole. They are like us in that they do most of their camping in free spots although it sounded like they do a lot of Walmart parking where we try to find free camping in more out the way areas. We stayed at Walmart that first night then took the jeep the next morning and located and planned our route to the Idaho Falls South Tourist park, where we planned to stay for a couple of days.

 

 

It was a pretty park on the edge of the Snake River.  As I was getting parked I happened to notice a drive in movie screen right smack in front of us.

 

Later that night the movie came on and we had a perfect view.  Took us a while to find the radio station broadcasting the sound, but Jim did eventually find it so we watched two movies.

I have to say that park was the strangest place we have stayed.  The web site where I found out about the park said there was a fair amount of late night teenage traffic. I’m not sure which part of the park they had stayed at, but the traffic we saw was not teenagers.  I think it may have been drug traffic? We saw a couple of cars multiple times parking at the edge of the park and pretty soon another car would pull up, they would both get in one car or the other and pretty quickly they would get back in their own cars and drive away. One car in particular was there at least a dozen times per day.  Even with that going on we felt safe staying there. There were lots of other people and the area was well lit.

 

 

 

 

 

First Days in Idaho

Our first day in Idaho we went to visit the opal mines in Spencer, Idaho. Unfortunately you can’t go up to the mines. You only get to see pictures. Bummer!  The shop we went into is a family run business. The husband does the mining and processes the opals.  The wife mounts the stones and runs the shop.  They had several really unique pink opals that were gorgeous. They also had pieces of rock that contained opal in its natural state.  Neither Jim nor I had any idea what natural opal looked like.   We bought a piece to bring home with us.

 

 The lady was very informative, taking time to explain the whole process.  In a nut shell opal starts out as a liquid and ends up a solid when it hardens in the cracks and crevices of rock.  Another thing we learned is that not all opals in jewelry are solid stones. Many opals are what they call triplets. They take a thin layer of opal, back it with a thin layer of basalt, and then it is covered with a very thin layer of glass. I had no idea! I always thought of an opal along the same lines as any of the other precious stones, more like a solid piece of something, rather than a thin vein running through rock.

 

Our second day we spent looking for rocks in Dubois.  The lady at the opal place had told us that people had been finding sun stones inside pieces of pumas in the Dubois area.

 

We drove all over the Dubois area looking for pumas.  The only thing we ended up finding that was in any related to volcanoes was what looked like a lava tube that had collapsed.

 

Twin Bridges Montana and on into Idaho.

From Twin Bridges we drove to Dillon Montana. We parked the MH and took a walk around town.  There were a lot of neat old houses and a cool statue at the visitor center.

 

Sunday we headed out of Dillon and on to Clark Canyon Reservoir were we stayed several days just taking walks and driving the back roads in the jeep.

 

Clark Canyon Reservoir

Looking at the MH home from the far side of the reservoir

 

 





 

Another view of the reservoir

 

 

 We also fed the local birds and then wondered if they were going to wait around forever for more to eat. Zoe cat loved that, she sat in the window sniffing the air, with her tail swishing, making a chattering noise for about an hour.

 





The birds awaiting more treats

 

Zoe cat thinking the birds would make a nice treat

 

 

Our second day at Clark Canyon just after noon the wind picked up and by about 3:00 the smoke from a forest fire near Challis, Idaho had drifted in.

 

Our first night in Idaho we spent in the woods near Stoddard Creek.  I think the camera man was sloughing off because we ended up without any pictures except the two I took while we were driving around in the jeep.

Two antelope

 

Two antelope making their get away. I don't think they wanted to be photographed

 

 

Virginia City, Montana Friday July 26,2013

 

Main Street in Virginia City

The livery stable was full of old time equipment and vehicles

Picture of inside the telephone company

 

One of the old stores 

 

Clothing store with lots of original merchandise

 



 

Old newspaper office

More of the newspaper office

Mercantile

 

Interior of one of the old houses

 

This building is currently being remodeled. Love the ceiling.

 



 

Local Barber shop

 

 





Original old buildings on the edge of town.

 

 

 

Twin Bridges at sunset

 

After leaving Virginia City we drove on to Twin Bridges and spent the night parked beside a creek of the city maintained "rest area", that was more like a park.

Bozeman

We spent about a week in Bozeman. The first day we arrived we went out a visited Uncle Gordie and Aunt Jo at thier place on the Madison River.  I was shocked at the site that greeted us, as I had not heard about the fire in 2012 that almost got their place. It left the house and out buildings but burned all the trees on the property.

Gordie's Land with burnt trees

Road along the Madison River

 

We spent a lot of time with Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Bob. Mostly evenings as Bob is pretty busy with his business.

 

View from Aunt Bonnie's driveway, where we parked for the week.  Thanks Uncle Bob and Aunt Bonnie.

 

 

 

 I went and visited my Grandma Rhett and am so glad I did, as she passed away just days after my visit. It was actually a blessing as during her life she was so busy and on the go all the time. The last several years must have seemed hard for her being unable to do all the things she loved.

She will be missed. Love you Grandma.

 

We took a drive up Bridger Canyon. That is where my great-great Grandparents settled when moving to Montana. It was as pretty as ever, but with a lot more houses on what used to be all ranch land.  Took a picture of the old Ham cabin.  It seems to be holding up for ever, yet I still remember 45 or so years ago my cousins and I being told not to play in it because it would fall down around our heads.

 

 

Two pictures from up Bridger Canyon.

 

 

 

 

A stop at Little BigHorn

Well we are out of Montana and once again have internet access, so I will back up and tell all about the trip from Wyoming to Bozeman.

Just after crossing into Montana we stopped at the site of the Little Big Horn. Both Jim and I love historical things, so this was an excellent stop.

Their is a military grave yard at the site and I couldn't hardly believe it but we found the grave of the Lt John Jenness  I mentioned in an earlier post.

 

Near the actual monument where the body of Custer was located there are a lot of head stones, as this is where the main battle took place. There have been headstones placed at each location where remains have been found. When you stand at the top of the hill you can look all around and see the headstones, it sort of gives you a better understanding of how the battle played out.

 

We walked along a trail that led down the hill to a ravine that some of the soldiers had been headed towards and all along the trail are headstones. Most of them are inscribed with just the words "US Soldier". It made me a little sad that so many men were buried without their name on the headstone for us to remember them by.

We saw very few Indian headstones, thankfully they were inscribed with their names.

 

They even had a headstone for the horses that died in battle.

The last thing we looked at was a monument in honor of the Indians. This is just a small section of the circular monument that caught Jim's eye.  Inside the circle there was information about the tribes that fought to defend their way of life.

 

It was all interesting but rather sad.