Leaving Missoula

 Leaving the place we've worked for 5 or 6 months fills us with mixed emotions. We are excited to be on the road again to new adventures, and sad to leave a happy place and the wonderful people we've met there. Here we are, pulling out of the entrance to the KOA.

 

 On Interstate I-90 heading west towards the Idaho border—the mountains in Montana are majestic!

 

 I love these runners in the downtown Riverfront Park in Spokane.

 

 The tower at Riverfront Park. I don't know if this was built as part of the 1974 World's Fair. I attended that event but don't remember if the tower was there prior to the construction of the Fair. It is a lovely setting.

 

 Washington at last! The wheatfields heading west towards Ritzville. No more mountains till we get home to Wenatchee.

Saying Good-Bye

Saying good-bye to friends we've made over the summer is always somewhat sad, but also it's exciting to think about the new adventures we will all be having on our way to the next place! Here are our immediate neighbors hooking up their motorhome to their new storage trailer. That's a long, long rig!

Here we have Keith, Elana, Andre, and Roger. God willing, we will meet again somewhere along the road!

Stumps to Bears

 

After listening to a chain saw for awhile we looked out of our window to see what was happening. The park recently had to cut down a ponderosa pine that had gotten diseased. They left a 4 foot stump and I wondered why they didn't put a potted plant on top to make it look nicer. Now I know why. A chain saw artist had been hired to transform the stump into a work of art.

I wish now I had been there from the beginning, to see him cut away everything that didn't look like a bear. He used a blow-torch to blacken parts of the bear and then smoothed it out.

Looking good!

The finished product, with a solar lamp for the overnight RV guests lucky enough to get this spot.

Around Missoula

As our time here grows to a close, I wanted to get more photos of some of the outstanding buildings and sights around Missoula. This first photo is of the Missoula County Courthouse, constructed between 1908 and 1910. Its dome is visible for a long distance.

Probably the most noticeable landmark is the old St. Francis Xavier Church. The church was built in 1889, the year Montana became a state, and is noted for its graceful steeple, paintings and stained glass. The paintings were done by a brother of the Society of Jesus, a kitchen helper, who painted them in his spare time and turned out to be a master. This same man painted the inside of the St. Ignatius Mission, near Ronan, pictured in an earlier post "Trip to Glacier National Park".

Here is the First Presbyterian Church, where we attend. You may have seen the movie "A River Runs Through It". The founder and builder of this church, Dr. John Norman Maclean, was the father of the man who wrote the book, later made into a movie starring Tom Skerritt, Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer. This year is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the church, and a stone monument honoring Dr. Maclean will be put in place this fall on the church grounds. We've enjoyed being a part of this large, flourishing congregation.

Missoula is called "The Garden City". One reason is that the streets are lined with large trees, mostly deciduous varieties. These are most prominent in the university district, many of the old downtown areas, and along the river. It is a beautiful sight, and I can only imagine what it must look like in the fall when the leaves turn.

I couldn't resist this one! A street named after my husband! We barely noticed it beneath the leaves.

Trivia

I put up a picture on an earlier post of a taffy shop in Keystone SD where we stopped often to enjoy our favorite candy in the Black Hills. Now we have found, and visited twice, a shop that sells 58 kinds of licorice, in Arlee MT, which is about 25 miles from Missoula on the highway to Glacier Nat'l Park. Great licorice, so much to choose from! OOh! Black teeth!

We continue to look for the biggest "doodoos". Traffic was busy on this highway to Glacier, slowed by much construction, so we couldn't stop and get out to holler in this doodoo.

We couldn't figure out why this edifice was right here. Doesn't seem to make sense. We thought maybe it was going to be one of those overpasses for animals that we've been hearing about. Somehow they get the critters to cross the highway on the overpass instead of risking their lives on the road. Maybe that's what this is, still lacking the fill on the side where you see the cars. Just a guess.

Contrasting Emotions!

It's been awhile since I posted, so I thought I'd just include a couple of very contrasting photos. Our poor little Focus has suffered another injury in the same place twice! The last crash was 16 months ago, in Wenatchee. This time, in Missoula, I ran into a pick-up who didn't give right-of-way in an intersection. No one was hurt except my car. It'll soon be fixed as good as new!

This is too precious not to share. My beautiful red-headed, freckle-faced granddaughter is holding her pet rooster, Ernie. Wish I could be there!

Grant-Kohrs Ranch

We had an outing to Deer Lodge, Montana where we visited the Grant-Kohrs Ranch, a National Historic Site. Here is our granddaughter standing by a tipi on the property.

From the website, "The Grant, Kohrs, Bielenberg, and Warren families tell the story of Western ranching, from the herds trailed into the valley in th 1850s, to the last cattle sold in 1988. They represent the cattle industry from its inception through modern times."

"Wide open spaces, the hard-working cowboy, his spirited cow pony, and vast herds of cattle are among the strongest symbols of the American West. Once the headquarters of a 10 million acre cattle empire, Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site is a working cattle ranch that preserves these symbols and commemorates the role of cattlemen in American history."

Here at this chuckwagon we had a cup of "cowboy coffee", made in a big pot over the campfire. Delicious! We discovered this chuckwagon reproduction was built in East Wenatchee WA and transported to Deer Lodge.

A flower among flowers! This garden was next to the very large original ranch house, built 150 years ago.