Hello Everyone,
Greetings from the Windy City! I pulled into Chicago yesterday and had such a fabulous day that I decided I’d stick around one more day. It’s been a really great week out here on the road. I spent the first part of the week hanging out with my family in West Bend, catching up on a lot of years’ worth of stories. Leaving there, I hit up the Lake Michigan shoreline for a night and then headed back to Milwaukee before starting south towards Chicago. The cooler weather continues to be a joyful presence in my daily life and I have been very appreciative that my fridge can keep up better now, allowing me to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies. It hasn’t been too busy a week, but let me catch you up on where I’ve been and what I’ve been up to.
After I finished up this post last week, I headed back to my cousin’s house and we all piled into one car and headed down to Milwaukee for the Brewers’ baseball game. I remember a lot of Brewers games from my childhood, some at the old County Stadium there in Milwaukee, but many of which we listened to on the radio with Bob Ueker doing the play-by-play. I’ve been to their new stadium, American Family Field, a couple of times before and it’s a really nice baseball stadium. We had nice seats along the right field line and even though the Brewers lost, I really enjoyed being there.
I spent most of Thursday just hanging around in West Bend. I wanted to go to the history museum there, but it didn’t look like it had been open in a while. I ended up just wandering around downtown and enjoying the nice weather, reading my book and relaxing. In the afternoon, I met up with my uncle at the Saloon Royale on Main Street.
Hello Everyone!
It’s been a wonderful week here in southern Wisconsin and I’ve spent most of it among family and friends. The weather is so much cooler here with the high today supposed to be 76°, and life for me is always better in cooler temperatures. It still feels like summer, but not summer on the surface of the sun. This may have been the week that really saved my summer from slipping away as it’s been full of boat trips, barbecues and even a wonderful day at the Wisconsin State Fair. I haven’t traveled too far or done too much in the way of sightseeing or exploring, but I’ve laughed a lot and sometimes that’s the best thing you can do with your time.
After leaving you last week, I headed out into Madison and made a stop at Forest Hill Cemetery to visit the grave of Eston Hemings Jefferson. Eston was the youngest son of Sally Hemings who was an enslaved woman of mixed race who spent much of her life at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia. DNA evidence from 1998 shows that Eston’s father was a Jefferson and while any number of people have tried to argue that it wasn’t our third president himself, there can be no definitive proof one way or the other. Thomas Jefferson’s documents show that he was present at Monticello when Eston was conceived, and Eston’s brother Madison stated during his lifetime that his mother had told them that Jefferson was their father. Of the more than 600 people enslaved at Monticello during his lifetime, Jefferson only freed a handful in his will. Eston and Madison were among them and all of those he freed were related to Sally Hemings. Eston lived with his mother in Virginia until her death and then moved to Ohio and on to Madison, where he lived the rest of his life. He and his wife both passed as White and their two sons served on the Union side during the Civil War. It was interesting to visit the grave of a man who was likely the youngest son of Thomas Jefferson and to think about his life. Forest Hill is also the site of the northernmost Confederate cemetery in the country, as nearby Camp Randall (now the site of the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium) served as a POW camp during the Civil War.
Hello Everyone,
Greetings from America’s Dairyland. When I left you last week, I had no plan to be in Wisconsin quite this quickly, but once I got rolling, I just kept rolling. I took advantage of the cool of the early mornings to drive and then tried to make the most of my afternoons wherever I landed. Even though the name of the game this week was to drive towards home, it’s actually been a pretty great week on the road. I was sad to pass through South Dakota so quickly, but I will definitely be back when it’s cooler and I’m ready to really dive into it. Temperature-wise, it’s significantly cooler out here, but once I crossed the Missouri River the humidity started to increase with each passing mile. But it’s still cooler at the end of the day and that is making a huge difference after too many hot weeks out west. Now that I’m back on the eastern side of the Mississippi River and now that my brain isn’t frying every time I step outside, I feel like I’m in a better place mentally. My van did exceptionally well this week and it seemed much happier to be moving in the cool of the morning as well. All told, it was smooth sailing. While I didn’t get to see as much of Montana, Wyoming or South Dakota as I had hoped and planned for this summer, I was grateful for what I did see and will return another time for the rest. Now that I’m somewhere cooler, I will be able to slow down for a bit and see some friends and family before I make that last run for home. It may be cooler here, but it’s still blazing hot in D.C. so while I’m headed that way I’m not in a huge rush to get there at the moment. So let’s get into what I did see and do this last week as I made my way east.
When I left you last week, I was in the old coal mining town of Gillette, Wyoming. Gillette is not Wyoming’s biggest town and certainly not its prettiest, but it was nice enough for the night and the people were friendly. I had booked a Harvest Hosts stay at the Big Lost Meadery right in the heart of downtown Gillette and it was an excellent place to stay. Wednesday was bingo night, so I settled in to enjoy a couple of glasses of mead and try my luck. There weren’t too many people there, but there were obviously some regulars who come to play every week. One group had a very long basset hound which was absolutely adorable. I didn’t win a single game, but I enjoyed being there. After they wound up for the night, I wandered around downtown for a bit, but there wasn’t much happening so I called it a night and got a good night’s sleep.
Hello Everyone!
Greetings from the prairies of eastern Wyoming. I have officially turned my headlights east and I have begun my long journey home. It’s been a fascinating time here in the Rocky Mountain states and I would love to keep exploring for the rest of the year, but between the crazy heat of the last month and the issues I’ve had with my van this summer, I have decided it’s time for me to go home for a while. When I get there I’ll be able to sort some things out, regroup and get ready to get back to it again in 2027. It’s not been an easy decision, but I think it’s a good one and I’m starting to wrap my head around it at this point. Waking up super early so I can drive somewhere and then spend all day either inside or sitting under a tree is not a lot of fun and even though the summer is waning, it looks like another month of heat could be ahead. The work I needed to have done on Shadow Catcher this summer highlighted how old she is getting and how hard it will be to keep getting parts and also just how far away from home I am in a 30 year old vehicle. Even though she’s been running really well for the last few weeks, I think it’s time for her to find a new home with someone who needs and expects less from her than I do going forward. So I have slowly begun my eastward journey with no plans to speed across the country, but with every intention of getting there in the next few weeks. That said, I’ve had a really interesting week here in northern Wyoming and southern Montana exploring small western towns and some of the battlefields of the Plains Indian Wars. The heat broke on Monday and I have done my best to make the most of the last few days with cooler conditions to run in. I’ve certainly slept better, that’s for sure. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
After leaving you last week, I finished up a few things and then strolled down the road and checked into the historic Greybull Hotel for the night. The Greybull is a charming small-town hotel which was clean, comfortable, very reasonably priced and right in the middle of town. I plunked my stuff down and cooled off for a minute and then wandered down the street to the tiny Greybull Museum. The museum was really small, but had a lot of cool rocks and fossils from the area and some nice historic artifacts from the town as well. From there, I popped next door to CC’s pizza for dinner and then went for a beer at the Smokehouse Saloon. On Wednesdays they were charging 25¢ for a draft beer or $1.50 for a pitcher. I showed tremendous restraint by limiting myself to just one pitcher, but I had paid for a nice hotel room which I wanted to get back to enjoy it, which is exactly what I did. It was quite nice to relax on my couch, in the air conditioning, and watch some TV for a while. I know that is something many, many people do every night, but for me it was a luxury.
In June of 1867 a small group of soldiers from Fort Bridger, who were in the area to help protect the overland trails coming through South Pass, decided to try a little prospecting during their down time. They came up lucky and soon a small gold rush brought 2,000 people up the mountain, and South Pass City was born. The mines and the town would both go through a series of booms and busts over the next 90 or so years until, in 1968, the whole town was bought by the state of Wyoming and was designated a state park. The Carissa Mine was bought in 2003 and added to the park. Extensive restoration of the town makes it seem as if the citizens just left yesterday, leaving the store fully stocked and half drunk beers on the bars. The Carissa Mine and Mill are incredible to see as not only have the buildings been restored and stabilized, but much of the machinery is in working order. I had a great visit to South Pass City and found the whole place fascinating. They had a great display outlining South Pass City’s role in giving Wyoming women the right to vote back in 1869 and it was also home to Esther Hobart Morris, the country’s first female Justice of the Peace. You can even get a cold sarsaparilla in one of the saloons. I hope you enjoy these photos from old South Pass City, a beautifully restored Wyoming gold rush town.
The Northern Pacific Railway came to southern Montana back in 1882 and the town of Livingston was born. Named after a railway stockholder, Livingston slowly grew to its current population of about 8,000 people. In the early days, it was marketed by the railroad as the “Gateway to Yellowstone” and they even laid down a branch line which ran from the main line all the way down to Gardiner on the park’s northern border. Livingston is still a popular gateway to Yellowstone, although you have to drive there now. The town maintains a lot of its historic character with beautiful old buildings, classic neon and awesome painted advertisements and ghost signs. I arrived in Livingston during a heat wave, ended up sticking around for a couple of days and really enjoyed it. There are some nice museums and a lot of great bars and restaurants. I hope you enjoy these photos from Livingston, Montana’s historic “Gateway to Yellowstone”
Hello Everyone!
It’s been another hot week out here on the road in central Wyoming. July is historically the hottest month in both Wyoming and Montana, but this summer has brought record temperatures to both. Daytime temperatures are once again nearing 100° out here, but thankfully it’s been cooling off enough in the evenings to sleep in my van. I’ve been up and out early most days to get my driving done before it gets ridiculous out and have definitely been trying to scout out some shade whenever possible. Despite the heat, I’ve had an interesting week out here exploring some of central Wyoming’s small towns and what they have to offer. I also spent some time on the Wind River Reservation this week, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapahoe Indians. Wyoming is the least populated state in the country and it’s definitely not hard to imagine that out here. Big lettered towns on the map are relative and mean that these are big towns for Wyoming, but not necessarily big towns. With only around 588,000 people in the entire state, Wyoming’s whole population is slightly more than that of Baltimore, Maryland and slightly less than Memphis, Tennessee. I definitely enjoy the small towns and the wide open spaces of the Cowboy State, and I’ve been happy to see so many new-to-me places this week.
After leaving you last week I headed out into the night there in Jackson. I’ve certainly seen a lot of changes in Jackson over the last 25 years since I first visited, and every year it gets a little more L.A. and a little less Wyoming. The place that continues to roll with all of the changes is the infamous Million Dollar Cowboy Bar right there on the town square. The Cowboy Bar opened its batwing doors back in 1937 and has always been a central gathering place for the town. It’s decorated with burled wood beams, taxidermied animals and cowboy relics and even has saddles in place of barstools. With live music every night, I’ve never been there when it wasn’t busy. On any given night, you’re likely to find locals and tourists, cowboys, rafting guides, drifters and beauty queens shooting pool, shooting whisky and tapping along to the band. This night was no different and I enjoyed a few cold ones and a few tunes while I chatted to some folks from Charlotte, N.C. who were in town for a wedding. Long live the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar – may it continue to evolve with the town and somehow still remain exactly the same as the first time I walked into it.
Hello Everyone,
I have had a wonderful week out here in the Rocky Mountains, having spent most of the week in Yellowstone National Park. I didn’t put a lot of miles on my van, but put in right around 50 miles on my hiking boots which has been exhausting but exhilarating as well. I’ve spent a decent chunk of my life in Yellowstone, having guided tours there for over 25 years, but it’s still nice to be there. I also know that I’ll be back in Yellowstone in the future on the company dime, so there really wasn’t much need to visit any of my favorite spots (which are also, not surprisingly, major highlights of the park). Instead I wanted to do some hikes that have been on my radar for a while and really get into the backcountry and explore some new corners of Yellowstone I’ve never been to before. The result was a fairly quiet and peaceful week in a spectacular setting, despite it being the highest of the high season out there. I’ve always told anyone who was interested that if you get tired of the crowds in Yellowstone, walk a half mile down a trail from any parking lot and you’ll find a much quieter place. Walk 10 miles down a trail and apparently you won’t see hardly anyone at all. Aside from the hundred or so mosquito bites covering my body and a few raw patches on my feet, I’m feeling great. My mind is clear, my body feels strong and healthy and I was able to declutter a lot of things in my head this week. So it’s been a pretty great week on the road and on the trails out there in Yellowstone.
After finishing up this post last week, I went out to have a couple of beers in Livingston while the sun headed towards the horizon and the day cooled off a bit. I went back to Katabatic Brewing Company for a beer and ended up chatting with a man about my age who was from Chicago. He was traveling through and we had a nice conversation about where he had been and where he was headed. After the brewery closed, we went next door to the Murray Bar and continued talking. There was another man at the end of the bar who joined the conversation and he turned out to be from Tacoma Park, Maryland, just outside of my hometown of Washington D.C. It was really nice to be able to connect with someone from home for a bit. He was a teacher on his summer break and was heading west to visit his dad in Santa Cruz. He had just bought a new car, a Hyundai Santa Cruz and I found it quite amusing that he was driving his Santa Cruz to Santa Cruz. He was on his way to Yellowstone the next day and I was happy to point him in some good directions so that he could make the most of his time there. It was a nice evening and very nice to make both of their acquaintances.
Hello Everyone,
It’s been a hot week here in Montana. Two weeks ago it was snowing in Butte and two days ago we were hitting record high temperatures across the state. It’s been dangerously hot out, especially since I have no air conditioning in my van. I’ve been holed up here in Livingston for a few days and spent the last two nights in a nice, air conditioned hotel room. It was a nice break from the road and from the heat, but it’s frustrating to feel penned in and not be able to go exploring. It’s been a tough summer so far, and the heat is not making things any easier. I’m much better at dealing with the cold than dealing with the heat and my van is the same. That being said, I did get out and see some cool places this week and I’m very grateful to have some friends to hang out with this week, as that really makes a big difference in my morale. The heat should break in the next day or two, and then hopefully it will be a little easier going.
So after I finished up this post last week, I meandered down to the little local history museum there in Great Falls. It was a cute little museum with some interesting exhibits on the history of Great Falls, one called Spirits of Cascade County: Bootlegging, Bureaucracy, and Breweries, and one about feisty Montana women (their words, not mine). There were some cool bronze sculptures and some neat miniature building models as well. They also had a really interesting exhibit in what must have been some sort of event space on the historic Ozark Club, a black owned nightclub which had opened in Great Falls the day that prohibition ended and lasted until the owner’s death. After a nice visit to the museum, I did return to the Sip ‘n Dip Lounge to watch the mermaid in her pool behind the bar. Their tiki drinks were not very good, but the show was fun and I really enjoyed being there. Leaving the lounge, I wandered around downtown a bit and then called it a night.
Butte began as a gold and silver boomtown in the 1860s, but it would be copper that would earn it the designation “The Richest Hill on Earth”. The townsite rests atop one of the most extensive and valuable copper deposits ever found, and when electricity was becoming more widespread around the country, Butte was supplying the copper for the wiring. There’s a very good chance that my family’s home, all the way across the country in Washington D.C., was wired using Butte copper. The city would grow as the mines expanded, with some reaching over a mile down into the earth. Miners would flock from all over the world to work those mines, creating one of the most diverse cities in the west during its heyday. Along with the miners came thousands of other people to run and work in the shops, saloons, restaurants and brothels that grew up alongside the mines. The population would grow to at least 60,000 by the 1920s, making it the biggest city between Chicago and San Francisco. As the mining process became more mechanized, Butte’s population would begin to decline and Butte today is home to only about 35,000 people.
Butte is a wonderful, old city with a ton of history and a million reminders of the city it once was. It’s one of the most photogenic cities I’ve ever been to and one I always look forward to returning to. I love Casagranda’s for an old-school steakhouse experience, Maloney’s is a classic bar and John’s pork chop sandwiches are always a treat. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Butte, Montana - The Richest Hill on Earth.
Hello Everyone,
You’ll be very happy to hear that I am no longer in Missoula. I have left the mountains entirely for the moment and am writing to you this week from Great Falls, Montana on the edge of the Great Plains. It’s definitely different to see flat landscapes stretching out towards the horizon after so many months in the mountains. I do plan to loop back into the Rockies in a couple of weeks, but for now it’s just good to be on the road again and moving. It’s been a pleasant week even though I haven’t gotten too far from where I started. I spent much of the week split between Helena, Montana’s capital city, and Great Falls. Shadow Catcher is driving so much smoother than it was last week and I’m really glad I took it back in for another look. Great Falls is a great place to give it a good test, because the streets in town are absolutely terrible. I’m really hoping that the rest of the summer will be smooth sailing from here.
After I finished up this post last week, I heard from Kerry at Rocky Mountain Diesel who was taking care of my van. He told me that while they had rebuilt my drive shaft the week prior, there was still something wrong with it and it needed to go back to the shop that had rebuilt it. He told me that I could pick up my van for the night and that they would get on it first thing in the morning. It was pretty late at that point, so I picked it up and headed just down the road to Highlander Brewing Company. Highlander is a perfect example of something I’m surprised I don’t see more often in places. Highlander Beer is an historic Missoula brand first brewed in 1910 and named (with full permission) after the New York Highlanders baseball team (later renamed the Yankees). Highlander was brewed right there in Missoula until 1964 when the brewery was demolished during the construction of Interstate 90 and the beer went dormant. The branding was purchased in 2015 by a start-up Missoula Brewing Company. While they don’t brew the original Highlander beer, they sure capitalize on the name and the nostalgia with a brewery chock-full of old bottles, signs and memorabilia. The taproom is beautifully situated along Grant Creek, the beers they are brewing are pretty good and overall it’s a wonderful place to be. It’s also a quiet and easy place to park overnight which was an added bonus.
The United States is full of wonderful place names, and Anaconda, Montana is definitely one of the coolest names out there. Anaconda was founded by Copper King Marcus Daly as the location for a copper smelter to process the copper coming from the mines at nearby Butte. A smelter needs water and Butte just didn’t have a dependable enough water source to make one feasible. Daly originally called his town “Copperopolis”, but that name was already taken by another town in Montana so it was changed to Anaconda after the mountain range it is nestled in. When Montana became a state in 1889, Anaconda was in a fierce competition with Helena to become the new state capital, losing by only 2,000 votes.
Anaconda is a charming little city of just under 10,000 people. The locals are friendly and welcoming and the town itself has some really beautiful features. There are some beautiful historic homes west of downtown and some delightful bars and restaurants (don’t miss Gallicano's Pizzeria while you’re there). The Deer Lodge County Courthouse is awesome, and the Washoe Theatre is also not to be missed. I was truly surprised by how great of a town Anaconda is and I’ll definitely be back in the future. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Anaconda, a true diamond in the rough.
