Notes from the Road - Day 9

2/7/04 9:00pm Missoula, MT

Today, I left Bozeman to continue my trip. I had a lot of fun with Mark and his family, but it feels good to be back on the road. I guess it feels like progress.

After breakfast this morning, Mark and I drove around town looking for snow cables for my Corolla. They were only $25 at Wal-Mart, so I bought them there. I’m hoping I can get my money back for them when I’m back in Texas, since there’s no way they’d fit on my Eclipse, and I’m not likely to need them in Texas anyway. (Author’s note: Mission accomplished.)

Nicole let me do a load of laundry, and while I was waiting for it to dry, the four of them went for their weekly swim at the university’s heated pool. I finished watching the video about the voyage of the ship Endurance, the end of which I slept through last night, and packed. Before they left, they posed for pictures that won’t come out, because the stupid film didn’t wind correctly. When the disposable I bought for the park yesterday ran out, I tried to fix my camera and thought I’d succeeded, so I used it for some pictures in the park and today before I realized the film didn’t take.

I met them in town for lunch, and then hit the road. I wish I’d timed my trip so that I could have spent a weekend with them, but you can’t have everything, and I think they were ready for me to go. They were very kind and accommodating, typical of all my cousins. I intend to try harder to keep up with them in the future.

My next stop was Butte, Montana. It was a mining town in the 1800’s, but not for gold. The richest hill in the world, located here, produced tons of pure copper, and a rivalry between two early robber barons over the mining rights. Once all the pure copper was pulled out, the company created one of the largest open mines in the world, a huge layered crater where they dug out the dregs, low-quality ore, that lasted late into the 1900’s. Most of what they had to see wasn’t open until the summer, but I drove by the buildings anyway. Butte’s known for its historic landmarks, but it’s rotting away. It feels like a dying city, all of its once-proud red brick buildings crumbling to dust. New buildings are sparse, aside from the college campus at one end of town, and everywhere there are windows knocked out, potholes in the street, and more of those future ruins of America. Even on the interstate out here, I occasionally pass a farmhouse or ranch with all its windows and doors open so you can see all the way through it, where nature’s running its course, pulling the wood planks down one at a time. Butte feels like a ghost town, where the citizenry just hasn’t gotten the message yet.

It’s also where I discovered the film problem mentioned above. When I got to the last thing to see on my list, I knew I had to have used the entire roll of film, but the wheel kept turning. I started to rewind it, and sure enough, only a couple frames worth had to be rewound. Instead of throwing up my hands, I proceeded to go through all the landmarks I’d been to in reverse order and take their pictures again with a new roll of film. I told myself, “If this is the only roll I lose on the entire trip, I should count myself lucky”.

I only had about an hour of sunlight left, and that and the fact that I was going too fast to catch the signs kept me from stopping at any more historic markers on the way west to Missoula. It was at this point I realized I would eventually have to cross those mountains on my left that have been there since Colorado. Before this afternoon, it had been kind of abstract, but as the time approaches they keep looming bigger. One thing I do wish I’d stopped for was a strange, dark tower, about 200-300 feet tall, that I saw about halfway up the mountain. It was several miles away, but I could see it clearly and had to try hard to tear my eyes away from it. It couldn’t have been a lighthouse because I saw several of those, and they’re always on the top of the mountain, plus it was obvious that it didn’t have any light at the top. I could see a darker patch at the base, which looked like a huge entrance, and I couldn’t help but think of Orthanc from Lord of the Rings. As curious as I am about what it could have been, the unsolved mysteries are half the fun in a trip like this.

Even though it was growing darker all the time, in fact because of that, I saw quickly that Missoula was large. I think it may be the largest city I’ve seen since Denver. I wasn’t all that tired, so I went to the casino adjacent but not attached to the hotel I’m staying at. I won 10 cents and left. The room was maybe twenty by fifteen feet, packed with slot machines and chairs with a bar on one side. There were three or four other people there, and I can’t imagine a more depressing sight.

Where Butte is a small mountain town, Missoula is a big mountain city. The only things I haven’t seen yet are tall buildings, and that’s probably just because it’s night, and I’m on the edge of town that feeds off I-90 traffic. It seems even at these high elevations there are flat plains between mountain caps suitable for farming and industry. This land of ours is full of wonders, and secrets.