Back To Montana

We left Idaho after a great visit with friends and drove back north to Fairmont RV Park near Anaconda, Montana. Anaconda was home to one of the largest copper mines in the USA and today you can see the remnants of the slag from the mine in a huge hill just as you enter town and the smoke stack from the smelting furnaces. 

I played The Old Works golf course again, as it is one of my favorites. It is a Jack Nicklaus design and was built on the sight of the old copper mine. I wrote about it on the blog in the August 2014 post when I played it with my cousin Mike and Dave Welsh. One difference this time playing the course was the many Marmots living in the surrounding hills and eating the grass on the course. I also played the course here at the Hot Springs Resort and almost parred the over 600 yard par 5 fifth hole, just lipping out a 10 foot putt. One afternoon Josie and I went to the hot spring pool and sat around in the refreshing 103 degree waters. When we got ready to leave a very strange thing had happened. Someone had stolen my Hawaiian shirt. Our guess is that someone thought there might be my phone or money in the shirt. Or maybe they just really liked the shirt. I reported it to the pool office but they did not seem too surprised. I found out later by reading reviews of the place this happens all the time. We suggest not going there.

Anaconda is home to a great old time supper club the Barcaly II. I was introduced to it a few years ago by our friend Dave Welsh when we were in town to play The Old Works. The steaks and seafood are top quality and it comes with a salad, relish tray, cheese and meat platter, baked potato, raviolis, spaghetti and ice cream for dessert. Josie was very happy with her giant prawns served lobster style. One afternoon we drove over to Butte and had a nice dinner at a local place. Butte is also a copper town and the mine comes right down to the edge of town. There are old parts of the mine all over town. Butte is also the burial place for Evel Knievel. It seems he had his head stone made right before he attempted his famous jump of the Snake River, just in case he didn't make it out alive. Of course he lived and went onto live 30 more years. 

On our final day in the area, we drove 40 miles to the town of Phillipsburg, Montana to see a play at the old McDonald Opera House, which was built in 1891. We saw a very good production of  "Unnecessary Farce" a comical "who done it". While in town we visited the Sweet Place, a famous candy store that was filled to the ceiling with great candies, fudge, taffy and chocolates, all sold by the pound. We left with a good sized bag of candy and fudge. After the play we visited the Phillipsburg Brewing Company that is housed in the towns old bank. While browsing one of the local antique shops Josie found a Hall casserole dish that matched a tea kettle she has from her parents first wedding anniversary. A nice treasure, as she likes to say. 

We left Anaconda and drove north to the small town of Choteau, Montana. We had a three day wait before we could get into Waterton Glacier National Park in Canada so this was a good place to stop for a few days. The campground we stayed at was at the bottom of a large hill. I climbed it the first day and discovered the local County Club Golf Course was on top. I played it the next day. Josie was greeted by the camp host "Camper" the cat when we were doing our laundry. We explored the town and came upon the grumpy cowboys below. On our last evening in town we attended a concert on the lawn of the town's visitor center. A good time was had by all. I spent one morning birding the Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area and was able to get a few good pictures.           

​Tomorrow morning we head for Canada.