We awoke to a bright sunny day in Missoula, all ready for a day of fun on the road. After a non-starter attempt to get coffee at an espresso stand, we again headed back across town to the college area (there’s a demographic reason that the college area has more Yelp reviews…) for breakfast.
We had breakfast at a lovely little greasy spoon, nothing like bacon and eggs on a Sunday morning, and were back on the road by 9:30.
Last time I’d come through, I’d also stopped in Missoula the first night — well, not exactly. I’d left mid-afternoon, so by the time I hit Idaho, it was pitch black out. There was a U2 concert in Missoula, so there were no hotels available. I started to head past town, but got real tired (it was after midnight), so I pulled over in a rest area and crashed out until morning, then drove back to Missoula (which I found completely charming, as many college towns are) for breakfast, before continuing east.
Also, last time, I’d seen some signs for Philipsburg, but didn’t bite until the second time I saw them (the road to P’burg makes kind of a side loop, touching I-90 in 2 places).
All this is to say that the trip to P’burg today was mostly stuff I’d never seen before, as I’d come in “the other way”.
I remembered the signs for the County Testicle Festival (they eat Rocky Mountain Oysters every year for 5 days — who knew?).
The road to P’burg introduced us to the over-complicated Montana speed limit system (speed limit 70, 65 at night trucks 60, 55 at night, spread over 2 signs). We also had to bob and weave past some bicyclists doing time trial races. The drive from Missoula to Philipsburg is pretty short, though; we were there before 11.
Kristi wandered into Sapphire Gallery, the place where I’d “dug” sapphires in ’98. Two of these are in her wedding ring. This particular place was a little too touristy for her taste, though, so we hit The Sweets Shop (right next door), and got to watch Brett and Lucy do the actual “kid in a candy store” routine, which was a lot of fun for all involved.
like kids in a candy store
We then headed slightly out of town and slightly into the mountains to get a little closer to the actual sapphire mining operation,
Dig this.
and had a grand time washing and sorting rocks for awhile.
This is how we pan for sapphires
We ended up with a bit over 5 carats weight of sapphires that we’re sending off for heat treating and faceting, and another 28 carats or so of uncut gems that are either too small or too flawed to send through the process. It was a lot of fun, and although it still felt pretty touristy, it felt a lot more authentic than the shops in town.
We got back on the road
Somewhere between Philipsburg and Anaconda
- This waterfall was just splashing out of the cliff face.
and ate lunch in Anaconda, MT. The town reminded me a lot of Hoquiam. The dining table was made out of a VW Beetle chassis painted like Herbie the Love Bug.
We made it to Bozeman without further incident, got in around 5:30 or so. We moved everything in, got the kids in their swimsuits, and headed off to the heated indoor pool. Much splashing commenced, and we bedded down for the first of two nights in town.
Tomorrow, we visit the Museum of the Rockies so Brett can get a load of some dinosaurs for his birthday.