Anaconda, MT – August 16, 2018
Aug 18th, 2018 by rallyadmin
Today, another long slog. Get on I-90 and stay on I-90. (The route is I-90 to I-405 in Seattle.) The goal tonight is Ken Maynard’s place in Anaconda, MT with an ETA of early evening. The route is South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Like I said, a long slog.
Leave Rapid City and stop in Sturgis, famous for its annual, mid-summer motorcycle rally which fortunately ended last weekend. Back in the day, the rally was a group up of hardcore Harley riders. But over the years, the rally has morphed into an aging boomer Harley group up more like the winter Daytona Bike Fest than a hardcore biker rally. Now, you’re more likely to see an RV hauling a trailer with a chromed-up bio-diesel HD three-wheeler than a tricked out Softtail.
There are a few stragglers, probably those waiting to get bailed out after excessive festivities the previous week, but the town is empty. I stop in a liquor store to get a bottle of Balvenie single malt as a thank you gift for Ken in Anaconda where I’m planning on spending the night. Back on the road.
Into Wyoming, past Gillette. Gillette is the center of the eastern Wyoming coal strip mining operations and has recently fallen on somewhat hard times with the world-wide drop in demand for coal. There’s a huge coal processing plant that straddles the interstate. It’s fed by miles of conveyor belts and it’s sitting idle, a likely harbinger of Gillette’s future.
Past exits for Devil’s Tower, the huge basaltic intrusion made famous in the nove “Encounters of the Third Kind.” The signs bring back fond memories of our honeymoon when Barbara and I stopped here in 1973 . Chris Brown and I climbed the Tower on that trip, a real epic on a beautiful day with Barbara sitting in a viewing area doing needlepoint while we baked in the sun on the south facing wall. And then celebrating our victory with a over-heated bottle of Pommard that had been opened with a climbing piton. (Brought the wine but not a corkscrew.)
The rest of the day is just a long westward drive across the high plains grasslands. Occasional rises into the small mountain ranges with grassed valleys and treed slopes. Every so often the road passes some beautiful rock structure, spires or gigantic flakes or huge boulders. But, for the most part, just follow the black ribbon.
By the time I get to Bozeman, the haze has turned to smoke and visibility is dropping. There isn’t any real cloud cover but the smoke blocks out the sun so that it seems that the sky is overcast. I’m told later that the smoke is from the massive fires in California. The fires are a very long way from Bozeman but the fires are huge. It’s too bad because the views here are wonderful to look at. If you can see them.
I pull into Ken’s at 7:15, about 45 minutes later than I had planned. Ken, Nancy and I greet and then almost immediately leave for dinner. Into Ken’s truck and drive into downtown Anaconda.
Anaconda was once a vibrant town centered around a copper smelter the processed the copper ore extracted front the huge mines in Butte some 15 miles away. But the smelter closed years ago and Anaconda has turned into this quirky little town populated by longtime residents and new arrivals looking for a quiet life in Montana.
We go to a new restaurant, Donivan’s, with a beautiful dining room and bar. We have a nice dinner with a couple of scotches and then head back to the house. After dinner, we stop at Ken’s daughter’s shop a few blocks away.
There’s an historic old hotel leftover from the glory days of the smelter that had fallen into serious disrepair and is now being restored and setup as a multi-use building. Ken’s daughter is a first tenant and Ken did the restoration of her shop.
He’s done a remarkable job and the shop gets occasional visitors who don’t want to buy anything. They just want to see Ken’s remarkable restoration of the woodwork that used to be over the bar of the hotel.
Then it’s back to the house, For more scotch and some great conversation. It’s after midnight when I get to bed. It’s been great to see both Ken and Nancy and the conversation would have gone on much later if Nancy hadn’t had the good sense to go to bed.
Tomorrow, that last push to Kirkland.
Obi-wan