Relaxed day on vacation

 Tuesday 26th September 2023

Random thought of something small that made me happy.

 I had recently been watching some people on You Tube who overland camp in rugged hard to reach areas traveling in very expensively converted Jeeps. They had great outdoor kitchens and the best kit. Though I do not want to go camping, hello bugs and rain, I did like the idea of doing more outside when we go exploring, not just going for a hike then heading home, maybe a way of  extending our time outdoors. So a first step I made was I bought a coffee pot and put together a kit with cups, coffee etc. that can be left in the truck. The first time using this was on the side of a lake and it was great! 

We left the lake and drove to Anaconda which was a strange town. It had a lot of houses, the 2020 census gives a population over 9000 but there were no shops, no town center left. We think the residents must drive to nearby Butte for shopping.

Anaconda was founded by Marcus Daly, one of the Copper Kings, who financed the construction of the Anaconda smelter on nearby Warm Springs Creek to process copper ore from the Butte mines. In June 1883, Daly filed for a town plat for "Copperopolis", but that name was already used by another mining town in Meagher County. Instead, Daly accepted the name "Anaconda", suggested by the United States postmaster of the time, Clinton Moore.^[3] Moore chose the name because of the important mining smelter already existing in the area. When Montana was admitted as a state in 1889, Daly lobbied to have the capital moved to Anaconda, and Montana legislators decided to hold two referendums in 1892 and 1894 to choose a capital city. The campaigns for the referendums were heated, ending with a victory for Helena, the location supported by Daly's rival William A. Clark.

Town building

Resident

After being quite confused how people existed in a town with no services we drove to the nearby Anaconda Smelter Stack which we had seen from the highway earlier in the week (see earlier post). There was a replica of the stack to show you how big it was. We did not get close to the stack as the area was closed.

The stack

On the way home we cut off the road to see a popular ski area. We thought there may have been hotels, a restaurant, ski lodges as you see on tv but there was only a ski lift and a building with a coffee shop that was closed for the season. Very different from Aspen!

Other pictures from our stay in Hall Montana.....

We bought a wildlife trail camera and set it up next to the rv, we saw......a fox

....and a Geordie woman in the wild

For six weeks I had been making do with small local grocery stores for supplies but the cupboards were becoming bare and I needed a Walmart shop. The nearest was 68 miles away.

We stocked up!