Ghost town July 21 - Day 32

Imagine driving nearly four hundred miles in a day, 394 to be exact, and spending it nearly all in one state on one road. That was our day today and the state we saw was Montana and the road we were on was route 90. We started the day in the panhandle of Idaho but we were quickly in Montana. The mountains were smaller, the grass browner, and the spaces wide open. Over the course of the day we saw several pretty rivers, which is surprising considering we have still seen no rain. All of the farms we saw use irrigation. There are still trees on the hills, a few in some places and more in others, but the ground seems fairly barren. Toward the end of the day we passed the continental divide. Hard to believe water way out here eventually makes its way into the Atlantic.

Our big surprise of the day was a ghost town called Garnet. We stopped for gas and saw a sign saying there was a ghost town up the road. The gas station owner told us it was worth the trip. Fifteen miles of dusty, twisting roads later we were there. In 1898 it was a town created by the silver boom and had over 1000 people in it. Ten years later it was down to 150 people. In 1912 it had a fire that destroyed part of the town and by the 1920s it was a nearly a ghost town. It made a small comeback in the 1930s, then was gone after World War Two. We walked around the old hotel, the old general store, a few houses, and one of the taverns (it had 13). Many objects were still in the buildings; bed frames, washing

machines, wine bottles, coffee cans. One outhouse had three holes. We wondered if there were times when all three holes had been used at the same time. For a small town with no people in the middle of nowhere it was quite interesting.

We are spending the night in Montana just north of Yellowstone. On the way here I (Jerry) got to thinking that the roads were really straight, there was very little traffic, I hadn't seen a cop for weeks and I heard that there were very few in Montana. Well, I started going a bit faster than I had been when what did I see beside the road? A cop. My heart beat faster, I slowed down, and the cop payed no attention to me at all.

Tomorrow - Yellowstone.