A Car Museum, a Prison Tour, Camping at a Reservoir, a Ghost Town and Camp Fortunate

 June 12, Monday

Enroute from Big Larch Campground at Seeley Lake, MT; we made a stop in Deer Lodge, MT to check out their combination Vintage Auto and Prison Museums.  I know, a bit of an unusual combination but it's what they got.  They've also some smaller museums across the street but we passed on those.

The car museum is actually part of the building that functions as the entryway to the prison.  Quite a selection of vintage cars but they were really jammed in there together so it wasn't a great viewing experience, for me anyways.

Some of the stuff that caught my eye:

I wonder if the translucent head lit up

with the headlights?

The Iconic Mustang

BMW Isetta

After the car museum, we crossed over and into the old prison.  First stop was the administration building.  Besides the usual offices and such, this caught my eye of course:

A Bazooka?

Next was a tour of the 1912 Cell Block Building:

One of the outer wall's guard towers

The requisite shot of one's 

spouse in a cell

A view of the main cell block from the 

entrance to Maximum Security section.

We then proceeded onwards towards the Clark Canyon Reservoir's offerings in terms of free campgrounds.  We settled on the one named Horse Prairie:

We were swarmed by mosquitoes when we first got there, they'd get less prevalent by the next day.

June 13, Tuesday

Thinking it would again rain in the afternoon, we left the campsite soon after breakfast and rode Scarlett along I-15 North to the junction with MT 728.  Our destination was the ghost town of Bannack.  

We'd started out under mostly clear skies but the clouds would roll in as we drove along.  It was pretty overcast when we parked, paid our fee, and started touring the old buildings being preserved in what was apparently the Montana Territory's first capital.

School house on the first floor

and Masonic Temple on the second.

The town's hotel, pretty big too

Inside the Methodist Church

The front of the Methodist Church

One of Montana Territory's first jails

Unsurprisingly, the Saloon was next to the hotel

My favorite bartender

View of town from entrance to Masonic Lodge

Masonic Lodge Interior

She's making me a sandwich!

Interesting, to me anyways,

artwork within the town

doctor's home

We left Bannack hoping to outrun the rain but failed to do so.  A couple of wrong turns (no signal) resulted in us racing back to Bannack to take shelter in the visitor center!  On the way, we spotted a tornado funnel in the distance!

We waited out the rain and decided that since it was the shorter way, we'd take Bench Road south of Bannack and risk the "gumbo-like" conditions when it rained.

It was muddy, yes.  But not enough rain had fallen to make it very slippery conditions for us to motor on.  I felt traction slip a couple of times but for the most part taking it nice and slow got us to MT 324 near Grant and back onto pavement.

From there it was easy riding back to camp.  Of course, as we'd negotiated the muddy road, the sun came out and it was nice and clear as we got to camp!

It was so nice, I decided to take Yagi out for some exercise.  I checked out some of the other sites (ours was best), then headed over to the Lewis and Clark Recreation Area by the Clark Canyon Dam for some education.

Spent some time at the Camp Fortunate Overlook site

The island used to be the top of the "singular mountain" mentioned by Lewis and Clark.  Their camp, Camp Fortunate, was located halfway between the mountain base and

the current dam.  It's of course now underwater.

Some of the information placards I found more informative or for that matter in readable condition:

Montana used to be on the Equator!

The Dam is located now on the 45th Parallel,

halfway between the equator and the north pole

The Clark Canyon Dam

Yep, a lot of subjects over just two days.  Such is the camping adventure that is camping and touring with Martha!