Month: May 2018

I rolled further north on I-15 and got to Helena, which is Montana’s state capitol. You know I had to go visit it.

The campground must have been nothing special. I didn’t make any notes about it, and it doesn’t seem like I even took a photo of it. Sometimes you find great scenic spots. Other times, you just find a spot. I love the variety.

I loaded the address into Google maps and easily found the capitol.

Do you see the red dot near the birch tree? There were several kids and their parents playing with a large red ball.

The kids would climb inside and roll down the capitol lawn! I watched them make several trips and then decided to head indoors.

What a cold and blustery day. I approached the steps of the building that was constructed between 1896 and 1902. I love the optimism of the citizens of Montana. They began constructing the capitol seven years before they joined the Union.

It causes me to scratch my head when states that lean strongly in favor of protecting their second amendment rights prohibit weapons – also known as guns – from their government buildings. But then again, they do say that the pen is mightier than the sword, so I guess that everything is potentially a weapon.

According to my preferred source, the capitol that stands here is the second building that was commissioned. The Capitol Commission selected a design by George R. Mann.

In 1897, it was discovered that the Commission was planning to scam money from the building project. The first commission was disbanded and they convened a second Capitol Commission. The second Commission abandoned Mann’s design as being too costly and they held a second competition. Charles Emlen Bell and John Hackett Kent of Council Bluffs, Iowa won the competition and they relocated their office to Helena.

What became of Mann’s design? It didn’t go to waste. It was later selected as the basic design of the Arkansas state Capitol.

Here’s the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock, just in case you were curious.

This was another fantastic building that was open to the public to just wander around.

As pale and serene as the Idaho capitol was, Montana’s is exploding with color.

The circular paintings in the rotunda were painted for the Capitol opening in 1902 by the firm of F. Pedretti’s Sons.

In the four corners of the rotunda, they have statuary niches.

There’s Senator Thomas J. Walsh, who served as a one of Montana’s state Senators for 1912 until his death in 1933. He belonged to the Democratic Party and had a national reputation as a liberal. He was President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt’s choice for Attorney General when he died.

It took some digging to find out who Dixon was. A plaque next to the statue would’ve helped, but I guess that would be cheating. Even a first name would have been nice, but if you have to ask, maybe you don’t need to know.

It turns out the Dixon was Joseph M. Dixon, who was the seventh governor of Montana, from 1921 – 1925. Interestingly enough, he purchased a newspaper, The Missoulian, to further his political ambitions. Maybe he would have bought a television station if he were in politics today. He served in the Montana state legislature as well as a U.S. Senator.

I climbed the Grand Staircase to the next floor,

and was greeted by Mike and Maureen Mansfield.

Mike Mansfield…I knew that name, but couldn’t quite place what he was known for. Is there anyone else out there in the same boat? Again, my preferred source came to the rescue.

Make Mansfield was a politician and diplomat. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. He was the longest serving Senate Majority Leader, serving from 1961 – 1977. After he retired from the Senate, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1977 to 1988. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in part for his role in the resignation of President Nixon.

No wonder his name rang a bell!

There was more artwork that honored the state’s history. There were the old times…

and more recent developments.

I peeked into the Senate Chamber.

Is anyone else amazed at the idea of four senators sharing one office?

This chamber was identified as the Old Supreme Court. I don’t have a photo of the Legislature Chamber in my files, but I imagine you get the general idea of what it is like. That’s what happens when you wander around capitol buildings by yourself. Sometimes you miss things.

I look out the window and spied Bart waiting for me in the street below.

The weather improved while I was indoors. I always relish a blue sky. The wind was really whipping, though.

Incidentally, the equestrian statue in front of the flag depicts Civil War Union General Thomas Francis Meagher. According to several sources, he was a colorful character. In 1864, he took over as governor of the Montana Territory while the legitimate governor was away. He even wrote a constitution for Montana, in the hopes that it would be used if Montana became a state. He drowned under mysterious circumstances in 1867 while waiting for a shipment of guns on a riverboat at Fort Benton on the Missouri River.

Speaking of the Missouri River, I figured that I might as well go pay my respects. After all, the Missouri is the longest river in the United States. It measures 2341 miles, rising in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana before emptying into the Mississippi north of Saint Louis. The Mississippi River is a close second in length, measuring 2320 miles.

On my way to the river, I saw a sign for Big Paul’s Pasty’s. (ARGH! A misplaced apostrophe!)

Pastys are a food I am familiar with. Cornish miners who came to work in the mines of the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula brought this pastry filled with meat and vegetables with them. In checking to make sure I remembered things correctly, I found out that Cornish miners also settled in Butte, Montana. I guess finding pastys in Helena isn’t as much an oddity as I thought it was.

I circled back and got Bart into a parking spot. Big Paul apparently had a stand inside a gas station.

The signs looked promising. After all, the Frozen Pasty Sale was for Today Only.

Unfortunately, Big Paul didn’t come in to work today, and the clerk didn’t know anything about it. Oh, well. Back to the search for the river.

The Missouri River in this spot looks like a large lake. People were fishing and enjoying the day.

One guy was out with his dog.

These guys seemed to have caught something.

It was really a beautiful area. According to my map, there was a campground down below the Canyon Ferry Dam, so I made my way down Jimtown Road in search of it.

If I remember correctly, the campground was quite inexpensive. I just checked and it is $15 per night, but they don’t have much in the way of amenities. No electricity, but they do have water and vault toilets.

But, if you ever wanted to camp right on the banks of the Missouri River, do I have a spot for you!

What a view!

It was time to get back to the campground – wherever it was – and get ready to head out in the morning. It was time for my final push to the border!

 

Along about now, my travel plans were solidifying, but they would require a lot of driving and not a lot of activities at each stop. I decided that since I was so “close” I really wanted to get to my mother’s hometown of New Norway, Alberta, which was more that 1000 miles from Boise. If you want to go metric, that’s more than 1600 kilometers.

I picked Idaho Falls as my next stop. I had a few contacts in Idaho, and I was able to meet up with two out of three of them. Oddly enough, I had never met any of them in person! These were all people I had met though Facebook groups or connected to other people I know.

My next stop was Idaho Falls, where I was going to meet Kelly and Todd for dinner.

I hitched up and pulled out. I had managed to locate a nondescript RV park that seemed to cater to transient workers and permanent residents. It was the kind of place that wouldn’t likely have had shuffleboard courts and swimming pools, but it was a place to stop and it was good enough.

It was a friendly place. They even had a cone set out with my name on it so I could find my spot.

The sites were a bit close together, though.

I set out to see what I could see in Idaho Falls. First stop: the falls!

To get there, I drove over to the River Walk and strolled a bit. What captivated me were the interesting benches.

I particularly liked this horse bench. It looked like a great place to sit on a warm, sunny day. (This was not a warm sunny day.)

There was a goose bench.

In fact, there was a flock of them!

They kind of went along with the geese that lived in the area.

The fish bench probably reflected fish that lived in the Snake River.

I liked the bench that honored the branches that get washed down river. With the extra flow in the river at this time, I imagine that there were many branches floating along.

I came to the falls, which are really a series of small falls.

The power of the water is noticeable.

There was a tour group present when I was there, and they were all happily snapping photos of each other in front of the river.

Across the river, you can see the temple. There is a strong Mormon presence in Idaho.

I wish I had had time to walk into the lobby of this hotel and check it out.

It sure did remind me of the Marina Towers in Chicago.

Which also reminded me of the Jetsons…

And with that, my tour of the River Walk was complete. It was time to head over to meet Kelly and Todd.

I parked near the former Hotel Rogers.

Incidentally, did you know that there is a term for these old, peeling signs for defunct businesses? They are called ghost signs . While on my travels, I read some article or other that talked about how much money preserving these old signs pumped into the local economy. Apparently, many people will come to take photos of these remnants of the past and spend money in the community while they are there.

But, I digress yet again.

The food was good, as I remember, but what was even better was conversation with these lovely people. Before I knew it, it was time to head back to the silver ranch and get ready for another day.

And, yes, it’s still raining.

 

One of the unexpected things I found in Boise is that it had a lot of Basque settlers. Although there are larger populations of Basque-Americans in the United States, Boise’s is the most concentrated. There is a “Basque block” in downtown Boise, with a museum, cultural center, restaurants and a market.

I decided that I couldn’t be cultural on an empty stomach, so I put lunch at that top of my “to-do” list.

I located Hotel Leku Ona, and decided that it looked like it was worth a shot.

As an appetizer, I ordered croquetas, just like mamá used to make.

Seriously, when I did my Junior Year…uh, Semester…Abroad, the woman whose house we stayed in did make use croquetas for dinner. I hadn’t had them since 1976. (In case you have never heard of croquetas, here’s some information.)

For my main course, I had the tortilla española.

It was kind of a lot of food, but I don’t get into restaurants that offer these two dishes all that often. I did pack up some of the tortilla and took it with me.

Thus restored, I was ready to tackle The Basque Museum and Cultural Center.

It was right next door to the Cyrus Jacobs Uberuaga House, which is the oldest surviving brick building in Boise. Cyrus Jacobs was a pioneer merchant and prominent citizen of Boise when the town was founded in 1863. Cyrus built his home in 1864. He lived there for almost 40. In the early 1900s, the house became the residence of Basque families. In 1917, Jose and Hermigilda Uberuaga moved in and it remained in the family until 1983, when Adelia Garro Simplot purchased the property to preserve the rich tapestry of the Idaho Euskaldunak history.

Incidentally, “euskaldunak” is the Basque word for Basque.

This is a 1921 photo of the Uberuaga family on their porch at 607 Grove. This house now stands as a tribute to the Basque boarding house life in America.

In case your Spanish geography needs a brush up, here is the part of the country that is the Basque region. Guernica is in the Basque region. On this map, it is in the province of Bizkaia.

For the art history/war buffs out there, Guernica is the site of an egregious bombing of civilians during the Spanish civil war in 1937. This work of art by Pablo Picasso was commissioned by Spanish government. It was exhibited at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris and used to raise funds for war relief.

This bombing, which was carried out by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italian warplanes, helped them practice for their next planned escapades. It kind of reminds me of how we used chasing Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico as a preparation for involvement in World War I.

This graphic was stamped in the sidewalk in front of the museum. I think these are family names. I stepped inside the museum, paid my $5 entrance fee and started exploring.

I found this map interesting. This shows the distribution of Basque boarding houses in downtown Boise. I believe the Uberuaga house was at number 37.

Many of the Basques who settled in Idaho ended up as shepherds. According to what I read in the museum, this wasn’t because they were particularly interested in sheep or even had a background in herding sheep. It was one of those things where they were hard workers looking for an opportunity. Their language didn’t cause problems because their work didn’t require good English. One member of a family would come to America, find work, and then send for others as money permitted.

According to the museum, recently arrived immigrants had to show proof that they had at least $25 in hand to enter the United States.

While out with the sheep, they would live in shepherds’ wagons.

They floor plan isn’t that much different from many of the smaller RVs on the road today.

They had a nice display of historic photos of the sheep industry.

This one was titled “Transporting to the lambing shed”. I imagine that this was a mother sheep getting ready to give birth. I do find it interesting that the horse seems to be taking the sheep there without direction. The shepherd’s crook sin the sledge, but I don’t see the shepherd.

They had a few artifacts from their daily life, as well.

This artifact was called “The Cans.”

According to the information with the display, the Basques used devices like this to spook sheep forward. They would shake the noise the cans or throw them on the ground to keep the sheep from lagging behind the rest of the flock.

I like trees. I like them a lot. And, any regular reader of this blog knows I love petroglyphs. What do you get when you combine the two concepts?

You get arborglyphs!

Shepherds would carve images and text into trees. This is an aspen tree taken from the Fisher Creek area in the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho. According to the information with the display, it took about 20 years for the tree to mature enough to reveal the carving. The tree had been dead for a number of years when this section was removed for preservation in 2004.

This was an interesting museum and introduced me to a segment of our American population about which I was unfamiliar. It was certainly worth the $5 admission fee.

And, as usual, exit though the gift shop.