Time keeps on slippin ... slippin into the future ... let my spirit carry me.

When is the last time you saw one of these cigarette slot machines. This machine says to put 45 cents in the slot - No Canadian Coins ... Please. Normally, we wouldn't touch that machine, we agreed. But Megan, who thinks cigarettes are vile things, couldn't look away from packages of Pall Mall, Camel, Tareton, Lucky Strike Menthol, Kool, Salem, Viceroy and Kent. Marlboro and Winston slots were empty. Hum, wonder when the last time cigarettes came out of that vending machine ... way before video games.

We're having lunch in the Wells Fargo Steak House in downtown Virginia City, Montana. Eating in the old stagecoach stop was like dining in a museum.

 

The dining area area was spacious, with only this couple and a table with young boys crowded around a table. They were well-behaved, and not at the bar in the saloon in the adjoining room. Notice that the tables in the front don't have tablecloths. I guess they were for the lunch crowd.

It may be lunch, but Megan insisted we sit at this table ... near the stove. We were freezing.

That's one reason Megan ordered a big bowl of hearty Loaded Potato Soup. See the extra spoon? We have become so accustomed to sharing, that it's automatic.

The decaf also warmed up her bones, and she didn't share it. But the special mug held the warmth. That cup was thrown pottery, made in Virginia City by the owner of the restaurant.

Megan picked out the soup, Dwain picked out the entree, the Sluice Box Salmon Sandwich with red and green chips.

 

Since we had shared the soup, sandwich and chips, we had room for a big piece of Dutch Apple Pie with one scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream and another scoop of Huckleberry Ice Cream. Can you believe they had Huckleberry Ice Cream? How could we refuse such an offer? Yummy!

Our server, a University of Montana student at Bozeman, said this is her second summer to work in a restaurant in Virginia City. The owner of Wells Fargo Steak House owns a second restaurant and she works in both.
Last summer, she drove back and forth between Bozeman and Virginia City. That is one long drive.
This summer, she's staying in a cabin provided by the state of Montana. She said the restaurant owner told her he had stayed in one of the cabins years ago when he was a kid and worked summers in Virginia City.
He had fond memories of those carefree years.

This row of tiny cabins is less than a block below the main street through town.

Here are a few more scenes we found interesting, before moving on down the highway.

These two homes were built in the 1860s or 1870s. They physically connected, but were never part of the same enterprise, kind of like apartments or businesses. Walls separated the two house made of logs on the left and house made of sawn lumber on the right. But they were both considered "spacious Victorian luxury."

This Methodist Church was built in 1875, and it served as a school gymnasium in the 1930s before closing. The building is up the street from the Victorian homes, and the Episcopal church is on the corner of the next block.

 

Virginia City was the cornerstone for 8,000 - 10,000 miners and the resulting business people along Alder Gulch in the 1860s- 1870s. Bill Fairweather discovered gold in Alder Gulch and died August 25,1875. His funeral August 28, 1875, was the first service in that new Methodist Church.

... Then we have this Victorian mansion built by George Thexton in 1884. After his wife, Nancy Redhead Thexton, and their two oldest sons had died, he moved to the Thexton Ranch that he put together on the Madison River outside Ennis, Montana.

This looks like an old postcard with a picture of Sim Ferguson outside his cabin in 1945. What a great picture.

Here is that same cabin today. It dates back to the 1870s as a prospector's cabin. It's about a block off the main street, and is an excellent example of historic preservation carried out by the state of Montana. Some farsighted folks started this effort almost 70 years ago, and made many of our experiences possible earlier this summer.

I have no doubt the man buried in this plot deserved this headstone. It reads: "Madison County's Tribute to Madison County's Friend." The headstone shows Dr. Ira C. Smith was a Mason and friend when he died in 1884.

Enough ghost towns for now. Although they're fascinating, that's not all we did on our vacation. Time to set the GPS for another adventure.

Megan and Dwain

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
- Steve Miller Band