FLOTSAM AND JETSOM

I had an appointment to see a specialist in Lodi, CA. and in the parking lot was this eye catcher.


It may represent youth, or the future, or...whatever. Look at it amid a sea of white, grey, and  two black cars. To me it says LOOK AT ME! I couldn't resist taking a picture.


I ran from errand to errand yesterday without much time to do anything more useful. I have a rosary plant I got from an aunt in the 1960's that manages to struggle on. Nearly killed it several times. While cleaning up around my sink, I noticed it had bloomed. After all these years it decided to bloom? Of course the blooms are so tiny, the cropped picture shows the plant bigger than life-size. You can see three more blooms starting on the stem. It brought an unbelieving smile to my face.
Then cleaning up little bits and pieces of useless information on my desk, I ran into stuff I'd tucked away, and here was a pillow menu.


Have you ever?  Are we elitists, or what?

Other useless flotsam and jetsam hanging around my desk are interesting names I see on the road and I'm always curious about how they got their name:
Sour Lake, Grandfather Rd.,Hungry Horn, Flathead River, Lone Elk Trail. I guess Lone Elk Trail is self-explanatory, but why just One Elk?

When we are on the road, I always want to stop and find out about curious names. It must be an old Indian legend,  but the motor home doesn't stop for such small stuff.
In the car, I can stop sometimes on a whim. So yesterday, I took this picture of a mailbox:


The Cheshire Cat. Cute. I have dozens of pictures of cute mailboxes. I'm ever planning to do something clever with my own. Ah!  Some day.

GHOST TOWN WITH A GHOST.

Our travel goal yesterday was to avoid the boom-town of Williston and seek out the little town of Baineville, just on the border of N.D. and Montana. Jim found a website for Buffalo Trails Museum at Epping, which was closed, but we decided to have a look at the area anyway. It was about 10 miles out of our way. The turn-off required us to cross two lanes, a meridian and another two lanes of oncoming traffic and whoops!  The road is gravel? Oh, well, we're committed. We bumped miserably along popping rivets and screws and bolts, we are sure,  for about ten miles.

we pulled into town and parked next to this ramshackle old building.

There wasn't a car or a person anywhere in sight. With a one block main street we just walked along taking pictures of this "ghost" town and peeked in the windows.

After a few minutes of poking around, Heather appeared out of nowhere and began watering plants in front of the school.

She took us to the Museum office and introduced us to Shelly. These two women are the only two people who have keys to the buildings we were looking into and even though the museum was closed, they opened up  the buildings and allowed us to tour the complex.

In the front part of the office was a dental exhibit, all items here have been donated by locals. I don't know the population of the town in 1905 when Epping was founded adjacent to the Northern Pacific Railroad, but in 2010 the population was 100 people according to the census.
In every building, the human figures were made out of papier mache  by a guy named Elmer.
Behind the office was some rolling stock. Kind of reminded me of  a Bonnie and Clyde affair.

My quest for something I've never seen before was soon answered. This little wooden horse-drawn wagon is a school bus.

Elmer did a lot of work here. A life sized diorama of his family, with Elmer in bed getting medicine from the doctor, his little brother crying.

This gentleman reading the paper in an exhibit looks just like pictures of Elmer.  In fact, almost all of the gentlemen in the exhibits look like Elmer.

Elmer put together several very authentic box dioramas in which he went to the hill where this Indian village was located, he studied the topography, even picked the grass from the site to make this scene.  He must have been an interesting character.

One building has a unique cement floor.

The one room school house classroom is in beautiful condition.

North Dakota winters require a mighty stove and this one is a beauty.

You'll notice in this kitchen exhibit the wall paper is made from newspaper, not uncommon in the early 1900's.

Another item I'd never seen, a painted story hide.

And from the General Store, a marshmallow beater. I can't quite fathom how I've managed my life without one.

The cafe building is historic as is the tavern. Both are open businesses. The tavern was closed but the cafe was open. We didn't see any activity around the cafe for the hour we wandered the street until lunchtime. Then out of nowhere a few trucks and cars pulled up for the daily special, a cheeseburger and tomato soup.
We practically sat under this buffalo head for our lunch. But, I'm digressing. This is a ghost story.

This exhibit is one the ghost likes to fool with. There is a big space between the two shelving units in this building. Heather and Shelly never enter this room alone because it gives them the willies and they have the only keys. The board was replaced, by a carpenter, screwed in, and, when they returned, it went missing. After three tries, they gave up.

A glass stopper collection was removed for dusting. The girls placed them on top of the case in rows. When they returned, they were disheveled and moved around. Twice. Lights that have been turned out, go on. They think they know who the ghost is.

The man who owned this hardware store hung himself in the open window above so everyone returning from church could see him hanging there. They replaced the window. And the next day it was broken out. They replaced it again. The same thing happened. Now, they just leave it open.
We left Epping glad we braved the bad road and got direction from the girls to a short gravel road to a paved highway that took us right into Williston. We breezed on through.
Everywhere, we see mobile homes in clusters, temporary housing for oil workers. Billboards advertise for house builders needed, jobs, jobs, jobs. It is a boom phenomena. People rent out space in their yards to two or three mobiles.

Road workers needed.

Every half mile or so, we see another well going in.

Bainville was another gravel road town without even a mom and pop store or gas pump. A post office and a church with a few houses. We pushed on 14 miles west to Culbertson, Montana and spent the night in a delightful city park.

THREE STATES IN FIVE HOURS

Before leaving Tygart Lake State Park yesterday morning, I went for a short walk. Met a pair of ducks.

Couldn't get them in the same photo without missing the head or half the body of one bird.


West Virginia might not spend much on their road maintenance in the mountains, but they are working to protect their wilderness.


Not only the emerald borer that attacks ash trees, but the Asian Long Horned Beetle attacks all hardwood trees. It is very sad. The area we are driving through on Highway 50 is said to be the most remote area left in the East.


Perhaps the bad roads are deliberate, to keep traffic down. You may laugh but I actually encountered that philosophy in a nature area of Costa Rica where the last bastion of certain hummingbirds and butterflies  survive. They don't want the roads to be welcoming.


Here is an identifier for the Emerald Ash Borer. A metallic green sheen to its wings.


We drove back through Grafton with its hilly, narrow roads. This is how you build a garage or car port when you live on the down-hill side of the road. We tried to find the memorial that states that Grafton West Virginia was the first place that celebrated Mother's Day. But we must have whizzed right by it.


Highway 50 down and up through this part of the Appalachian Mountains was a rough drive. We saw many of these signs, counting down how many more miles you have of 9% grade.

There was good signage here to help you identify pull outs. From West Virginia, we drove through eight miles of Maryland, then back into West Virginia. Then on to Winchester, Virginia. The road knows the way to carry our sleigh...


I like adventurous roads like this one, but in my car, not with a motor home. The scenery is beautiful. The driver doesn't get much of a chance to enjoy it.


At one point the speed limit was down to 15 miles per hour. For a comparison, this was like driving the California Grapevine out of Bakersfield before it got "fixed", only longer and with less traffic.


The road only rises to 3,095 feet, but it gets down to 1600 and then takes you back up again. If you decide to travel Highway 50, you need to know what you are in for.


We planned to spend the night in Romney where there was two choices, a Moose and an American Legion. The parking lot at the Legion was miniscule, on a narrow one-way street. They sent us to the Moose with a bigger lot. It was small, steep and uneven.  They directed us to a truck stop on a hilltop on the edge of town. We ate lunch there and debated the suitability of the lot.  About two hours later, feeling rested, Jim said, " let's go to Winchester."


By four o'clock, we were sitting in the shade of a lovely copse of trees at a huge Moose Club in Winchester, Virginia.