28 people lost their lives when an earthquake brought the side of a mountain down on top of them, Aug 17th 1959

This is on the side of the bolder

Where the mountain slid down. Trees are just now starting to regrow on it

I saw this bird in Ennis, on our way to Virginia City

Virginia City

Looking into a country store

Where the "road agents" (outlaws) were buried after they were hanged, Jan 14th 1864

The outlaw graves on Boot Hill

Looking down on Virginia City from Boot Hill

Nevada City

8-12 (Thurs)
Left Mammoth at 7:30 to go to Virginia City, Montana. We drove through West Yellowstone and on to Earthquake Lake (Habgen Lk) where we stopped at the Visitors Center. We saw a film and read about what happened in 1959. It was so interesting. We walked up on the hill to a big bolder where there was a plaque with all the names of the people who were killed. It happened at midnight on Aug 17th. There was an earthquake and the entire side of the mountain slid down. Some people said they thought they were being bombed. Most of them didn’t have a chance. Many of them are still under the rubble where they were buried near the bolder with their names.
We drove on to Virginia City. This was a cute little town that has been preserved as it would have been in the 1800’s. The “sidewalks” were board walks and the store fronts were wood and looked like they did at that time. You could look into the store and see how they had been used - old carriages, the general store with all it’s merchandise, clothing stores with corsets, hats, shoes, long socks, and the Hangman’s Building where the vigilantes hung “road agents” (outlaws) on January 14, 1864. You could still see the “burn” marks where they hung by the ropes. Later the Virginia City Water Co run by Sarah Bickford moved into the building. She was a black slave who after the Civil War made her way to the West and became very successful.
The five hanged “road agents” were buried on the Boot Hill Cemetery. No one else wanted to be buried near them so they dug everyone else up and put them in a new cemetery a stone’s throw away.
We had lunch at the Virginia City Cafe. After walking around town and going into Cousins Candy Shop we headed down the road to Nevada City. There wasn’t much to it. Actually they brought in really, really old cabins that were left standing around Montana and assembled them into a village. It was a tourist trap because you had to pay to walk through them. We spent our money on ice cream instead.
On our way home we took a back way to Bozeman. It was a beautiful drive through some deep canyons. Naturally we stopped at Walmart in Bozeman for a little shopping. We ate dinner in Livingston and then made it back home by 8:30


8-13 (Fri)
We left Mammoth at 8:00 and drove to Midway Geyser Basin where we had planned to climb a mountain and take pictures looking down on the Grand Prismatic Spring. When we got out of the car the wind was blowing like crazy, it was freezing cold and spitting rain. We nixed that idea and drove on to Old Faithful where we shopped to stay out of the wind and then ate lunch at their EDR. We ate with some really nice women who told us the forecast is for snow at Old Faithful tonight. Of course they added that the forecast is never right.
We got the brilliant idea to drive down to Jackson Hole for the afternoon. About half way there we decided it was going to take us too long and we wouldn’t get back to Mammoth until real late. Since we have to work in the morning we went to West Thumb Geyser Basin. By this time the sun was shinning so we walked around there and took pictures.
We thought since the sun was shinning there we’d go back to Midway and try to see Grand Prismatic Spring. We got over there and it was still freezing cold. Nancy got out and went to take a look. I slept in the car while she was gone.
When we got back home we cranked up our heater then called and made reservations to go to Jackson Hole next weekend.