Friday, September 18, 2009

Canoe Camp + Montana - September 15-18, 2009

Tuesday morning we know we have about 60 miles to back track to be where we began Monday, but wanted to stop at a spot we had missed on the way up.  Sometimes it is just too hard to get the driver to slow down and stop.

604Canoe Camp is on the Clearwater River in Orofino where the Lewis and Clark expedition stopped to build five dugout canoes for their journey down the Clearwater, Snake and Columbia Rivers.

427 Now, this dugout canoe fits me a little better-a little wider.  The sign said they made four canoes 50 ft long and one shorter.  This one was about 35’ long. 

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Here I am carrying my caladium plant from the shower, where it rides when we travel, to its spot on our steering wheel table.

 

We arrive in Montana on Tuesday, staying our first night in St Regis and then on Wednesday driving on to Deer Lodge.

You know you are in Montana when the local grocery store has trophies of local game on their walls.

332 On Friday, we took a field trip to Philipsburg.  On the way there found the ghost town of Kirkville (scroll down on the linked page to Kirkville).

339 Then it was on into Philipsburg to find the Sapphire Gallery to mine some sapphires.

355 I know, this is too easy, mining inside.  But I will have to admit it is much cooler than being outside in the bright sun.  The lady washes the gravel, then flips the screen over onto a table-first yelling “Loud Noise” (and it is and very loud noise).  The way she washes it and then moves it side to side puts the sapphires right in the middle. Here is a shot of Bob using the tweezers to point to two of them. They were pretty easy to spot, shades of blue and shiny.  We found several and the largest seven of them weighed 7.02 cts.

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Look at these beautiful baby blues.

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To make them jewelry ready, they need to be heat treated and then cut.  Right now I am just going to posses these babies.  I still have two unset sapphires I had cut from stones we found in this area in 1995.

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