lonely mill & ghost town

This would be the second time we have visited this mine/mill and ghost town. What a beautiful location. This old mining town and mill are located on a Montana back road and we quite intact but are not protected. They are in good condition considering the elements have taken their toll on sites nearby. This location has a bunkhouse, mill, hotel and many houses across the road.

hotel

hotel stairs to the 2nd floor

hotel room

townsite

townsite

townsite

hotel view from the mill

mill interior

mill interior

top of the mill & view of the townsite

brick plant with no past

Seems I am on a roll this year as this would be the third abandoned brick plant I have visited. This one I have meaning to visit for years now but never had a chance. But I finally did it and it was better than I expected. Small but still loaded with history this brick plant has a line of small kilns with two stacks on either sides. Evidence of outbuildings could also be seen.

I dont know much about the history of this plant. I do know that I am only posting these couple pictures of it because I feel you only need a few pictures of this place to give you a good feeling of what it is like.

Neat fact, the bricks used to build most of this brick plant were from Claybank Brick Plant. Ironic that I was just at Claybank for a visit. ^-^

lake exploration

Recently in a last minute decision I decided to head up to my families cabin. The plan was to relax and enjoy the lake and time away. Since sitting around and doing nothing is not my forte in life I chose to explore the next day.

I headed out on the road with my dad and what started as a 1 hour one church trip turned into 5 hours of countless churches, schools and houses. The trip was a great success, so much so that I was not able to stop at every location and take a photo due to time constraints.

Some of my favorite moments include:
- finding an intersection with 2 churches on the corners - opposite denominations (lol)
- finding remains of a bombing & gunnery school
- rest stop at an abandoned gas station
- churches full intact, some even with collection plates & money
- historical signage

6 ticks 10 minutes

I went out to visit my grandma who i have not seen in a couple years for a few hours. Now that i am living where i am she is only an hour away and i figure it was time to go out there.

When i arrived we hung around the yard then decided to take the quad out and explore some buildings. Yes that's right - my grandma loves to look for abandoned buildings. We explored a few houses in the area and found some old stone house ruins. Some of these places involved getting past fences and i was impressed that my grandma kept up. She even came in all the houses to check things out.

Within 10 minutes i had 6 ticks!

I plan to go out again and explore some more in the area with her but for now here the photo's from this little trip.

these are not abandoned - but they are neat

my great uncles binoculars are used by my grandma to bird watch

mountain mining part 2

When we go on larger trips its always hard to sort through the photo's and pick the ones that best describe them. In this case i had more than usually post on one blog entry so here is part two!

mining equipment

mine

inside an old mining camp (captain canada & saskurbex)

coal core samples @ mining camp

more core samples - all labeled & stacked