Saturday, July 6, 2013 (White Sulphur Springs, MT)

We woke up to fog this morning, that was the first time we've seen fog in quite some time.  It quickly burned off and we could see the mountains again.  This really is a pretty little spot, you can see mountains in every direction.  They don't seem so high in elevation but that is probably  because we are at 5,000 +/- elevation already.

We did or normal walk/jog routine and then after breakfast knuckled down to figure out our next couple of weeks itinerary.  We are trying to land in northern Washington by the first part of August.  You can quickly burn up a couple hours just doing research on campgrounds/rv resorts.  We got our next stop picked out and made reservations, and started working on the second spot when it was time for lunch. 

After lunch we took a break from the research and headed out to Martindale, MT  to visit the Bair Museum.  Everyone we have talked to here in the park has said it was a must see.  After viewing it ourselves, I would have to agree.  If you click on the link, it will give you some history of the family and how/why they turned their family home into a museum.  If you check out a map, Martindale is out in the middle of nowhere and it is amazing the antiques and paintings that they have.  They have 24 hour security staff and I can see why.  



Because this was a sheep ranch, this was the sheep herders living quarters.  For every 1,000 sheep they had one sheep herder.  At one time the ranch had 300,000 sheep. 

 

The inside of the sheep herders wagon - pretty cozy don't you think....



Side view of ranch house - it's huge, around 11,000 sq ft.

Front view of ranch house

Ranch root cellar



Inside the root cellar - it was pretty big and nice and cool

One of the barns which is now the gift shop



One of many rooms inside the home - they definitely were into color

There were so many more rooms with so many amazing antiques, some from the 1700's and 1800's, things I would never have imagined or been able to see if it weren't for the two sisters bringing them back to the USA.  You would have to see them to believe them.  One amazing thing was a bed that Marie Antoinette slept in.  They had one room that had 24 karat gold covered huge door knobs, they had some amazing crystal chandeliers, wonderful paintings.  We really enjoyed the tour and would definitely go through again and find out if pictures are allowed and take more pictures.   The lady that lead our tour must have been in her late 80's and she had some intereting stories because she had lived in the area for 45 years and actually knew the family and had attended events in the house while the sisters were still alive.  If you are ever in the area, definitely check this place out. 

After the tour, we went into Martinsdale, which had a bar and this small restaurant which was only open on Thurs/Fri/Sat.  The lady giving the tour said that their Sour Cream Lemon Pie was amazing, so we had to stop and check it out and she was right.   Rich and I shared a piece and it was gone all too soon.

There wasn't much else in town except alot of old empty buildings.....

 When we got back to White Sulphur Springs, we stopped at a car wash and gave the pickup a bath, we'd been on some gravel roads the last couple of days and it was definitely dirty.  Then is was outside doing a few more things to get ready for our departure in the next couple of days.  Tonight is the ice cream social here at the rv park, so we'll run over for our last dish of local ice cream.  Hopefully our next stop which is a state park will be far from any ice cream stores.....