Historic Helena, Mt.

Oct.6th - 20th

Happy Halloween from Helena! This is an all brick house painted lavendar. Seemed like the perfect haunted house to me.

The Capitol is beautiful inside. They give guided tours or you can pick up a pamphlet for a self-guided walk through. Across the street is the Charlie Russell and Western Art Museum. In the summer you can hop on the trolley here for a historic tour of the town.

This is another painted brick home. There are lots of these in town. They have a wonderful walking tour of the historic district, but there are great homes all over town with unique architectural features.

Sorry about this being sideways, but for some reason, I could not get it to rotate. This describes the house below.

The historic district is only a few blocks from our daughter's house, so I spent an afternoon just walking around admiring all the beautiful homes.

There were lots of cattle barons, mine owners, railroad tycoons, etc. back in the day. These are just a few examples of the incredible homes they built here. This describes the house below.

They also have the Myrna Loy Center downtown with plays, concerts and films. For you youngsters out there, Myrna Loy was a very famous actress back in the 30s, 40s and 5os. She was from Helena.

Some of the homes still have hitching posts in front of them and lots of them have 2 to 4 stall carriage houses in the rear with servant quarters on the second floor.

Many blocks still have brick sidewalks and one corner house actually had an old boardwalk on both sides.

This describes the house below.

Helena is in the valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides. They have very mild winter temperatures. It has been around 70 while we have been here with lows in the 30s at night.

Helping with the bathroom remodeling project. It's amazing what our daughter can get John to do, that I never could.

Babysitting in the camper while Mom and Dad are busy with projects in the house. John had to take our granddaughter to go potty while I was cooking. He hollered to ask me what to do. I said to just pull her pants up. He said, "I'll just shake her." Then I heard him say, "She pooed, what do I do?" I said, "I can't hear you." I guess everything came out okay.

Montana cowgirl.

Neighborhood football team.

Up and coming quarterback.

You have pushed me too far!

Happy Halloween from the grandkids.

But some are! It's a sad day at our house. We had to retire John's favorite shirt. He got it a few years ago when he hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back, while I rode the mules with my girlfriends.

Tomorrow we make our sad departure from our kids and grandkids before the weather turns cold. We are going to Portland for the weekend to visit John's aunt and cousin and then south.

On the road again.

Tarra