Playing Tourist
Good morning! I didn’t find time to write yesterday as we spent most of the day playing tourist. Or trying to play tourist. Ken and I are new enough to Helena that when people visit we really enjoy going to see the sights with them. Today we’re going down to Lewis and Clark caverns and Virginia City for the day. I haven’t been to either, so I’m especially looking forward to it.
Yesterday our plans included going on the Gates of the Mountains boat tour. There is a forest fire very near there — the Gates of the Mountains wilderness area is closed — but Ken called in the morning and their recorded message said they were still running. So we drove out there yesterday afternoon only to discover that they had cancelled the tours for the day. But we did get a fairly close view of the fire — scary, awesome — and saw a helicopter dip a pouch (don’t know the exact firefighting term, but that describes it anyway) into the river to get water. Then it flew off to drop the water on the fire. Seeing that little helicopter with it’s tiny load — so it appeared — over the huge fire showed just how truly huge the fire is. The load of water from the river was like using a bucket of water to douse a house fully engulfed in flame.
This particular fire had been allowed to burn for awhile. The terrain where it started is steep and inaccessible and there are two other fires in the area that are threatening homes. But as of yesterday, they do have crews on the ground fighting the fire, too — probably because it’s now closer to some structures and also into an area that is easier to get to.
I took some pictures with Jeremy’s small camera and if any of them are decent I’ll post one here later.
No real cat news this morning. Sondra and family are having fun playing with the kittens and the kittens are happy to have more devoted humans entertaining them. They keep saying they are taking this one or that one home with them. At this rate I’ll have no kittens when they leave! LOL!