Days 3 and 4: My last two days aside from car trouble

Devil's slide (next to Yellowstone River)

Pretty Montana Mountains

So I've been focusing on my car troubles the past day, but I realized I'm leaving out all the fun stuff from the last two days. So here it is... I wanted to see two things after leaving Missoula on my way to Yellowstone - the first was the "Anaconda Stack" which is the largest free standing masonary structure in the world. But that's not why I went there - I went because for nearly all of the twentieth century it sat there spewing out toxins all over the residents of Anaconda. In the 80s it became a Superfund site (environmental cleanup) because of all the arsenic, lead, etc. that was dumped into the area. It was really eerie to see, scary really. From what I read, they say the area is all clean now (but you can still request the EPA come take samples from your house). I don't buy it. I can't believe anyone would want to live there. There are huge mounds of what looks like oil sludge (I assume left over stuff from smelting). Reading up on smelting it appears that the arsenic is a "good thing" for smelting copper (which they did there) and was even added. Yuck. I'm amazed that people could have ever thought doing such things was harmless to themselves and the land. Makes me wonder what we do now that we believe to be "just fine" that will eventually prove to be poisoning us. Anyway, I didn't like being there at all. I didn't even let Hailey out of the car (lest she decide to play in the dirt) and just took pictures quickly and got back on the road.

The anaconda stack (they don't let you get very close)

All the waste from the smelting (or cleanup, I don't actually know)

The next place I wanted to see was a Radon Mine. Supposedly, some people claim that low levels of radiation are actually good for you (for all you nutrition grads out there, harken back to Dr Novack because they claim it upregulates the P53 gene as well as encouraging better DNA repair (http://www.radonmine.com/why.html). I'm not sure I buy it, but I guess if you damage your cells just a little bit more than normal, they say you can upregulate all the anti-cancer stuff. Funny that their list of ailments that radon cures sounds a lot like what gluten-free diets fix. Anyway, I got totally lost and never got there. At one point I started going down an unpaved road and decided to give up. Good thing too, I realized later that my directions were wrong (again with the traveling without real maps or real direction... what can I say, that's just how I operate.) But that's okay, because I learned about it and never planned on going inside anyway. But now, if you're selling a house that has radon problems, you can just say it's a healthy benefit!

After that, I drove down to Gardiner, MT, just outside of Yellowstone. The only room they had left there was a smoking room, so while they put an ozone machine in it to clear the smell Hailey and I went to hang out by the Yellowstone river. It was hot, so we just hung out in the shade. She wanted to go in the river, but the current is strong and I don't trust her swimming *that* much. The picture of the white water rafters is the group that eventually was nice enough to give me a ride into town to call the tow truck (and so I never did stay in that smoking room at the hotel, so maybe it was a good thing after all).

Sitting in the shade next to Yellowstone River

My soon-to-be best friends

So that was yesterday. Today I didn't do too much. Slept a lot since I didn't sleep well in the hotel last night. The windows wouldn't shut, the door lock really didn't and Hailey kept waking up to growl at noises. To be honest I didn't feel safe there, so we moved down the street to a much nicer hotel (the lady at the front desk was really nice and let us get in early), ordered a pizza, ate, and napped (which was really what I needed because I was way low on calories and sleep). We also cruised around town and found some nice parks. The Bozeman park and trail system is awesome. I could really enjoy running around town; this would actually be a really fun place to go to school (Montana State University is here). I included some pictures of the park and a fun statue we found (of some important guy; I don't remember really)

The park we hung out in

Fun statue

So that's it up to now. I'll go to bed early tonight and see about the car first thing in the morning. Hopefully, I'll get it back early enough to get further East (maybe to Billings or even further; I'd be happy to get out of Montana at this point, but probably not tomorrow.)

Oh, and one thought on road-side stops. Why is everything "historic"? I never see a sign for just a museum. It's always a historic museum, or a historic city, or historic port-a-potty (okay, I didn't really see that one). It just seems over done :)

(oh, and side-note for my dad: you have got to come fishing here. The streams are gorgeous; and as long as you're not near Anaconda, I bet crystal clear!)