Events of Saturday, July 31, 2010

After such colorful entries, my contribution seems rather meager. The kids’ highlight was shopping and gobbling up all the free food samples at Costco in Helena. The naming of this city is a funny story. The founders were four exhausted miners, making one last effort to discover gold. They found it in a nearby creek, so they called the place “Last Chance Gulch.” As more people arrived, a town formed and they called it Crabtown. Unhappy with that name, residents suggested they rename it Pumpkinville or Squashtown, but the favorite was “Helena” (pronounced “Heh-LAY-nah”). However, it was such a feminine-sounding name, the mostly male population decided that their city’s name deserved a saltier pronunciation, so they decided on “HELL-eh-nah”.

The rest of the day we spent driving north, through a windy thunderstorm, and arrived at our campsite in West Glacier. Our clothing supply was dwindling, so we did some laundry there. The dryer’s temperature control was faulty, so it took us a while to discover that “hot” means “cold,” and “medium” means “hot.” But finally the laundry is done, the kids are asleep, and the pitter-patter of rain on the roof lulls me to sleep.