Got a slow start out of the blocks today with a stop at the Owl Cafe in Hayden (just north of Cd'A) - I'd asked Matthew for his best diner recommendation and I think we agree that this is possibly the best breakfast you can find in North America. I called Matthew to thank him and he said "And was it an authentic local diner experience, complete with a cast of characters?" - it was, and the food was just spectacular.
We waddled to the car and then headed just north to Athol, where a letterboxing stop came up empty but found us a treasure anyway. We stopped at the old deep-water Navy training base that was open during WWII, and has since been turned into a state park. Of the multiple camps and facilities once there as part of what was the second-largest naval training base in the world in its day, in which nearly 300,000 sailors received their basic training, only the brig still stands and has been turned into a museum. It's a standard cellblock layout around a concrete courtyard. You can't actually go in through the gates but their museum entrance is along the outside wall, and they sent a volunteer over to open it up for us. The exhibits are not flashy and occupy the space of about eight or ten 4-man cells. [Check out the rope work!]
Then we puttered around looking for the letterbox, and as we gave up and started to leave, a park ranger we'd said hello to earlier approached us again - and that's where the fun started. He said "I could show you a few things that you didn't see in the museum tour..." and with that he swung open the huge steel main gates of the prison and ushered us in. He took us through all of it - it's completely unrestored and falling down, and they are just trying to get grants to reclaim bits and pieces of it. So it was about as behind the scenes as you can get, as we stood in the solitary confinement block amid cells that have been demolished, piles of lumber, ceiling falling in - and Al the park ranger told us the story. Of how this place had been fish & game land for years, and then the Girl Scouts decided they wanted to hold a camporee there. They were turned down, and they went to the First Lady (who was then Lady Bird Johnson) and she got the place turned into a state park so the Girl Scouts could camp there. But she had a few changes in mind. For one thing, she didn't want it to look like a prison. So this brig sports homey wooden slat shutters that cover all the jail windows, and the solitary block was virtually destroyed because it appeared so inhumane and we couldn't have any Girl Scouts see that either.
Later administrators also had no vision for the future that this place in history should be saved, and made further demolitions. Our guide said he'd been there for 22 years now, and he was so obviously passionate about every little piece he's been able to restore, that I asked him what had brought him to this point in his life. He said that at first it was just a job, but about two years into it he'd had a dream where a clear voice told him that the reason he was put in the world was to save the historical resource of the Farragut Naval Training Base for posterity. A few years after, he started a veterans' reunion which brought 6 men the first year. Their most recent one was two weeks ago and brought over 4,000 men of the greatest generation.
I can't put into words how it was to walk around this facility which to anyone would frankly look like a ruin (and a government-issue ruin, no less) and hear this man's single voice of pride and hope in the stewardship of this piece of history. It was well worth the time we took to see something that few members of the public are allowed to view.
But we had to push on - and had a beautiful drive through the border crossing and into British Columbia, and then into southern Alberta before cutting north toward Calgary. Our detour route had meant Phyllis wasn't going to get to see the big wind farms in northern North Dakota - but it turns out that southern Alberta has just as many, and it was amazing to see scores of those giant turbines stretch for miles across the landscape. We had a quick dinner stop and then pulled into Calgary after nightfall. Started looking around for a place to stay then decided to push north a little further and here we are in Airdrie, which should give us a bit easier start in the morning.
Peg and Phyllis
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Phyllis remembers:
Somewhere around this point I realize that every time I offer to drive, Peg says no thanks. So far in total, I have driven for 3 hours each on two days, somewhere in the middle of that long straight stretch that goes on for days in between Minneapolis and Coeur d'Alene. So I spend my time staring out the window and knitting. She seems to be happy driving, and I am content to stare out the window. We also had very good books on tape that kept us both happy. The view here on the plains, however, is...uhm...pretty plain except for the wind farms.
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