Gillette

We stayed over post-rally at the CAM-PLEX grounds for a few days to let the dust settle on the roads, regroup and reorganize, and explore the town and surrounding area a bit.

• Being Jim’s Birthday this week, and mine coming up next week, we had a nice steak dinner the “The Prime Rib” restaurant.

• Eagle Butte Coal Mine Tour in Gillette Wyoming. Tonka Toys on a massive scale! We actually got to ride down into the pit and see the fascinating operations close up. The mine never stops and the process is surprisingly simple; shovel and dump into truck (the tires themselves are THIRTEEN feet tall!), haul to the hopper, crush, conveyed to silos, train rolls under silo at a constant speed to load each car. It was very impressive to see not only just the mining process itself, but how the entire infrastructure and land/wildlife is managed. It was all so very interesting

* Took a scenic drive loop north of town, happened to somehow miss the eastward turn to stay and the loop and managed to find ourselves up into the state of Montana. Biddle Montana, home the cutest little general store with T-Shirts touting that very thing “out in the middle of nowhere”.