Merry Widow Gold and Health Mine June 22, 2007

We are now residents of South Dakota. The move was not too bad --- not too many boxes to pack, or appliances to install! We will still get our mail in Texas for a while. When we return from our northern sojourn into Canada and Alaska, we will make arrangements to get the mail situation straightened out.

We had a pleasant trip from Spearfish, South Dakota to here, Basin, Montana. We are north of Butte and south of Helena. We saw elk and deer beside the road on the way o here. We passed the Custer Battlefield on the Little Bighorn, but we did not stop, as we had spent a full day there several years ago. This is pretty country, especially now before everything is dried up. It is difficult to believe this part of the country was occupied only by Indians 150 years ago -- not so long ago to a man (me) who is nearly 75 year old. Sitting Bull was a chief of the Dakota Sioux at that time, and used to regularly war with the invading white man. Later on, after he was forcefully settled on a reservation, he had a chance to visit the cities in the East. He said, he had had no idea there were so many White people, and if had known, he would have realized there was no way they could win their wars. Parenthetically, I wonder what Sitting Bull would have thought about immigration. I guess by his actions, you would have to say he was opposed. This all raises an interesting question about the rights of inhabitants living in a stone age civilization versus settlers with much higher level of technology, and a more developed sense of government and infrastructure. It is pretty obvious how it is going to end!

We are staying at a campground that has an old gold mine (The Merry Widow Mine) on its site. It is up the hill about a quarter of a mile from the campground. What is noteworthy is that there is significant level of radon gas about 500 feet into the mine. Somehow, people have decided that the radon gas helps cure a number of ill such as arthritis, rheumatism, allergies and the like. People come here and pay to be allowed to stay in the mine for several hours. They claim this gives them relief from their ills and pains. There is also a lady living in an RV here who prepare meals for those campers who wish them. Thus at meal time, there is a kind of social hour down where the meals are served, where we can learn about how successful the radon treatment were. It is interesting that folks pay money to breath radon, while other folks pay money to keep radon out of their basements.

Go figure!