Aug 1st, 2017

We said goodbye to Idaho and headed toward Montana. Our destination was the Bordello Museum in Wallace (because no trip is complete without a Bordello Museum)! The museum is in a little town called Wallace and what we thought was going to be a short stop ended up being an all-day affair! We had so much fun!

It is evidently the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE because “If a thing cannot be disproven, it is thereby proven.”  Wallace MUST be the Center of the Universe because you can’t PROVE otherwise. Perfectly logical and a great trademark for a quirky cool town that was the Silver Capitol of the World in it’s prime and still has mining underway.

There was a Pawn Shop like no other we’ve seen! It was like an amazing museum with price tags! I saw antiques I have never seen the likes of before! I know its a lot of photos but just to give you an idea. The B&W pictures are framed Kodak Advertisements. Too Cool! No junk here – honest to goodness pieces of the past in every category!

The whole town was old buildings converted into cool shops and antique stores that were really different than the many we had seen before. The shop folk were super friendly and helpful. If we weren’t on the road I think this might have been the most expensive shopping trip ever – though I’m not sure how we would have gotten it home or where we would have put it. These would be the kind of things that would probably get a “That’s so YOU” from friends not quite knowing what I was thinking LOL!

Pop Art Print – 10 ft tall dancing male mannequin – plexi glass table with 3 stools (they all light up) and a red bathtub that the owner says he can also sell me 2 matching sinks to go with it! Just a few things I might not have been able to live without! I think my Brother would have loved this place too!

We did eventually make it to the Bordello Museum. It had been a Bordello over a bar since the late 1800’s. It was purchased by a gal named Ginger in the 1960’s and was open until 1988. Prostitution isn’t legal in Montana so when the town Sherriff gave Ginger the heads up that the FBI was headed to town, she and the gals grabbed their $ and a suitcases and headed out of town for a little vacation – that was in 1988. Unfortunately the FBI was there to investigate the Sherriff, not the bordello and stayed in town for 2 more years. The gals went on with their lives and Ginger sold the Bordello to a gentleman who decided it needed to be a museum. So the upstairs is (with the exception of one room that had water damage) exactly at it was left when the gals dodged the FBI. Grocery bag partially unloaded, dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, cigarette butts in the ashtray. A time capsule for sure. They dolled (pun intended) the rooms but otherwise its a 1960’s moment in time.

This was one of my favorite days on the road! I hope we go back and camp there on another chapter of our adventure. I’d love to cozy in for a few days – maybe when its not quite so HOT!

We headed east but made a stop at Lincoln’s $50,000 Silver Dollar Bar, Restaurant, and Gift Shop. That’s a bunch of silver dollars and a dandy business. We had no trouble fitting in the truck parking!