home on the range...

... under a BIG blue sky.
Crossing the Continental Divide and Chief Joseph pass into Big Hole where it is cowboys and cattle, snow caps and 'shoulder to shoulder' sky.
Day 1 of the Yellowstone Park adventure that will take us east into valleys and over passes all the while surrounded by mountain ranges with such poetic names, Beaverhead, Pioneer, Ruby, Highland and Tobacco Root.

Miners cabins for the night await at Nevada City in gold country, such gold rich country that after the first discovery at Alder Creek in the spring of1863 over the following 25years at least $90m in gold was extracted from the area making it the richest placer gold strike in history.
By autumn 1864 10,000 people called the 'Fourteen Mile City' home in small settlements covering the hillsides, Virginia City and Nevada City the main centres of commerce.
Virginia City is a 'living' ghost town, the county seat of Madison County (not the bridges Madison County!) with a population of about 200. Neighbouring town Nevada City is an outdoor History Museum containing a collection of old Montanan buildings, collected by Charles and Sue Bovey from the 1940s.
Moved to the old Nevada City townsite the buildings are typical of those of their era, ranging from schoolhouses to barbershops, blacksmiths to brothels, emporiums and buildings of Chinatowns...and the potential for some shake, rattle and roll from lurking rattlesnakes! (extras)

The term placer refers to a deposit of valuable minerals (in this instance gold) weathered from its original host rock source by the action of water or other geological forces and 'placed' either on a hillside (eluvial), stream bed or alluvial fan...and as a result much easier to mine.