Cheek to cheek

September 3, 2021

Talk about lazy! It's sure hard to get motivated when it's 39 degrees outside.

We were both up early but stayed in the trailer all morning where it was warm, watching the news and doing computer work. Don finished up his calls to rearrange our reservations in Utah for the next couple of months.

It was annoying to have to do that, but at least we had a heads up about that road closure west of Blanding. I think we came up with a workable new route.

Late in the morning we did drive over to a car wash to wash off the truck and then explore some possible bike rides in the area. I know one thing, we won't be riding into downtown Butte since the town's streets go straight up the side of the mountain! We'll stick to the valley where the climbs are minimal.

By the time we got back from our drive, it was time for lunch. But although we had talked about doing a short bike ride (there's a trail located nearby), we couldn't even get motivated to do that since the smoke was back. It seems that the mornings have good air quality while the afternoon winds blow in the smoke.

So we just hung around camp and got ready for our evening's activity. Don had made a phone call to a local dance studio and found out that the Butte Elks Lodge was holding a free dance tonight with live music. We've decided to go and check it out. We don't know what type of music is playing, but we can dance to most anything.

At about 6:30, we were dressed in our dance finery and heading toward the downtown area.

Masks on, we entered the historic lodge and found the dance was being held in the lower level where there was a bar and large dance floor. We had hoped that the dancing was upstairs in their ballroom, but not tonight.

There were just a few people sitting at the bar and the musician was setting up his instruments. It's just a one man band tonight which reminds us of a performer we like to dance to in Denver.

We found a table well away from everyone and waited for the crowds to appear. Well, they never did! We started out dancing by ourselves for a bit, then were joined by another couple that danced way on the other end of the floor.

My concerns had been a crowded floor full of unmasked/unvaccinated people. Other than about 6 people near the bar, the musician and other couple, there wasn't anyone else in the facility. Amazing!

This was a free event and open to public, but I guess no one was interested in attending or dancing. The music was good - the musician was a singer, guitar and keyboard player and even played a drum at the same time.

We got plenty of dancing in but after an hour, the performer took a break and more people started to filter into the lodge. That was our key to head home.

It had been a good evening and we enjoyed getting in some dancing. So far we've danced in Utah and Montana. Now we just need to get Idaho, California and Arizona!

We knew we were in the right campground when we saw this neat fake Airstream stuffed toy display in the camp store!

Outside the store at the KOA is this fun mileage post. Even Colorado has a marker.

Guess we got a site in "bus row"! You can't even see poor little Tango tucked beyond the last coach in the row. Can you believe these 3 RV's add up to nearly $2,000,000!! Yowza! 'Course they probably have granite countertops, multiple bathrooms and more TV's than you can shake a stick at.

This is the historic Elks Lodge in Butte that we went to this evening. The Butte Elks were founded in 1892. There used to be apartments on the top floor that were rented to visiting Elks members for $1.00 per day. On the second floor is a huge ballroom that is still used for line dance classes. In the basement were 4 handball courts and a men's showers. We were only on the ground floor where there is a commercial kitchen and bar. On this level there also used to be a billiards room and "stag" bar where poker games were held. The lodge used to have a drum and bugle corp back at its height. Despite membership declining - they have less than 200 members, the lodge continues to have bingo, pancake breakfasts and hosts other fundraising acitivites so money can be donated back to the community.

Here is the inside of the Elks and the dance floor we used. It was fairly large and we had it mostly to ourselves.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0