Wood's Prairie Travels

Another favorite stop of ours is the quaint town in eastern Montana, Phillipsburg. In addition to their famous Candy Palace and Phillipsburg Brewery, the Gem Mountain sapphire mine is just 25 miles out of town. We pulled into the mine and went to their campground which is nestled in the sage and pine covered gulley just behind the mine’s wash tables. This free camp has become another favorite, not just because of the nearby sapphires, but for its quiet evenings dotted with brilliant stars.  Yikes, TikTok! The parking lot was packed with cars and people were elbow to elbow at the wash troughs and sorting tables. It turns out someone came to the mine and made a TikTok video, in addition, another person made a YouTube video about sapphire mining. That meant a huge increase in customers, so much so that Gem Mountain was having a hard time keeping up with the demand for their gravel. They limited how many buckets you could sort, but at the same time doubled the cost of each bucket....

It is time for Wood’s Prairie to go a wandering again. This journey has one main objective, a 50th Anniversary to celebrate in Minnesota! After that? Well, we will see where the wind blows us. Since we have travelled this road a number of times, there are a couple of established stops along the way. Leaving Wood’s Prairie at 5 AM meant that we didn’t encounter usual morning commute slow downs and arrived in Cle Elum at our favorite breakfast location, the Cottage Cafe. They have the best biscuits, gravy, and eggs breakfast that never fails to please. Light and fluffy biscuits on a bed of golden hashbrowns topped with their homemade sausage gravy, yum! And a bonus, it is always too much to eat at one sitting, so we have a "to go" box with our next breakfast ready to heat up. The flat landscape of Eastern Washington eventually changes to the rugged basalt scablands as. The black rock pokes above the grassy prairie lands in broken chunks and blocks. That landscape is follo...