Right past the Fairmont Hot Springs is the town of Butte. There is always something to see anywhere. The highlight of Butte was a the “Our Lady of the Rockies” statue, which happens to be the 4th largest statue in the United States. The Statue of Liberty is only the 2nd tallest. The tallest is in Puerto Rico, the “Birth of the New World” (a Christopher Columbus and his ship). The 3rd largest is in Florida of a “Pegasus and Dragon”. Yes Chloe, we will go see and take pictures for you :). And this Lady of the Rockies is the 4th. We did not take the tour to go up, but Edwin did take a picture through binoculars just so we could show it off.
The other highlight that Butte has to offer is the one of the first and largest Superfund sites in America, the Berkeley Pit. It is 1 mile long by 1/2 mile wide and 1,780’ deep. It was a large copper and silver mine in the mid 1800s. It was closed on Earth Day in 1982 and the pit is filling with water but it is heavily laden with metals. They are working hard to divert the water before the it reaches the water table (which is supposed to happen in 2020) because then it will contaminate all the drinking water in Butte and the surrounding area, the Clark-Fork River. Pretty awful. We were there before 9 when you could go to the viewing platform so of course we just went up the hill to look over. Edwin could see the “lake” but I couldn’t so I climbed the fence until Edwin yelled at me to get do-win because he could hear the alarm sounding in the distance from me climbing up there. There’s a pic below of Edwin helping me down so I didn’t get hurt from the fence up top. Edwin was not so happy. Vera ran back to the RV scared the police were going to come. I just wanted a look…. 👀 🙂
