The second day of our trip to Montana was spent first in the ghost town of Virginia City and then at Earthquake Lake. Too many photos to share in one post, so I’ll start with Virginia City!

We started the day with coffee and breakfast from Black Butte in Ennis and then headed to Virginia City. Virginia City is a mere 14 miles from Ennis, so it wasn’t a long drive at all. And oh my gosh was it gorgeous. Rolling green hills, mountains in the distance. It looked like a mini Scotland. Coming up to Virginia City, it’s a quaint little town nestled in the hills, trees scattered around. It is fabulous.

We parked at the end of the Main Street and started there. Main Street is basically a mix of museum and shops. Almost all of the buildings have a plaque on the wall claiming it as a historic site. They have original artifacts inside that you can view through the glass walls and some you can walk through the little rooms. You’ll need at least two hours of time to peruse Main Street! Many things to see and buy.

I think everyone’s favorites were the candy store and the old arcade. I got a bit of fun fudge flavors at the candy store and a couple fruit shaped kitchen sponges. The fudge was so good and they make it right there in the store! The arcade was filled with a lot of old machines, some were available for use if you had a quarter or two! They had a big music box you could put money in and it would play old time songs. We got little horoscope cards from a machine where you inserted a quarter in the slot and pulled the lever and a card popped out. My oldest daughter is into horoscopes lately so that was her idea. She was wanting to get some for her friends back home too! 😂

We got ice cream from the highly rated Virginia City creamery followed by pizza from Bobs Place that we’d been smelling all day and it did indeed taste as good as it smelled! I add to highly rating both of them.:)

It’s funny because history was nearly my least favorite subject in school, after math. But now, I love it. It is so intriguing learning about all the things that happened in the past, paving and changing the ways of the future. Ive learned much more traveling to places like this than I did in school!

We were in this little shop in Virginia City and the store clerk was telling my brother in law and I about what the code 3-7-77 means. She said that back in the day, dangerous criminals would have this code painted on their door by the sheriff. If you add up the numbers, they equal 24 and that meant they had 24 hours to clear town and never come back. If they didn’t, they’d find themselves in a grave 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, and 77 inches deep. I took it upon myself to see if this is fact and it appears it is just a theory and nobody actually knows what it means, all that’s known is it has something to do with vigilantes. She also mentioned if we went a couple doors down, there was a shop that had two beams in there where two men were hung. Creepy part is, the beams still bore the burn marks of the ropes.

Overall, Virginia City was well worth the time. I’d definitely recommend it. But get coffee in Ennis before you go. I heard a lady asking a store that advertised espresso if she could get one and they said they didn’t have any today. And the lady said that she’d tried every place and she couldn’t get a coffee! Imagine strolling around browsing shops and museums without coffee. Now that would be terrible. So keep that in mind!