Today, Friday, started like most days…a beautiful morning walk with Karl…
Then, because it’s Friday and also because the rest of the programming team is on vacation and we have a bit of a work breather and because Bill and I enjoy going out for breakfast…we went out for breakfast.
The “plan” was a Mexican breakfast at Los Caporales…
Turns out breakfast is “American” at Los Caporales, but turned out fine as they had chicken fried steak which is what we wanted earlier in the week when we ended up with a German breakfast.
Next stop was Kehoe’s Agate Shop…
I’ve seen the Kehoe’s sign on the way to and from Bigfork for the entire 14 1/2 years I’ve lived in northwest Montana. In fact there are about 4 signs around as there are several roads leading to the area where the shop is. I had never been.
The shop is on the Flathead River, just before it enters Flathead Lake - a little deadend road at the tail end of a golf course housing development which used to be farm land. It is a beautiful spot as although the golf course development is very pretty and looks to both the lake and the mountains, the dead end road leaves that area and immediately you feel like you are in the country at a secluded river side.
The river and remnants of a very old bridge are just past the shop.
Across from the shop - a beautiful old barn with a peek of the lake…
The shop is family owned and run by people who love rocks, agates and fossils. Despite its out-of-the-way location, the shop guest book had already been signed by 5 other visitors - this at 10:30 in the morning.
Bill loves agates and fossils. It was a pretty little shop with the charm of an old wooden structure, light filtered through the trees reflecting on shelves of beautiful agate and fossils. He saw something he wanted on a shelf but the price was astronomical… a box was dug out from a lower shelf and as the first fossil was turned back, he asked the price and said he’d take that. I was watching in surprise as I know nothing of fossils….
Bill’s fish - exactly what he wanted.
The fossil specifics:
Fossil fish phareodus from the Eocene Era, found in the Green River Shale in Wyoming.
source of above: Paleontology of the Green River Shale by Gary B. Glass