Our Room at the Ranch

The motorcoach finally stopped in front of the Stage Stop and all 16 of us hopped out excitedly! We were greeted by the friendly smiling faces of the Ranch staff and they ushered us inside. The Stage Stop is one of the main buildings in town. You can head over there to change your activities (either add on, switch around or remove) and it's also the pick up point for some of the activities, like the Backcountry Jeep Tour, Fly Fishing, Clay Shooting and Off Roading. This is basically where you go to if you need any help during your entire stay. As usual, you can get unlimited supply of water, Powerade, coffee and snacks there too.

After a short "do's and don'ts" briefing by the Ranch Security, we checked in and got our room keys. Our room was Gallatin, in the Rock Creek Bank building. All the rooms in the Bank are named after famous people who helped write history, like former Presidents and Frontiersmen.

One of the Ranch staff brought us to our building. It was just a few buildings away from the Stage Stop actually. The good thing about staying in the Bank is that it's located at the edge of town, so it's not too noisy and there are higher chances of us spotting wildlife from our rooms or the balcony. We can also get a great view of the sunset from here.

The lobby of the Rock Creek Bank looks exactly like errrr a Bank? :P The moment you walk in, there is an old fashion bank teller counter. You can go behind the counter and check out all the cool old fashion typewriters, registers and other stuff that you can find in a Bank.

There is also a huge vault door that is at the entrance leading to the rooms on the ground floor. There is a little bit of history behind those doors. This was the original vault door that was installed in the Montana State Capitol Building in Helena (state capital of Montana) back in 1900. It used to guard the State's payroll vault in the State Auditor's office for 97 years. It was moved to the Crazy Mountain Ranch back in 2000 and it's been here ever since. Cool huh? :D

Our room is located on the second floor. I just love all the original photographs and bank notes that line the walls along the stairway, leading upstairs.

There is a comfortable and cosy sitting room on the second floor landing. This is where you can make calls for free back home to your family, anywhere in the United States. Since there are no cell phone signals anywhere on the Ranch and no Internet or WiFi, it's really good that you get free calls to check back with the folks back home!

At last we are at our room. The moment we opened the door, this is what we saw on the bed! All kinds of gifts from Marlboro! Wow! There were cowboy hats, boots, 2 types of jackets, a t shirt, a bandanna, sunglasses, a Swiss Army pocket watch, waist pouch with a tiny compass, water container, a Marlboro hard cover cook book, an ashtray, a portable ashtray, some packs of cigarettes and a Samsung 7.2MP digital camera! How cool is that??? I will blog in detail about all the gifts we got from Marlboro during the trip in a whole separate post.

Here are some of the pictures that we took of the room. I just love the decor. It has this country/ranch old fashioned charm to it.

My favorite part of the room is the bathroom. Check it out! There is also a clawfoot bathtub in every room. The Crazy Horse Ranch is said to have the largest collection of clawfoot bathtubs in the whole nation. It's the first time I've actually seen a clawfoot bathtub up close, let alone shower in one. Waaayyyyy coool!

There is also a huge balcony with old fashioned rocking chairs and side tables. Check out the spit bucket...there are many of those all over the Ranch. It's actually used more for people to stub out their cigarettes instead of spitting :P The balcony is also a great place to look out for wildlife (we spotted many deer and one night, I swear I saw a wolverine too). Since the Bank is located at the edge of town, you can also get a great straight on view of the sunset from the balcony too.

Well, this wraps with the grand tour of our room at the ranch. Stay tuned for the next post. I'll be blogging about all the gifts that we got during our trip. Marlboro totally rocks! :D

* Click here to be directed back to the Crazy Mountain Ranch Homepage. You can check out other ranch related posts as well as look at photos from the ranch during our Summer 2009 trip!