Scheduling Snafus

The first time we decided to walk through Helena’s walking mall, we found our way blocked by a complete lack of people. Dark storefronts blankly watched us as we wandered down the street, narrowly avoiding a street sweeping machine and a worker with recycling. The shopkeepers, citizens and tourists of Helena apparently consider 9:30 am an unthinkable hour to venture forth into Last Chance Gulch. The whole thing reminded us eerily of our trip to Virginia City a year ago. Every morning my wife and I scramble to make it to work on time, and yet on vacation we regularly show up before the town has had a chance to turn itself on. You’d think we’d learn by now that 10:00 am is the universally acknowledged decent hour at which to begin touristing.

We have impeccably bad timing. Last year-on the same trip that we haunted V.C.-we tried to experience the nightlife in Ennis on a Monday night, to disastrously uneventful results. Hoping to avoid the same mistake, we headed to Helena on a Wednesday night, knowing that Helena’s famous Alive @ Five would be sure to entertain, only to find that rain had pushed the band inside and driven the street vendors home. So really this morning was just following the trend of impeccably bad timing.

Fortunately the Placer Center hides a small coffee shop in its lobby. Said coffee shop-one Sweet & Savory by name-opens its doors in the very small of the night-the ungodly hour of 7:30 am, if you can believe it. Sweet & Savory serves green tea chai. Chai. Brewed with green tea. I hope this is a thing in other places because dear goodness is it amazing. Later in our trip we managed to experience all of the fun shops and unique history of Last Chance Gulch, but there was something incredibly satisfying about wandering through the deserted mall, sipping a new discovery, soothed by the whir of the street cleaners.