We ate breakfast and had some coffee, jumped in the shower and finished packing the truck. We thanked John and Whitney for the use of their home and their hospitality. We received “I love you’s” from Anna Marie and we all said our goodbyes. At just over two weeks into this trip, we have spent one week of it in nice living conditions. This was all unknowingly of course. We had no intentions or set plans of having a bed, constant use of a shower, kitchen, etc. Had we known, we would have saved it for the end of the trip, or at least spread it out. The next two weeks might be harder to get through since we’ve been given these luxuries.
We drove into town and came up behind this truck, pretty hysterical if I do say so myself. It’s a sewage company truck and their motto is “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” Oh ACDC, thanks for that one!
We stopped by FedEx and picked up Andrew’s copies, then headed to the post office to mail them. We went into Adventure Cycling, which is headquartered in Missoula to talk with them. We learned a lot about their company and what they are doing for the cycling world and although they are primarily a road biking, non-profit organization, they do have an interest in and a good amount of knowledge of mountain biking. We talked to them about Mulberry Gap and they gave us some recommendations as to how to get our name on the map.
Our next stop was Missoula’s Aerial Smokejumpers place. We got there about an hour before the next tour, so we did a self guided tour inside the visitor’s center and made lunch to waste time. Eventually, 1:00pm rolled around and the tour began; Andrew and I were the only ones. It was very informational and interesting. We learned a lot, but Andrew walked away knowing that he was not interested in that field, at least as a long term career.
Next, we headed to the grocery store to stock up before we made our way to the park. We saw the Lost Bus, brightly painted. They had several kayaks mounted on top of the bus, a pull behind closed in trailer with mountain bikes and road bikes…and a website; lostbus.com. I had to check this out. If Andrew and I weren’t in a bit of a time crunch, I would have pushed harder to stop and talk to them. I had a feeling it could turn into quite a long conversation, however. I briefly looked at their website a bit while we were picking out food and they have a pretty good thing going on. I recommend everyone reading this blog go check it out, if only for a few minutes. They aren’t the first ones to do this kind of thing, but I have a respect for those who go about life in this way.
We made ourselves lunch in the parking lot, then put all the groceries away before getting on the road towards Glacier around 2:45pm. We made it all the way to Hungry Horse just outside of Glacier’s west entrance when we decided we should start looking for a camping spot and make dinner before it got too dark. We drove through Flathead National Forest and found a satisfactory dirt road pull off where we decided to set up camp. It was about 7:00pm by the time we ate dinner. Andrew worked on making a fire, which we sat around for about an hour drinking hot chocolate and talking of tomorrow’s plans.
Once we were ready for bed, I pulled out the papers we had picked up from the Aerial Smokejumper place and we read up on the national park so we would be a little better prepared for tomorrow’s adventures. We wanted to get some kind of plan together so we weren’t wasting time in the morning. Andrew didn’t last long; he fell asleep as I was reading it. I gave up and joined him.
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