Friday, September 01, 2006

Missoula, MT August 30-31

Hello Wal-Mart. We couldn't find a good Passport America campground in Missoula so we decided to dry camp at the first Wal-Mart we came across. After asking an assistant manager we found a spot far away from the front door and put down the jacks (on wood blocks of course). We didn't put out the slide or awnings.

The drive to Missoula from Fort Lewis Clark near Kamiah was arduous. I can't remember a single straight stretch of road. The scenery was spectacular. The beautiful Clearwater and Lockse Rivers were always within sight as we gradually headed up towards Lolo Pass. The last mile or two were straight up I think. We stopped a couple of times to take a break: once to have lunch and another time to pick blackberries.

We saw a woman picking berries and thought she was picking huckleberries and pulled over the first chance we had. They were blackberries. She had already worked over the patch but there were enough left for us to fill a couple of Cool-Whip tubs. Blackberries on ice cream!! Blackberries on corn flakes!!

Fort Missoula is an interesting place to visit. It has several annual celebrations held there and it would be better to visit there during one of those celebrations. There is a lot of worthwhile things to see because the grounds have become a respository of historical buildings and objects. I liked the old school, the saw mill, and the detention building (an exhibit depicting conditions in Fort Missoula where Japanese and Italians were detained during WWII).

We drove around Missoula quite a bit the two days we were there. One annoying thing was the way US-20 cut through the town on a diagonal creating lots of 6 way intersections making it a challenge sometimes on which way to turn or turn around. The down town area was active probably to its close proximity to the University of Montana campus (it took us a while to figure out what Go Griz on every sign meant. The UM mascot is a Grizzly Bear.)

We tried washing the CRV but were thwarted by a coin machine at the car wash. I put the coins in and nothing happened so I gave it a couple of whacks and set the alarm off. We sat there waiting for the owner to hopefully show up so we could get our quarters back. Instead a couple of police officers responded. They didn't cuff me.

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