Blogs from Missoula, Montana, United States, North America

As previously noted, Lewis and Clark were pessimistic about their ability to continue the Jefferson River as a transportation route for very long after leaving the Missouri Headwaters Confluence. They started looking for alternatives, splitting up to make the exploration shorter. By now it was late August and they were afraid of getting caught in the mountains in winter storms. Clark went up the larger Salmon River, even though the Native Americans had told them it was not navigable. Clark ultimately had to admit the wisdom of that analysis. Lewis went up the Big Hole, where one canoe capsized and two others were swamped, forcing them to stop and dry out their gear. Leaving the Big Hole, Lewis then tried going up the Beaverhead. This turned out to be non-navigable as well, but they finally managed ... read more

Day 6: This morning we were in no rush to leave because Manoli had to call Glacier National Park at 8am to see if we could get entry passes through the "lottery", first-come first-serve. Unfortunately, even though she was signed in by 8am, we didn't get them. Glacier National Park is part of the reason we planned on stopping at Missoula, to either spend a day at the park, or go there on our way to Spokane. We left the KOA and awesome Yellowstone behind and hit the road on our way to Missoula, about a 4-hour drive, with no special places to stop along the way. Since we already knew there was a WalMart near our destination, we didn't both stopping in Livingston or Bozeman. We did stop for gas and a coffee after we ... read more

Some days I find it very easy to write this blog and other days I do struggle. It depends a lot on how tired I am and how inspired I get with what we did and or saw that day. Yesterday was a struggle. Hopefully today will flow. So here we go. We left Pocatello, MT at 8:10 AM and 73 degrees. And we spent a good deal of time fighting with the soft talking lady in the black box. She wanted us to travel to Missoula on the interstate. But that is not where you have the best experiences and see the best vistas. So we continued to argue with her and work around her for the better part of two hours, until she finally relented and let us have our way. And boy were ... read more

Another great day on a bike! We woke up early and broke camp with enthusiasm. Pat , Becky and I were on the road about 7:10 and as per the last week we had very little wind to contend with. The route from Darby to Missoula is basically downhill and we were able to make great time. We covered 66 miles in about 4 hours and 40 minutes which is one of the fastest of my tour. The serendipity is that we were able to ride on a bike path for the last 48 miles which really made for an enjoyable day. Although the scenery was very pretty, it was very similar to the last few days in the Bitterroot Valley. Once arriving in Missoula, we went to the Mecca of bicycle touring, Adventure Cycling Headquarters. ... read more

We drove up to Missoula, Montana, today to visit with our nephew David and his wife Caroline. The smoke haze was heavy all day, more so the closer we got to Missoula. We drove in on I-90 and there was no problem from the wildfires but we did hear that another more secondary route is closed. Unfortunately the haze was so thick that we can't see the mountains surrounding Missoula very well, but definitely the terrain here is more mountainous and forested than where we have been before today. It was good to see Dave and Caroline. We had supper together at the camper, then followed them into the city where we took a walk along the Clark Fork river. We plan to do a little more sightseeing in the area tomorrow. ... read more