Continuing westward, we hit the road for Missoula. We have been members of the Missoula-based Adventure Cycling Association for years, and I guess I'd always thought of Missoula as some little dot on the map -- I'm not even sure why. But knowing how many cyclists pass through here on bike tours and what a bike friendly city it's supposed to be, we were looking forward to checking it out. The drive over from Billings got prettier and prettier the farther west we got, especially when we saw the Rocky Mountains up ahead out our windshield. Absolutely breathtaking! Our pictures would have been even nicer if we'd had a clearer day, but as you can see, it was overcast. The closer we got, the more impressive they were. The rivers were also beautiful. I am pretty sure this is the Yellowstone River, but I wouldn't swear on it. This is what I get for not writing blog posts right away, while things are fresh on my mind. When we arrived in Missoula, I realized that this was no dot on the map. It was a real city! We stayed in a nice La Quinta, which was unfortunately absolutely chock-a-block full of people and their four-legged companions for a big dog show in the area. What bad luck...we'd thought that by avoiding staying on a weekend, Missoula would be pretty quiet, but that was not the case. There were some noisy dogs on our hall, so our sleep quality was not the best for the two nights we were here. Our room faced a nice rushing creek out back, though! After checking in, we decided to walk down to find a grocery store to pick up a few things. We were tired of sitting in the car and certainly didn't want to get back into it. It was quite a hike down a very busy street, but we finally made it to a Walmart about two miles one way. On the way back, we got caught in a sudden rainstorm, which was kind of surprising considering how pretty the sky looked when we first checked in (see photo above). Weather can change on a dime in this part of the country.
The following day, we planned to bicycle around Missoula and check it out more thoroughly. Stay tuned for much more from this pretty western city -- we had a fantastic ride and saw so much!
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Emily & BarryWe're a long-married, early-retired couple who are currently traveling as nomads with no fixed home base. After years of living in North Carolina (Emily's home state), we spent 18 months living oceanfront on Ambergris Caye, Belize, a year road-tripping the US in a Honda CR-V, a year in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and are now roaming North America in our 32' motorhome, Pearl, following warm weather whenever possible. Archives
July 2019
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