The road to home
We stopped at West Yellowstone for gas and a rest stop, It was warmer outside than we've felt for a few days, I saw an ice cream shop and announced that I thought we should celebrate our fine trip with an ice cream cone. We went to it and it was closed 😥, but we drove a little farther and found an even better one! I've never heard of a Haagen-Dazs ice cream stand before, but here was one way out in the wilderness of Montana! A waffle cone for each of us!
We drove out hwy 191, and continued on to hwy 247. We followed that hwy until we saw a sign for the Lewis and Clark Caverns State park. We took that exit and drove a short ways to find a spot for the night. What a nice big campground. Lots of space between the sites, even though it was not too private.
What a great dinner view!
We drove to Missoula via hwys 247, 12, 141 and hwy 200. That was a great way to work our way through Montana. We tried to stay off of the big highways. It was wonderful❤. It was still warm when we got to Missoula, so I lowered my window as we don't have a working air conditioner in our car. When I tried to raise it, it wouldn't budge. As my husbands window has not been working and has been stuck in an upright position, mine was now stuck in a down position😂. Now I have all the air conditioner I could ask for and then some. We stopped at a store to buy some Duct tape in hopes of fashioning a window for the remainder of the trip. We drove along with my air conditioner blowing at full force until we reached Lolo Pass, Idaho. I had an idea that we could cut out one of the plastic window panels from our canopy tent (we had some extras at home, so it wouldn't be an issue) and tape it in place, then I could have a "see through" window.
When we arrived at Lolo Pass my husband made and attached a window while I did my sightseeing in the "open year round" visitor center, what a great concept!
My new "see through" window. What a great job he did!
We drove along a windy road that followed the Selway river, we saw a few rafters, stand up paddle boarders and some sport kayakers enjoying the whitewater. The Selway joined the middle fork of the Clearwater river at Lowell. We followed the curvy trail of the Clearwater river until we found the Pink House Recreation site near Orofino, our home for the night.
A site right on the river❤
A new morning with my window!
We drove on hoping to spend the night at either Alta Lake State Park or Pearrygin Lake State Park. We drove past Alta lake and stayed at Pearrygin. It was a pretty windy evening, so we set up our side walls quickly for our dinner.
Dinner view.
Another beautiful morning!
After showering and packing up we drove to Winthrop for breakfast. Before we hit the road we searched the empty town for something that might be open to "tourist" in before we left. Not much was open as it was a Monday. We found an awesome shop that "was" open and bought some coffee to go and two tempting nut covered cinnamon rolls from the "just baked" pan.
What a great journey we had! We tried to stick to the back roads as much as we could, and really see the country. I think we did pretty good considering the amount of days we were gone.
Total miles driven - 2851
Animals seen on our journey:
Deer
Pronghorn
Moose
Elk
Bighorn Mountain Sheep
Bison
Grizzly bear
Black bear
Coyote
Wolves
Sandhill Cranes
Pelicans
Raven
Home❤
Where we discovered it had been unseasonably warm and spring growth was abundant while we'd been away.
Where we discovered it had been unseasonably warm and spring growth was abundant while we'd been away.
