Trout Creek, MT

Saturday, September 21

Raining in Montana again! I’d venture to say there’s been some measure of precipitation every day that we’ve been here this month. I’m not sure if that’s normal, or not? I expected cooler temperatures as we entered into the fall season, but I didn’t expect so much wetness in September.

We woke up at the KOA campground in Missoula this morning. It was packed on a Saturday morning, almost every site full, and not much space to workout outside. Not that I wanted to exercise in the rain anyway….

I decided instead to take a nice, long shower at the shower house while the rest of the family slept. When I returned to the RV, Aden was up so I took him to shower and then did the same with Tory after she woke up for the day.

Today, I planned to take the kids to the SpectrUM Science Discovery Center in Missoula and invited Katie, Josh and their kids Teddy and Cricket to meet us there. Katie and Josh are originally from my hometown in Nebraska and now reside in Missoula. When I knew we’d be coming through town, I reached out to Katie for recommendations and we arranged a meet-up. Social media can be a blessing and a curse, but one of its greatest benefits is keeping people connected. Had Katie and I not kept in touch via Instagram over the years, I’d never have known she was living in Montana now.

As we prepared to leave the KOA campground and head to the museum, Andi had a dreaded sewer incident. Dumping the black tank isn’t the most glamorous part about RVing, but with a pair of rubber gloves and a good connection hose, it goes pretty smoothly. Somehow, there was a breakdown in Andi’s usual dumping process and he ended up with a mess this morning. Eek.

The sewer incident delayed our departure a bit, but we eventually made it to the science museum around 10:30am. One chip that fell our way that morning — it happened to be National Museum Day and admission into the SpectrUM Discovery Science Center was free.

Katie, Josh, and their kids arrived shortly after we did. We spent the next few hours playing and talking together in the relatively small museum space. It was the perfect place to spend the morning because it wasn’t busy at all. Tory and Aden had a blast learning about the transmission of germs in the health area and zapping each other in the electricity unit.

While the kids and I spent the morning in the museum, Andi was outside in the parking lot installing the new RV house batteries. I felt bad for him because he had to work outside in the rain. A job that probably would have been fairly easy at home in our shed with all of Andi’s tools was five times more complicated to complete in a museum parking lot.

Around 1:00pm, Katie and Josh invited us all to lunch. We decided on Highlander Brewery and parted ways to meet there across town. Andi picked us up in the RV and we were on our way.

At the brewery, we ate pizza (again!) and enjoyed a beer while the kids played outside. The sun came out and warmed up the air to make for a perfectly relaxing Saturday afternoon outdoors. Tory, Aden, Teddy and Cricket made fast friends playing by the creek and building a fort together.

As much as we would have liked to stay in Missoula one more night, Andi and I decided to push on toward Idaho. Our first destination there would be Sandpoint, ID, about 3 1/2 hours away from Missoula.

We said good-bye to Katie and Josh, and thanked them for their hospitality. Andi and I have said time and again that some our favorite travel memories are connecting with people on the road. We never regret calling up someone from the past and meeting up to explore a place through their eyes.

Before we left Missoula, Andi wanted to stop by an auto parts store to get a connector for the RV inverter that wasn’t working correctly. It was a race to get there before the store closed at 5:00pm. While Andi fixed the inverter part in the parking lot of the auto store, Aden had a meltdown over cookies. He was clearly hungry for dinner but only wanted Nutter Butters, which obviously wasn’t an acceptable option.

Since we weren’t sure where we’d end up staying that night, we also decided to get dinner to-go and a few groceries at the Good Food Store next door to the auto part store. Andi took Aden into the store to pick out something for dinner and returned with some delicious looking grain bowls, a few of our favorite yogurts from Kalispell Kreamery and a loaf of French bread. Andi said it was the nicest grocery store he’d ever been inside. “It takes Whole Foods up about four notches,” he said.

We ate dinner on the road while we traveled Highway 200 from Missoula to Idaho. The scenery was beautiful along the way as the highway followed the Clark Fork River.

Around 8:30pm, we pulled into North Shore Campground in Trout Creek, Montana. It was dark outside and I was nervous we’d hit a deer on the highway. Sandpoint, Idaho was still another 1 1/2 hours away so we decided to stop here for the night. It’s surprising how many campgrounds are around when you look. Andi uses an app called AllStays which easily shows us what is available in an area.

Andi paid the $10 campsite fee and then we set up camp. We made the table into Aden’s bed and got the kids into pajamas. They were both tired after a full day of playing in Missoula.

Next stop: Sandpoint, Idaho!