We sad our sad goodbyes to Ketchum. We made yet another amazing Dutch Baby pancake with berries and then let the dogs fetch a little on the Dollar Mountain Bunny Hill thingie.
We stupidly followed the GPS out of town and I ended up driving up some pass on a dirt road going very slowly. Tom kept getting confused because he couldn't find us on the map and we had been very excited to stop off at Redfish or Red something lake that Naomi had told us about. However we never saw it.
When we got to some random town in Idaho we realized the GPS had taken us an insane way, and that we had missed the entire drive through the Sawtooths, and the stop off at the lake.
We got out and had burgers at some place. It was 97 degrees outside!!! We were in shock because Jackson and Ketchum had been relatively cool. We jumped back into our ACed car and kept trucking. We stopped at a random river and let Harper run in a little bit. It was COLD cold cold water.
At some point we passed the 45th parallel - the spot mid way between the equator and the north pole. Ok something like that. I can't remember the exact info. I failed to get a picture, just like every time we passed the continental divide I could NOT for the life of me get a picture.
We entered into Montana at some point. We stopped at a Forest Ranger station and Tom asked them some questions. We could see the dead trees that had been burned 9 years ago in some insane forest fire. There were a LOT of dead trees.
We stopped about 14 miles south of Missoula to go to a campground. It was a really nice place along a river and we set up our tent and hung out in the river briefly. It felt very refreshing and Harper was having fun. Then we decided to go to Missoula - the infamous town that I was convinced I would be in love with.
I drove in and I was not impressed. Sort of junky strip malls on your way in and little "casinos" everywhere. I don't think they actually have true gambling....just Keno and other electronic things. We got into more of the residential area and it looked cute. We parked and strolled around Main Street and Front Street. We bought some camp suds at an outdoor gear place and tried to stay out of the sun which was insanely hot. We ended up ordering a pizza from the Mackenzie River Pizza Company (I might have made up this name) and went for a walk on the river as it was baking. We watched some people doing crazy kayaking on the river and then ate our pizza on the grass. On our way out of town we drove toward the campus and parked near some sports fields. Harper ran into the river and then we went for a walk. There was an offleash dog area which was a grassy area with river on either side and then a small trail for a little bit. It was fun and we walked to the end and back.
We headed back to our campsite. Tom and Harper went into the river. I swear it was 40 degrees. I do not know how Tom was able to dunk his head and body in there! We tried to dry Harper off, but he insisted in rolling. Now if he had rolled in the grass that would have been fine, but no, he only would roll in the sandy/ash from the fire pit. So needless to say he was disgusting. We played some music and hung out on our campsite. Then Tom made a fire and we sat around it reading a book aloud. Liane had given us, "Peace Like a River" and we had taken to reading it aloud to each other in the car. Harper would NOT settle down, so we moved into the tent and continued reading until we were sleepy. It was a pretty warm night, and luckily Harper snuggled our feet and not another more heat producing part of our bodies.
