I will begin with a fun fact:
American Bison (aka buffalo) were near
extinction in the 1800’s due to Westward expansion and human greed. The bison population decreased from the
hundreds of millions to <1,000 by 1890.
Luckily, the remaining bison were accidentally trapped in Yellowstone
when it became a National Park in 1872, ultimately saving them!
Thank you Yellowstone! Those beasts are impressive and Bucknell would be lost with an extinct mascot.
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| They might have tiny legs, but they can run >30 mph...don't get too close! |
We sadly said goodbye to Yellowstone on Saturday, July 21st. Day 10 of our trip led us into Montana. We drove through Bozeman, Butte and finally Missoula, which was our last planned stop on this cross country trip. A highlight of our drive through western MT was lunch at Joe's Pasty shop in Butte. Charlie insisted we make this stop because Man vs. Food was there; luckily he didn't participate in a food contest. He did, however manage to scarf down a very heart unhealthy pasty while I dined on a grilled cheese sandwich. Interestingly enough we found out that Joe's really is the place to be in Butte because an entire wedding party squeezed in the small restaurant while we were there.
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| Clearly one's first choice of places to eat. |
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| I've given into eating meat, but this I can't put into my body. |
With full bellies we were ready for a shower at the luxurious Motel 6 in Missoula, MT. It took some time to get checked in because their computer system had just crashed (to be expected), but we were rid of our Yellowstone grime before 4pm and ready to experience Missoula. We loved this city - hitting up local breweries, a weekly farmer's market, and window shopping at the artsy/eclectic downtown shops. Missoula is a small city of 67,000 people located in a valley along the Clark Fork and Bitteroot rivers. The Northern Pacific Railway runs through this city and it is home to the University of Montana, which includes an excellent School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. Additionally, Lewis and Clark met just south of Missoula not once, but twice, splitting-up in hopes that they would find a cohesive river that traversed across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. No such luck.
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| Lewis & Clark's Expedition: 1804-1806. Pretty impressive. |
Okay, time for another fun fact:
Common day Missoula was covered by water just 13,000 years ago. The lake was approximately 950 ft deep and called Glacial Lake Missoula. This lake caused major flooding throughout western MT, ID and WA as its natural glacial dam would give way and release massive amounts of water ultimately emptying into the Pacific Ocean.
At this point in our trip we'd already been given the news that my job wasn't going to pan out due to Washington's slow licensing process. Ironically we found out 2 days later, before arriving in Missoula, that we had officially received our WA licenses. Now the question was, where will we be in WA? With it being the weekend we knew we'd be in the dark until at least Monday, so why not stay an extra night in Missoula? We went back to our camping lifestyle and hit up our first KOA (Kampgrounds of America). If you are looking for luxurious camping, we highly recommend a KOA, especially the one in Missoula. They have hot showers, a swimming pool and hot tubs, mini golf and a nightly ice cream social! I got a little too excited about the ice cream and ended the night with a stomach ache...ugh.
When Monday rolled around we were ready to head further west, closer to our final destination: ??, WA. But before we left we had one more thing to do in Missoula, climb the infamous Mount Sentinel "M" trail. This trail leads to a now concrete "M" that was originally made from stone and created by the University of Montana's Forestry Club in 1908. We climbed the 620' zigzag trail with many other locals out for some exercise then hit the road.
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| Mount Sentinel's "M" |
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| View of Missoula from the "M" |
Unfortunately the new week did not bring with it immediate answers to our location & work dilemma. Thus, we felt more nomadic than ever before and found ourselves trying too hard to enjoy the end of our amazing westward adventure. As a result I won't take much time to cover the end of the journey which included a single night of camping in Spokane, WA that felt like an eternity. After a lot of back and forth with our travelling recruiter we were finally given the okay to head to the Tri-Cities where we would both be doing home care PT.
Luckily our original destination was the Tri-Cities so we had a head start on our housing situation. We were in Kennewick, WA (1 of the 3 "Tri" cities) by Tuesday evening. We spent all day Wednesday hunting for apartments (that are mostly filled to capacity! What the heck?!), locked down our sweet digs Thursday morning, camped out one more night, then moved into our unfurnished apartment Friday afternoon. A bit of a whirlwind, requiring the purchase of 2 stools and microsuede saucer chairs from Target/Walmart for seating, but we had a place to call home before we started our new jobs on Monday morning. Whew!!
Our 10-11 day trip turned into 15-16, but like we've said before, we signed up for this crazy life and we can't expect everything to work out like we plan.
In summary, we drove >3,500 miles, visited some great friends, have a new appreciation and uncontainable excitement for our National Parks, became more efficient campers, and found a new home away from home in arid, eastern Washington. Most importantly...we are still happily married.
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| We miss you! Come float down the Yakima River with us! |
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