Sunday, July 7, 2024
Moving to Missoula, Montana
Today we moved on to Missoula. We got a pretty good start at 9:35, temperature was 65 so it’s definitely warming up. The canola fields make a pretty landscape yesterday we had we saw three fields in a row. They are a really bright yellow. We ask a local guy the other day and he confirmed that they are canola.
We followed Highway 93 today through Kalispell and drove along the beautiful Flathead Lake for miles and miles. when we headed south on 93, traffic was pretty heavy, especially through the town of Lakeside but once we cleared that traffic cleared got lighter until the end of the lake. But going through the little towns, with stoplights, slowed us down.
It’s a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Mountains on one side of us, beautiful Flathead Lake on the other. There is still some snow on some of the mountain peaks. 68° at 10:30 but climbing to 86, still not too bad. Nice day for a drive. Some pretty sailboats on the lake with the mountain as a backdrop.
This lake has several islands on it, including Wild Horse Island, where there are five wild horses you can’t drive to it. You have to take a boat so we probably won’t get to go out there, but they’re supposed to be other wildlife there too. The island is 2.164 acres, the largest island on Flathead Lake. It is supposed to be "home to abundant wildlife including bighorn sheep, mule deer, waterfowl, and bald eagles." There is a self-guided kayak tour -- I don't think so. For $150, and they supply the kayak. There are hiking trails and swimming beaches. Otherwise, you can hire a private boat. ($875 for group up to 6).
There’s several small towns along the side that we passed through and I’m sure the other side is the same. There’s also several state parks on both sides of the lake. We drove alongside the lake for about 22 miles before our road turned away from it. But about 8 miles later, we rejoined the lake at the bridge going over the river in Polson. Traffic was backed up on the bridge from the stoplight so this little town must be pretty busy. We could see jet skiers, boats pulling skiers and water toys. We seem to have caught up with weekend traffic because traffic just crawled through this town. There were four or five stoplights and we were backed up at every one of them. Polson must have been larger than we thought because there was a Walmart on the outskirts of town and they even had a McDonald’s (we didn't stop). There were seceral marinas along the lake as well.
We went under one of those animal cross-over tunnels after we left the lake. Didn't see anything crossing.
We also passed the National Buffalo Range, which is on the Flathead Indian Reservation. We are coming back to it tomorrow. There herd is 350 adults and 50-60 calves per year. We think it is a drive-through park.
We got to our Campground, Granite Peak RV Resort, at 12:15 so it was a short day. We only drove 128 miles. We almost missed the turn into the RV Park and sort of had to come to a screeching turn, but we made it in. We got set up and rested from our long, hard drive. I got to watch the Diamondbacks game. Joe found a Mexican restaurant so we drove into the edge of Missoula and had dinner. Then he took me to the casino. We had passed this casino coming in and I read later that it was the largest casino in Montana, but it wasn't all that big. It was nice enough, and not all that busy. I hadn’t seen it when we passed it earlier but when we got the directions, it was just back up past the campground about l0 miles. We spent a couple hours there. I actually won a couple hundred dollars. Then we came back and called it a night. Again, we almost missed the turn-off and had to screech to a halt. Luckily, this time we were in the Jeep. They could use better signage for this RV park! It got a little warmer today. I think it was 86 here and every day this week is supposed to get warmer so we’re not looking forward to that.
We are only here for 4 nights, so we have a bit of agenda. Tomorrow we will do the Buffalo Range.
I got a short text from Mary Badass last night. She is 4 days out from Yaak, over near Troy, Montana.
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