We high-fived Yogi and pulled the Sprinter out of Jellystone Park just before 10 this morning.
Farewell, our fiberglass friend.
We were curious to see Missoula. Karen had a surprise in store for Kellan and Julia: a trip to the Mobash skate park, rated as one of the top 5 parks in the country. This well-designed municipal skate park has some serious concrete. It's a skater’s dream, but a parent’s nightmare. I left Karen at the park with the kids, the camera and the first aid kit and then headed over to Albertsons to fill the cooler and re-stock our food cache for our next leg.
This is not your typical "painted plywood in a park" skating area.
The Rip Sticks (aka "wiggle-boards") don't take up much space in the van. These two-wheeled skateboards require that the rider wiggle back and forth to propel the board forward. They are a great way to have fun and get your energy out. Like hula hoops and pogo sticks, these are toys that are best left to the kids.
The night before, we had been looking at the map and calculating possible itineraries to get out to the Oregon coast. Even though Glacier National Park was within a few hours of our location, we were concerned that a ride in that direction would be an up-and-back trip that would be costly to our rough itinerary and would eat up available days. With that in mind, we chose to head west to check out Walla Walla and then blast straight to the Pacific. I packed the cooler and the food bins, topped off the diesel tank and drove back to the park to fetch Karen and the kids.
Optical illusion. Kellan is not about to go down the drain.
While the kids were skating, Karen had struck up a conversation with a local dad who happened to be a chemistry teacher. He advised her that Glacier National Park was not to be missed and provided a few helpful hints on how to make the most of a trip there. One suggestion was to see it early in the morning or late in the evening. That meant if we left Missoula soon, we could have dinner in West Glacier. The city of Missoula has free wi-fi throughout the city, so we sat in a shaded spot in the park with our laptop and atlas and we did some research to see what camping might be available between Missoula and West Glacier. Big Arm State Park on Flathead Lake, about 1/2 way to West Glacier looked nice, so we decided to stop on our way to see if they had any sites available. If not, we would continue on to Whitefish.
We turned into Big Arm State Park with our fingers crossed.
The ranger at the park entrance greeted us with a friendly “you’re rather far from home, aren’t you?” and a huge smile. The park had one lakefront campsite available for tonight only. We said we’d take a look. Eight hours later, we are still here. Our site is right on the shore of the lake and we spent the afternoon swimming, skipping stones and relaxing. It was just too beautiful an afternoon to hop in the van when we had our own private beach on a gorgeous lake.
We are learning that there are actually other nice lakes in the USA (and Canada!)
Our tent site was by the water and 50 yards downhill from where we parked the van. Since we needed to secure our food against bears, we cooked an early dinner out of the back of the van so we could pack the kitchen away for the night without hauling everything down and back up.
The BOV (Back of Van) Kitchen still needs a few tweaks, but there is plenty of space for cooking and prep.
Just as we were washing up our dishes, the sky turned dark and the lightning began connecting the earth with the sky. We battened down the tent and went off in search for some ice cream. While we were on the road, we saw red flashing lights headed in our direction. It had to be fire response. The fire risk conditions out here are extreme and lightning must have touched off another fire. When we got back to our campsite, we watched a series of helitack crews fill buckets in the lake less than a mile away.
Ice cream at the end of the rainbow?
Since we elected to postpone our trip to Glacier until tomorrow, that means that we will be hitting the road early to enjoy the morning light in the park. We’ll see if we can beat our early morning camp-breaking record!