Inside Passage, Bellingham, WA to Missoula, MT, US
Trip Start
Jul 02, 2008
1
18
21
Trip End
Jul 21, 2008
Missoula,
Montana,
United States
Friday, July 18, 2008
Vacation Day 17
Inside Passage, Bellingham, WA to Missoula, MT, USA
This morning unlike many other mornings, my body decided it needed to crash and would not wake up for loveing or money. Perhaps it was because I knew we would pull into port today and that nothing exciting would come because of that, I'm not sure, but regardless I got up and started get things packed to get off the MV Columbia. While everyone was scrambling to get off we waited and then didn't have trouble getting off, in fact those were still waiting because until we could move the van we couldn't load anything because of how they had everything jammed in, you couldn't open some of the doors enough to put a suitcase in so everything went fine.
While on the Columbia, I bumped into the Jr Engineer and he recognized me from a couple years ago, sigh, another guy who wanted something I wasn't interested in at the time, a quite honestly, still am not with him. I didn't get to see Chris this morning, I talked to one of the guys and he said Chris worked last night and was probably in bed asleep. Shoot, I wanted to say bye. One of the guys he works with waved as we left and said by Dawn, one of Chris's friends so I am assuming that Chris asked him to say bye to us before we left. I will have to drop him an e-mail when I get a chance to tell him that I looked for him before we left. Just seems I don't get out here enough to talk and see him. Odd how things happened, he wasn't even supposed to be working and he got asked to switch with another guy, not that it helped us any, we still didn't get a whole lot of time to talk. But anyway, it's kind of funny how you make friends and the more you find out about them, you know those deep dark secrets, then they come out and you end up sharing mutal things and one supports the other through a tough time. Chris did that for me about 2 1/2 years ago. He had told me a story about him, one that would make someone cringe, well 2 1/2 years ago it happened to me and he was there to talk to and help sort through the mess. Truely, a good friend.
So anyway, we disembarked the Columbia and went into the main terminal at the boat docks and I looked at one of the shops I always like and got a sweatshirt I have been wanting for a year or two and then we departed to go get 2 caches in the vicinity. One was called North to Alaska which was at the staging lot for cars getting on the ferry and the other was at Marine Park, down the street. We then got gas and breakfast and hit the road. I slept a better protion of the entire morning as I assume I was just plain exhausted having not slept much this entire trip other that about 6-7 hours a night. Well, I guess let down might be occurring as well, having been running on such an adrenaline high and excitement rush for about 2 weeks. So much to look forward too, soo much interest in the area and having read about all this stuff. Now we are on the route haven been taken so many times before driving across Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin on our way home. Today will be the longest day have to take time and get things situated in the vehicle and make some time to get to Montana tonight. Part of the trip I slept through were going through Snoqualimie Pass only to wake up in the Washington State Prairie and Plains and now were are heading back into the mountains, in Idaho and Montana. The temperature when we left Bellingham was around 55 degrees and maxed out at 88 degrees with the temperature on the van thermometer going up to 127 degrees wile sitting on the interstate due to a wreck. I'm not sure what actually happened but from what I saw it was a tractor trailer, a van, and a motorcycle. The ambulance and wrecker were both driving on the shoulder of the road and the ambulance was running over the reflector posts, wow. Anyhow, thats about the extent of the excitement besides picking up 5 geocaches.
Our plans have us staying in Missoula, Montana tonight, Glendive, Montana tomorrow night and Baxter, Minessota the last night. Roughly about 8-10 hours of drivng a day with some time to stop for geo-caches and visit some places we like to stop. Mom was to see Sky King's grave and the Missoula, Montana, smoke jumper museum and the "Hot Shot's". The paratroopers that fight wildfires like Mann Gulch. We will probably tae a stop in North Dakota at Teddy Roosevelt National Park just for a stop and break as with some other places.
