Backtrack from Bozeman

It’s great to sit and dream about all the places you could go when the world is your proverbial oyster. Do you just keep driving from Seattle to Alaska? Do you go to British Columbia? What about the Badlands? But the reality is that eventually you have to decide to go somewhere and go.

Thankfully, Katie and I only grappled with this one for a few weeks. Since we ruled out the Badlands due to Sturgis and the other ideas on the list seemed to be a little far flung for our time frame, hiking at Glacier National Park sounded like just the ticket. Katie flew into Missoula and I headed back from Bozeman to meet her there. We returned to Casa Josh & Jean. Thankfully they returned from the Seattle wedding later that night and we were all able to hang out for day or so.

On Monday morning, Katie and I went on a great hike that Josh recommended on the outskirts of Missoula. It was a great walk that got us out into the sunshine and into the fresh Montana air. On the drive back, I suddenly realized I was a little turned around. Even though I thought I had retraced our steps exactly, we were unexpectedly on a gravel road. As I’m sure will come up time and time again, my sense of direction is terrible, which means that I have to compensate in a number of various ways. One of these ways is through very deliberate observation. I knew for a fact that we had not driven on gravel roads to get to the park, so we turned around to start over. When we got back to the park, we realized that it was not possible for us to have made a wrong turn – there were no other turns. Completely confused, I reluctantly retraced my steps again. It wasn’t until we had gone about five miles that we realized what had happened. In the spirit of Summer = Construction in MT, a truck had come through in the short time we were gone and completely razed the road. Sure enough, what was once a paved road in three short hours had become a gravel road. My sanity returned, at least momentarily.

Montana summer days last forever, so even with a hike under our belt, we were still able to meet up with Josh to tube down the river later that afternoon. It turns out that my roof rack from the crazy craigslist guy was a fruitful one – it can hold more than bikes!

And yes, it’s true. Another river float. It was fantastic! The water was perfect both in temperature and speed, and we spent a leisurely afternoon sipping cold beverages and catching up. I could get used to this…

Katie, me & Josh: happy campers post-float

After the float, we had an awesome meal prepared by our hosts that consisted elk burgers from an elk Josh had hunted the season before and a wonderful array of vegetables from their garden. This is livin’.