Missoula

The field at Traveler's Rest where they found artifacts from Lewis and Clark.
The Bitterroot Mountains they had to cross twice.
Boy does this bring back memories.
New animals being readied for the carousel. Notice the carved legs in the background.
Brennan's Wave

We stayed two days at the Square Dance Campground in Lolo, Montana near Missoula. The campground is near Traveler's Rest, a site where in 2002 archaeologists found proof of the exact location of the Lewis and Clark camp. From their journals we know they were here in September 1805 as they prepared to cross the snow covered Bitterroot Mountains. They had not expected mountains because they were west of the Continental Divide and thought they would be looking at the Pacific Ocean which turned out to be two hard months away. In June 1806 they stopped here again as they headed east. On the return to this spot they separated with Lewis going north to the Marias River and Clark going south to the Yellowstone River so they could explore more of the Louisiana Territory. While it has been neat to see other areas where they traveled it was really great to know we were walking the exact ground where this historical expedition had walked just over 200 years ago. We have ties in Missoula with the Bennett Law Office we used to buy our motor home and Destination Financial where we got a loan and insurance. We stopped at both to meet and put faces to the people we have talked to many times. We also stopped at the offices of Adventure Cycling, a bicycle organization we joined in 1976 when we went on one of their trips which celebrated the bicentennial. At that time it was known as Bikecentennial. They continue to promote cycling and because of their efforts Missoula is a very bike friendly town. A couple of other interesting things in Missoula are the hand carved carousel built by community volunteers who offered 100,000 hour of their time and Brennan's Wave, an artificial reef that allows kayakers to "surf" the wave in the Clark Fork River. The wave is named after Brennan Guth, a native Missoulian who was killed in 2001 while kayaking the Rio Palguin River in Chile.