We are just over halfway into our trip we’re in hot water now.

Tuesday June 18 Whitefish Bike Retreat, Whitefish Montana

Tripometer 5468

Missoula, what a lovely town!  We spent some of the week consuming in an urban way…several visits to The Book Exchange where we got credit for the books we sold them and left with a pile more for each of us.  We dined on local burgers, Thai food and freshly prepared food from The Good Food Store. We biked the urban trails to the incredible Missoula Public Library as well as biked some amazing trails in nearby Rattlesnake and Blue Mountain.  Eloise also made friends with and rode Chris’s horse Sonny, and she also made friends with the feral rabbit caught in their garden this Spring.  It currently resides in a rabbit hutch and gets spoiled and played with regularly.

We also spent a lovely day driving back into Idaho to hike to two natural hot springs, Weir & Jerry Johnson.  What a lovely day that was.

Friday June 14 - On our driving day between Missoula and Whitefish we made two stops, first at Ewam Garden of One Thousand Buddhas on the Flathead Indian Reservation and second at the Bison Refuge.  

Sunday June 16 - We enjoyed an amazing Father’s Day hike and I also got in a great solo ride on the Whitefish Trail, which incidentally runs right by our campsite.  We ended the evening at the best Italian restaurant in Whitefish and it didn’t disappoint.  I am so grateful to be a dad and thankful for my wife and daughter.

Monday June 17 - We headed into Glacier National Park.  This park gets so many visitors that it is one of the parks where you have to apply for a “timed entry” months in advance.  When Heidi tried this for us months ago, all the slots were full for the entire week we are staying nearby.  But alas, she found a work around.  If you book a paid excursion inside the park then you are exempt from needing a timed entry.  We booked a morning Kayak session on McDonald Lake and it felt like we had the big calm lake all to ourselves.  We paddled close-ish to a bald eagle nest and saw baby eagles in the nest.  We also saw a family of Canadian Geese with half a dozen goslings.  The waters of the lake were a mystical, glacial, emerald green.

Tuesday June 18 - The coldest, wettest day of our trip so far. Low to mid 40's Fahrenheit for the high today. We don't have a heat source in the Airstream for the next two weeks as the places we are camping are off grid and our little electric space heater is too power hungry. It will drain our lithium batteries faster than the solar panels can recharge them. This would have been a nice time to have our portable propane heater that is sitting at home, but we decided not to bring it. The nights here in the north will continue to drop into the 40's but after today the daytime temps should move up into the 70's. We are spending the day catching up on lots of book reading while underneath plentiful blankets, drinking hot tea and hot chocolate. It doesn't feel like we are on the cusp of the Summer Solstice!

Since arriving to Montana we find ourselves in the land of the Grizzly... and bear spray.  We don't walk in the woods or bike without it.  And on the biking front…it doesn’t seem like night riding is overly popular here in the land where grizzlies roam.  That said, it’s not getting dark until about 10:30pm so there is plenty to daylight to ride and one isn’t trying to avoid the humidity of the summer days like we are on the East Coast.