Rich & Kelly's Traveling Adventures: Monday - Wednesday, July 8-10, 2013 (Salmon Lake, MT)

Monday we packed up and were on the road by around 10:00 a.m. for our travel to Salmon Lake State Park. We were ready to see some new sights, but we also enjoyed our time at White Sulphur Springs. Other than when we were in Bend at Crown Villa, this was the longest that we have stayed put in one place since April. We've been in Montana since June 6th, also the longest we've spent in one state since we started out in April. The funny thing is our 5er has actually been in Montana longer than we have since we left it sitting for that week that we ran back to Oregon.

We had a nice drive to Salmon Lake State Park, we arrived around 1:00 p.m. This is the second state park we've stayed at in Montana and it was a very nice, well kept park. We were worried if we would fit in our site or not, but by backing our back wheels up to the curb and hanging the back end of the 5er over the curb, we had plenty of room. We like our site, the only thing we notice is the road noise as we are pretty close to the highway. We have gotten use to next to no traffic being in White Sulphur Springs for so long.

Salmon Lake State Park

This site is electric only but there is a water spigot next to our campsite so we were able to fill our tank with freshwater. We'll have to use a dump station at Seely Lake when we leave. We can see the lake through the trees, but this part of the campsite is up on a hill, so the sites are not next to the water. There are only two sites that sit next to the water but they don't have electrical connections and they are in a different area of the park.

After we got set up, we pretty much just relaxed. I must say, I've never seen so many black flies before. I tried to sit outside and read, but got tired of slapping the flies away. We walked around the park but were on the look out for poison ivy as there were signs posted saying it was in the vicinity....bummer. The camp host assured us that it wasn't in the actual campground but down along the lake shore in a few spots, but of course when you know it's around, you think you see it everywhere.

Tuesday

The plan for today was to drive into Missoula and have Rich get measured by a tux shop so we can call the measurements into a tux shop in Marysville for Jessica's wedding.

It was a pretty drive into Missoula. We have passed through Missoula a couple times on this trip but always via I-90 and it looked like a nice city. Thank goodness for Google Maps on our I-phone. I don't know how we would have found this tux shop without it. We have definitely been using our I-phones alot on this adventure. We got Rich's measurements and were on to our next stop. We found this store called Good Food which is a lot like a Whole Foods in Bend, but much bigger. Their bulk food section was huge. It was fun looking around and we ended up with a few items but that is one thing about living this lifestyle, we try and just buy what we need or use within a week or so. We just can't haul all that extra weight around as well as we don't have the space to store everything like you do in a house. I come from a family that likes to stock up and have the cupboards full, so this has been a change for me.

Our next stop after Good Food was of course, Costco. We had a few more items that we wanted to pick up there that we didn't get at Good Food. Then it was back to Salmon Lake, we liked Missoula. It was easy to get around in and the area around Costco reminded us of Bend, with all the shopping - Target, Old Navy, Petsmart to name a few.

Once back, we just kicked back the rest of the afternoon. We took a walk around the park and I started on my Sudoku puzzle book. When we were back in Oregon, my mom got me started on the easy Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper. When we were in town I decided to pick up a puzzle book - it's good for the brain right? Well it's also very addicting. I'm liking the easy section of the puzzle book, I can actually get a puzzle completed. I did three in one sitting.

Wednesday

Well late last night we got a text from Jeff that our grand daughter Jessie was in the ER with appendicitis. We tried calling for more info, but we have such spotty cell service we couldn't connect, thank goodness the text messages were going through. Jessie is scheduled for surgery sometime this morning so it was a long morning waiting for the news that the surgery was finished. Jessie came through fine, but her appendix had burst so she will be in the hospital until Saturday. We are praying for a speedy recovery for Jessie.

We did go swimming in the lake this afternoon. It was so nice to be in fresh water swimming, it brought back memories of my childhood, swimming in our pond and the North Fork. Gracie was with us part of the time and she would come in the water until it hit her belly and then that stopped her. I tried to get her to swim out to me, but she wasn't having anything to do with that. When she was a puppy, I took her in the hot tub a time or two and she could swim, so she must be waiting for that hot water.

After we went swimming, we took a drive to the Seely Lake area to check out the dump station and a couple of the other campgrounds in the area. The other campgrounds were not near as nice as the one we were in and they did not have any services like electric. None of the campsites were located on the water and most the time, you couldn't even see Seely Lake. I'm glad we stayed at Salmon Lake. This area is where they filmed the movie a "River Runs Through It" and it is definitely a beautiful area.

Other than reading, doing some Sudoku puzzles and getting updates on our grand daughter, Jessie that was our day. Tomorrow we head for Lakeside on Flathead Lake. I'll leave you with some pictures from our stay at Salmon Lake State Park.