Missoula, MT

Drove from Rapid City, SD to Missoula, MT today - 716 miles. We've been doing some pretty hard-core driving the past few days! Tomorrow will be an easy 475 miles to Seattle, so we'll have plenty of time to hang around here in the morning. I think I should wash the car, because Monk has expressed some concern about how many bugs are plastered to the front. The collection included a live, twitching hornet at the last gas station we stopped at to clean off the windshield. An hour later you couldn't even tell we'd cleaned it..




We're staying at Gibson Mansion, which is really nice - way nicer than I thought it would be, and I was expecting it to be quite nice already. The owner, Tom, showed us around and it sounds like we'll be having a really tasty breakfast tomorrow! The place is a really nice old restored house with beautiful grounds and snacks laying all over the place. YUM - my kind of B&B! I took some pictures, which I will post to flickr later. I will also report back on breakfast! But I would definitely recommend the place if anyone is in the area. As you can see from this post, free wireless is provided ;)

Last night we stayed at the Coyote Blues B&B near Rapid City, SD. We stayed there on the way to Maine, but in a different room. The weather was nicer this time, so we had breakfast outside. The owners are Swiss, apparently, and they serve a great breakfast: muesli and yogurt/fruit, juice, coffee, delicious breads, a cheese and fruit platter, a meat tray, and something hot (fritatta this time, scrambled eggs last time). It's definitely an awesome breakfast! I was weirded out by their olives, which are sweet - like they were brined in a sweet pickle brine! They're good, but different.

I think I killed a thing

Darn - I was hoping to make it through this whole roadtrip without running anything down, but tonight on the way through South Dakota a crazy bird flew out into the road and couldn't get out of my way fast enough. It hit the windshield like a rock (no damage, at least..) and then went who-knows-where. I feel kind of bad, but I tried to swerve around it (as much as I could at the last minute going 80mph) but it really just flew right out in front of me to get something in the road and then couldn't manage to get out of the way in time. Dear bird: SORRY! :(

Anyway, at the beginning of this trip, I was really freaked out by all the birds dive-bombing the highway. I'd try to avoid them by hitting the brakes or turning a little bit, but they always ended up flying off at the last minute, so I just got used to ignoring them and going on my merry way. Apparently this bird was a little bit retarded, or something. Am I a bad person for thinking that the highway birdy gene pool collectively just got a little smarter? I'm no bird, but I look both ways for traffic when retrieving a tasty morsel from the middle of the highway.

Also, speaking of crazy wildlife, did I mention that South Dakota has turtles crossing the highway ALL OVER THE PLACE? Holy cow, they're cute. But some of them are also tragically squished. I saw a great one this evening going as fast as he could (quite slow) with his neck out, trying to get across the left lane. Go, little turtle, go!

I'm actually surprised that we made it through Wisconsin without hitting anything - we got a little off-track after deciding to ignore the GPS, and ended up driving along county road HH and 1D and K and some others. Basically 55 mph back roads, which are FUN but also had deer and racoons around every bend. I had to slam on the brakes for 2 separate racoons (they apparently freeze and stare straight at your headlights when you're about to hit them. Then they wait a good 5 minutes and scamper off into the underbrush - delayed reaction will clearly be the death of them.) and there were lots of deer wandering around on the side of the roads as well.

There was lots of flooding in souther Wisconsin as well - people's houses and cars were completely surrounded by water, but at least they built the houses on a somewhat raised bit of ground. Otherwise the whole thing would be under water.