Day 64-July 28, 2016-Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Missoula, MT
95 today, but not humid
Started the day making some more plans. It’s getting more and more difficult to find campgrounds that have room for us. Must be where we want to go. Packed a lunch and went to Missoula to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, an interesting place where we watched various short films about the nature of elk country and displays that included many prize winning elk. The mission was elk conservation and how hunting elk helped conserve the herds. From there we drove into town about 5 minutes away and saw the St. Francis Xavier Church built in 1889 that has a 144’ steeple. Downtown has lots of specialty coffee shops, breweries, art galleries and the outskirts have the same old, same old stores along with dozens of small casinos, most with attached liquor stores, convenience stores and restaurants. None of them have slots, only keno and poker machines so we weren’t interested. But there sure are a lot of them, almost on every corner. We stopped in a Walmart for another something we forgot yesterday and found out there isn’t any sales tax in Montana. I like this state more and more. This area is in the Bitterroot Valley and the Bitterroot River runs through it. But the 310 mile long Clark Fork River is the dominant one in Missoula-it runs right through it and as we passed over the bridges we saw lots of people swimming or rafting in it. It’s named after William Clark (as in Lewis and Clark) and the Travelers Rest Park on the river is an actual encampment of the pioneers. Our campground is about a half mile from the park and as we pulled in noticed the “Full” sign. Like I said, it’s getting harder to find campgrounds. We have to reserve well in advance which isn’t what we like to do. After dinner we went down to the office/dance hall where they were having square dance lessons. The group was one step up from beginners and seemed to know what they were doing. We found out a well-known “caller” is coming in this week-end to call the dances and that’s why they’re so full. Seems to me you have to concentrate hard on what he’s saying although I was assured if you just put your hands up like you’re high-fiving somebody is bound to “turn” you. Went for a walk around the campground and realized it’s a lot bigger than we thought, there’s a big tent area in the back under big ponderosa pines along the river. Back to the site, it’s almost 10PM and still quite light.