Day 2: Orofino, Idaho to Missoula, Montana

Today we woke up in beautiful Orifono, Idaho. Out our hotel window was the Clearwater River rushing through a deep cloud filled canyon. The canyon flanked in old growth. The town was a sleepy little community with one main street of shops and restaurants apparently many of them only open for the summer tourists.

Withing minutes of leaving our room we discovered a road that lead up... so naturally we took it. It wound it's way far above Orofino.  We were only 15 minutes from our hotel and already perfectly lost on windy steep roads and deep in the clouds.

With the help of Google Maps, we found our way back down to Orofino  We had a cheap and hardy breakfast at the Krystal Cafe.

After walking the street and stopping in a few shops, we gassed up and headed towards Missoula at about 11:30am. Our route through the Rocky Mountains (US Highway 12) tightly followed the banks of the middle fork of the Clearwater River then the Locsha River and finally the Selway River. This is one of the most beautiful drives we have ever been on.  This road goes up and up and up and up while it winds it way through the Rockies.

 

Over the next 4 hours we climbed our way up to Lolo Pass at the Idaho/Montana border.  There we met Carl. Carl was riding his bike up what must have been an incredibly arduous road on a bike. He started riding his bike in July after kicking esophageal cancers ass.  He left from a little town in North Dakota, 50 pounds heavier than he was the day we met him.  He rode his bike to Southern California, up the coast to Crescent City where he spent some time and now he is on his way back home. We chatted for a while, shared some food with him, and then parted ways.  It is always nice to be reminded how lucky and spoiled we are.  When adversity strikes I will remember people like Carl and fight like he fought and take life back like he has taken life back.

Immediately upon entering Montana we began a descent out of the Rockies. The scenery changed dramatically.  The speed limit increased to 70 and we were just 40 minutes from Missoula.

We arrived in Missoula starving, a little road weary, and pretty exhausted from not getting much sleep (apparently road trips aren't helpful for insomnia).  Missoula is a beautiful city. There are mountains everywhere. There are no high rise buildings.  The architecture is very "old-west".  It's a lot smaller than I thought it was gonna be.  I think there are something like 70,000 people in Missoula.  We checked into our hotel and quickly headed out for food.  We drove in circles trying to find something amazing to eat.  We kept driving in circles.  Yelp wasn't being much help and we were frankly getting a little cranky, cramped up in the car all day unable to find something to eat and maybe being a little indecisive.  I saw a sign that said "Missoula Club Burgers and Beer", we screeched to a halt and went in.  It was awesome.  Delicious burgers and a full bar!!  There we met a a lady from Poland who's name I won't try to spell here.  She was here rushing through the western United states in 2 weeks.  She was full of life and a joy to talk to.  We couldn't always understand each other so we used Google Translate to sort out a few words.  It was fun and by the time she left, she was doling out hugs.  She'll be in Portland tomorrow.  If you Portlanders happen to run into a pretty Polish lady ask her if she met Willow and Rob in Missoula!!

With our tummies full we proceeded to begin the bar hop around Missoula.  We ended up at the bar of our hotel a little earlier than we wanted to, but we are glad we did. 

Our beautiful bartender was Jesse.  She was amazing.  Kept us full of drink and fed us snacks of steamer clams.  She tried to help us find something to do in Missoula but she was stuck.

Enter Amie! I struck up a conversation with the girl next to us at the bar like a big dork "so where are you from... excuse me... excuse me... where are you from... we have to do this... this is what you do in hotel bars"  She is from a little town south of Missoula called Dillon.  She is in a band called Rabbit Stew for whom she plays the stand up bass.  She told us all about Missoula.  Let us know what restaurants to eat at, what bars to drink at, and what bands to see while are here.  We hope we meet up with her tomorrow night and see a band that she says sounds like the White Stripes... so exciting!! 

Another great day on the road!!

Don't forget to check out my Smugmug gallery for even more pics!!

(SmugMug Lesson: Once that page loads you can use your arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll through the pictures.  The first picture from day 2 will load, so you can use your right arrow key to scroll through that days pictures.  You can also use your mouse to click on the picture to open up the gallery and look at picture at will)