Roadtrip 2023!

We did our first US road trip in 1970, between college and first job/graduate school, driving from Miami to Boston, up to Maine, across Canada past the Lakes, then the West, California, down to Arizona, up to Colorado, and then back to Boston. All in the summer and all in a very minimal 1968 un-air-conditioned Dodge van camper. Favorite songs, FWIW, were Ride, Captain, Ride, Midnight at the Oasis, and In the Summertime. Or maybe those were some other road trips. I never listened to the lyrics much. Too much engine noise and the windows down. And it was AM radio. We've lost track of how many more such trips we've made in the past 53 years, but a few are recorded on this blog. Explore the search box.

Anyhow, on July 24th, we departed Missoula and headed east, mostly I-90 and its many Montana memories, before dipping into Wyoming, then South Dakota, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and finally our new temporary home, North Carolina. En route we spent a couple nights with college friends Tawana and Wes in Fayetteville and then a couple more with Vicki's sister Marie and husband Norm in Knoxville. We got to Cary in the evening of August 1st, spent the night at daughter Rebecca's, and then drove to our new, as yet unseen, apartment, to begin two long days of unloading. The trip was without difficulty--no accidents nor breakdowns nor surprises of any sort--but not one of our more memorable road trips.

Picking up our truck at Clark Fork Storage...nearly new, 63,000 miles,
good tires...the most pressing question was whether we could get all
our stuff in it

We did!

With room enough to pick up a bistro table and chairs and a Costco
sofa bed along the way...ever watchful for bargains...

Passing through the heartland of these United Shit-holes
of Trumpistan, we didn't take a lot of pix...

Barbie premiere somewhere near Kansas City

With Wes and Tawana

Who were duly impressed with our Arkansas U-Haul

Crossing the Mississippi; or was it the Nile, at Memphis...

With Norm and Marie, who never seem to get tired of us

At the North Carolina welcome center

We also unloaded our Cary storage unit

About to move the pieces already in Cary into the
apartment; thanks, Rebecca, Jeremy, and Penelope,
for helping us those two days...

Turning in the truck

Thankful for a successful move

But overwhelmed with the unpacking, moving-in, death-cleaning
about to begin...

I'll post some pix when things are a bit more settled and presentable...
which might be some months from now

Three Weeks In Missoula, 2

 Continuing our three weeks in Missoula...

Early Saturday morning at the old Farmers' Market

Huckleberry season...5 lbs for $90

I didn't even ask what the Morrells were going for 

At The Break cafe, one of Missoula's many institutions

At the craft market...no crap

Interesting approach to camouflage...drop several grand wrapping
your truck, then plaster it with bumper stickers...

Storage in Missoula is neither temp nor humidity controlled, and, over
the past two years, the Hellgate winds (through Hellgate Canyon) blew
plenty of dust and grit into our unit; we spent much of our time simply
cleaning off the scores of boxes, bins, furniture, and other things

At length, after a couple days, our luggage arrived, intact; in the
meantime we had acquainted ourselves with the Montreal Convention, and
modestly availed ourselves of some of its considerable benefits

Walking around East Missoula

You haven't been to Missoula if you haven't been to Rockin' Rudy's

The magnet and bumper sticker departments are a good hour's
reading; and laughter

Canned Sasquatch

Not so funny sticker in the parking lot at Bretz RV

The last week we house- and car-sat for friends Kim and Dave while
they were in Scotland walking the West Highland Way, Glasgow to Fort
William...and hopefully imbibing some Islay and Dark Island on the way;
I also tended their considerable garden, learning how and when to harvest 
zucchini; above, some of the neighborhood deer, a block from their
house

Three Weeks In Missoula, 1

As readers of this blog will recall, our next stop after Paris/Frankfurt/London/Denver was Missoula, Montana, from which we retired in 2008. Interim update #1,279 will bring you up to date. We were in Missoula three weeks, coping first with the lack of luggage arriving with us, then with the weather, then with going through as much of our stuff as circumstances permitted, then with packing up the U-Haul truck for another cross-country road-trip. When not coping, we did get to see a number of new and old friends and to visit a number of favorite places. We lived in Missoula for 13 years before our retirement travels and still think of it as the best place in which we lived and worked. 

At CDG July 4th, our checked items disappearing into
the checked luggage void, not to be seen again for a few
days...reports were that it spent a couple nights in Frankfurt... 

Yet another rental car to get us here and there and back again

Approaching Missoula, the Hub of Five Valleys

We always visit our old home, five wooded acres on Horseback
Ridge, overlooking the city and the Missions...Blue Pine Lodge we
called it*; as it looked in the early 00s

The "Cow Store," aka Dale's Dairy, closest business establishment
to where we lived, only a couple miles away, up the Bitterroot, across the
(one-lane) McClay bridge and onto the Flats; seriously upscaled and
gentrified now...I hope Dale and Betty Jo have had as good a retirement
as we have

Where we stayed the first couple weeks, down the highway a bit
from our storage unit; in non-gentrified East Missoula

Can't grill in the motel room? No problem...

One day we drove up to Lolo Pass and beyond

In the De Voto Grove of giant cedars

Killed Colt Creek...named by Lewis and Clark...De Voto often
camped here while writing Across the Wide Missouri

Lochsa Lodge, another favorite

"Our" table (in the winter)

Bird city

Our favorite wild and scenic river, the Lochsa

*we also called it Llazy LL Lland and Llama Company, LLC, but that's a whole different story...