August 29th, A quick stay at Missoula Montana

We had a brief two night stay in Missoula Montana. As we headed home, Eric had try to build an itinerary where we were not driving every day and it gave the dogs a chance to have some existence other than a rolling box. Eric had been intrigued for sometime with Missoula Montana for a couple reasons. For one thing, there is a Smokejumper base there and because Blackfoot communications is headquartered there. Eric use to work with a subsidiary of Blackfoot Communications by the name of Telesphere software when he worked for Volcano Telephone. Now that Carol works for Cal-Fire, Eric has remained intrigued with Smokejumpers, even though Cal-Fire doesn't have any smokejumpers, they are a US Forest service operation. None the less, we took a quick trip to the smoke jumper base in Missoula to check out the Visitors center (Sorry folks, there is no visitor center for the smokejumpers in Redding California).

A very nice young lady who is a US Forest Service intern took us on a tour of the facility which we both found to be very interesting. She explained to us all of the fire gear that smokejumpers take with them when they are deployed and how additional supplies and equipment are dropped to them to help them fight the fire and to survive in that hostile environment.

We also got to see one of the aircraft that is used to deploy smokejumpers and their equipment. Additionally, we went into the rooms where they inspect the parachutes to ensure that they are safe, and into the room where they are packed so that they are prepared to be used.

The young lady who conducted the tour was amazing. There was a couple of young families there who sadly were not watching their kids very closely. And even when their kids were in full view, they were letting their kids be disrespectful of the equipment of the facility. The tour guide kept her composure in the distractions and how she managed to not pull her hair out was amazing. It was sad though how the parents were doing so very little to control their kids.

The campground that we stayed at in Missoula Montana was called Jim and Mary's RV park. This is a wonderful facility where they are always working to make sure the facilities are in good working order. The bathrooms were clean and functional and the infrastructure at the sites was all in good working order. The grounds were beautifully maintained and the camp store was well stocked. They even have entertainment, in the form of a local band there at the park on Wednesday nights! They don't have any breed restrictions, they just ask that you don't bring any aggressive dogs to the camp ground which we completely understand. The only drawback to this campground is that the water here is very hard. When the sprinklers ran during the early morning they got our car and motorhome wet and caused a lot of spotting. We may have to give our motorhome and car a pretty good polish and wax job to get rid of the spots.

We were saddened by just how much smoke there is in the western part of Montana. At the time we passed through, there were at least 6 major wild fires raging in this region, and it was hard to see the mountains in the distance because of all of the smoke.

Our next stop is Twin Falls Idaho where we will spend a couple nights as we continue our trip home.

Safe travels all!

Eric and Carol Anderson