Easton to Missoula, Montana - Missoula, MT
Missoula, MT
Missoula was founded in 1860 as Hellgate Trading Post while still part of Washington Territory. By 1866, the settlement had moved five miles upstream and renamed Missoula Mills, later shortened to Missoula.
The mills provided supplies to western settlers traveling along the Mullan Road. The establishment of Fort Missoula in 1877 to protect settlers further stabilized the economy. The arrival of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1883 brought rapid growth and the maturation of the local lumber industry. By the 1990s, Missoula's lumber industry had gradually disappeared, and today the city's largest employers are the University of Montana and Missoula's two hospitals.
In and around Missoula are 400 acres (160 ha) of parkland, 22 miles (35 km) of trails, and nearly 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of open-space conservation land with adjacent Mount Jumbo home to grazing elk and mule deer during the winter months.
Our first night in the RV which wasn't bad at all. We had much better weather today with no driving rain so decided on an early start to try and catch up on the original itinerary. We started with a mileage showing of 100470 on the RV so it will be interesting to see what we end up with at the end of the trip.
We left Easton and headed east, crossing Washington state for Idaho and then onto Montana. There were aqueducts on the farmland not unlike Fresno, so the landscape went from lush well watered areas to desert and back again.
Our first stop was at Moses Lake which was enormous and once at the viewing point, you could see the very famous 'wild horses monument’ on the hill behind. So, we were still in Washington, so continued onto Spokane , Idaho and onto Missoula in Montana.
It’s Saturday here so the traffic was not bad. However, the sky was very dull as the forest fires are all around us and even in the undergrowth by the roadside as we drove past. It bought back memories of Australia. We continued on Highway 90 east and it bought us all the way, dotted with signs stating we should look out for deer.
Reaching Missoula we found Grizzly Harley which warranted a visit, then Wallmart for more supplies before we reached the campgrounds. The first one was full so we ended up at ‘Jellystone Park’ which is modelled on the Flintstones of course. It has great facilities including a pool, laundry,social areas and all the things we need for the RV as well as free WiFi.
So we drove over 500 miles today. Dinner was welcome and of course laundry before we can crash for the night.