Travel Agent on Wheels
We left Seattle on a rainy Saturday morning. It's almost as if after five straight weeks of sunshine, the city was giving us a special send-off. We were taking a week off from work because we had nearly 2,000 miles to cover before reaching our next "home away from home."
Steve and I were excited to visit Glacier National Park for the third time. Accommodations in the area were VERY expensive this time of year, so I had booked a "glamping tent" near the west park entrance for Saturday night. And I was excited to try a Red Bus tour of Glacier on Sunday.
As I settled into the passenger seat for an 8-9 hour drive that Saturday morning, I opened the Weather app and saw that there was a 100% chance of rain on Sunday, with overnight temps in the 40's. I definitely didn't relish the idea of a cold, wet night in a tent, even a fancy one with electricity. And while in fair weather, the Red Buses open their windows and canvas roofs, with rain we'd be sitting in an enclosed vehicle for hours with a bunch of strangers. Although we are both fully vaccinated, it seemed an unnecessary risk.
So I opened my laptop and turned on my hotspot device, and got to work. My goal was to find a reasonably priced hotel where we could be warm and dry that night, and close enough to Glacier that we could drive up the next day to resume our planned itinerary (skipping the Red Bus tour). With luck, we'd have better weather for hiking on Monday. I won't bore you with the details, but we decided to stay in Missoula, MT, where hotel rooms were outrageously expensive, but we could use points to stay for free at the Residence Inn. SUCCESS! We were able to get a refund for the glamping tent, but not for the Red Bus Tour. Oh, well....a small price to pay for a warm and dry start to our vacation.
The moral of the story is this: Plan ahead, but stay flexible. (And check the weather in your destination. And make sure you have wifi during your road trip. And make sure you know how to accumulate points for your hotel loyalty program of choice.)
I do have a few photos to share from our drive from Seattle, through eastern Washington, en route to Montana
Traveling east on I-90, just after crossing the Columbia River, we came upon The Wild Horses Monument, a large steel sculpture on a hill overlooking the freeway and the bridge. The actual name of the sculpture is Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies, and it was created for Washington's Centennial in 1989 but never finished, due to lack of funds.
We stopped in Spokane, WA for lunch, and decided to drive a few miles off the freeway to Mary Lou's Milk Bottle. It was a very cute, old-timey diner, and the hamburgers and milkshakes were tasty. I wish we could have seen it at night, with the neon sign flashing. Still, it was fun to see a Spokane landmark during our quick pitstop.
Our last-minute hotel in Missoula was GREAT! There was a Mexican restaurant at the hotel with delicious tacos. It did, indeed, rain on Sunday, and we put on our raincoats and found our way to an Irish pub for a surprisingly good Irish breakfast. We couldn't help congratulating ourselves on finding a way to avoid the bad weather. This screenshot from my phone says it all!
