Day 12: Missoula, MT

The weather was so beautiful last night, and we were so tired, that we opted not to put on the tent's rain fly. At about 7:20 am, we deeply regretted that decision when the automatic sprinkler system turned at Rob's friend's house. We managed to place our tent in the confluence of 3 sprinkler heads, so there were puddles of water inside our tent in mere seconds. Quite an alarm clock. Ron, Jonah, and I started laughing pretty quickly at the situation but a crying Elli couldn't understand why water was going through the tent. After a few minutes of drying off on the back porch she started to giggle about Mommy and Daddy foolishly trying to throw on the rain fly after the sprinklers started. We laid everything out to dry in the sun and grabbed some breakfast with Rob at a coffee shop in Missoula. Elli had about 3 bites of an outrageously delicious blackberry and blueberry fruit tart, so I got to enjoy her breakfast as well as mine.

We then ventured to a Barnes and Noble and had the kids pick out a pile of their favorite books for Addie while Ron and I followed the Wimbledon men's final on our phones. We couldn't figure out a place to watch the rest of the match, so we drove to a cool park near Rob and Chelle's house to let the kids play while we watched score updates. The park had a huge wooden play structure and several play water fountains so we stayed put for about 4 hours. We had a picnic lunch and the kids played and played and played. It was a very relaxing day and Ron and I relished sitting still and just watching our kids.

We eventually headed back to Rob and Chelle's house for dinner. I was very proud of Jonah for trying elk meat for the first time (a first for me, too). It was really good and I traveled even further down the non-vegetarian path. I'll have ample opportunity to repent when we stay with Fred and Mimi, though.

We opted for a hotel room tonight and headed there late in the evening to rest before our final push to Portand tomorrow. One more long day of driving!