DFT25 - Montana

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 DFT25 officially began last Saturday. This is a bit of a different trip than we are used to. Since Daniel was officially named the Head Football Coach we didn’t think we had the time to drive like we normally would. So we FLEW! And instead of camping we are staying in AirBNBs. 

This is how you know I don’t fly often. It had been a few weeks since I had looked at our flight. Daniel had asked me the weekend before if I thought we should drive to Nashville and grab a cheap hotel room on Friday evening and I said No I didn’t want to do that. But on Friday I had myself convinced that our flight was at 11:50am and that we would be late to the airport. So I decided we did indeed need to go Friday night. I hurried and finished packing and we got on the road to Nashville. At the 407 exit I decided to check my email again. Apparently our flight was at 1:50. I had 11:50 in my mind because that’s what time we needed to be at the airport. I also decided to start the check in process in the app and well our flight had been changed to 3:45pm 🤦🏻‍♀️ so we really didn’t need to spend the night in Nashville but Oh Well. 


There is something to be said about the convenience of flying but may it was an all day long process and it wore me out. 




We finally got into Missoula about 10:30 Mountain Time. Getting our rental car was a bit of a process. I was tired and grumpy. The girl kept trying to get us to upgrade everything. Then she gave us a small compact SUV which was not what I had rented. After some debate back and forth she finally shared they had a grand Cherokee available. And that is what we finally ended up with. 


We spent two full days in Missoula. It was cold!!!! On Sunday after breakfast and pastries from Black Coffee Roasters, we visited Garnet Ghost Town which was an old mining town. A block of gold was 27.5 pounds which was basically the same size of the toddler I was carrying on my back 🤪 Also they had a scavenger hunt for kids that allowed EG to get a junior ranger badge! After the ghost town we went downtown where we ate Bigfoot cookies (especially the Huckleberry Lemonade cookie) and rode the Carousel which actually went really fast. I now understand why I wasn’t allowed to stand beside Charlotte.  We finished with dinner at the Highlander Brewing Company. 








Monday we started with coffee and breakfast at Clyde Coffee then we spent time down in the LoLo National Forest and walked around Traveler’s Rest State Park which is the actual camp that was used by Lewis and Clark. And guess what…they had a junior ranger program for the Lewis and Clark Trail! We had homemade Huckleberry Soda for lunch at the LoLo Brewing Co. and then went back downtown to eat Big Dipper Ice Cream. I did also manage to pick up a University of Montana Grizz shirt for College Shirt Wednesday! 






Tuesday we packed up to head to Glacier NP. We stopped by Black Coffee one more time! And I had the Root Beer Cold Brew which was so good! On the way to Glacier we visited the National Buffalo Preserve which was okay. Def. fun to check out with the girls but I wouldn’t put it on my list of places to go back 🤷🏻‍♀️





We arrived in the park about 4pm. And got our first stamp at Apgar visitors center. Then we went to downtown Columbia Falls to eat at Three Forks Grille! It is was hands down the best meal with have had on this trip and in general in a long time! We plan to go back again before we leave.


So far only 1 Cinnamon Roll before we left Nashville - it was very meh

Ice Cream once and two huckleberry flavored things 😉


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