It was 8:30am yesterday morning when we got down to the pools. The hot pool was not nearly the 106F it was the prior evening but it was still close and felt insanely good to lie back and soak in. The morning sun was glorious and a great way to start our last day of our road trip.
Very few people in the water as there were few people staying at the resort, it was more locals who know that mid week is best to go soak without the masses around. We soaked for a while, I got about 45 minutes in before I had to go slather my skin to keep it from going to hell.
The boys were a bit disappointed that the water slide wasn't going in the morning but that is why they were on it all evening.
We went to breakfast in the cafe and managed to get done, then packed and on the road by 11am mountain time.
Less than 30 miles north of the hot springs is Deer Lodge Montana that is the home of the Grant-Korhs Ranch National Historic Site. It is another stamp in our passport books and was interesting to hear the history of. It was windy and cold so we did not take a lot of time to explore the place. We talked to the ranger on site and found out that that at one point in time back around 1900 the ranch grazed over 10 million acres with cattle. From Montana down to Colorado with some lands up in Canada even. 10 million acres is an insane amount of area to cover and all by horseback.
The haystacker is still standing in the field and is a rather large structure.
Those are the same wash basins and stand that we use for our poultry butchering.
They had piped in running water for the shower room in the cowboy bunk house!
Lots of old memorabilia and original wares were laid out in the various rooms. Most walled off with glass so you can look in.
We left the ranch and drove the hour to Missoula where we stopped at the Walmart so @stryeyz could buy her new Cricket Maker 3 and I went to get the truck filled up with gas. After parking back in the lot I was rearranging some stuff in the truck when the United plane came overhead inbound to the airport. It was only a couple thousand feet agl and was pretty loud going overhead.
Before long we were on the last portion of our long road trip. The last stint from Missoula home is a very familiar path for us and I was extremely happy with the VERY minimal traffic we had to deal with. The worst was the asshole rigs on Lookout pass but after the summit I was able to whip around the morons and haul ass home.
The last turn before the last straight away and home.
We had to stop at the gate and I had to give it a hand opening then after parking I right away went and got the snow blower running and spent the next hour clearing the driveway and paths. I had not eaten since breakfast and it showed by the time I was done, my head was throbbing and I could feel the weakness of hunger hitting me.
The sun was out though and it was above freezing which helped us to clear much of the snow. The snowblower did lug a bit with the wetter snow but managed to do well after it finally warmed up.
The final trip total was 3409.3 miles. I had estimated our trip to be 3120 miles but that was not including the trip into Yosemite or some of the other side trips. But not too far off given the distance.
It is back to the real world now and today the boys are back to school, they have wrestling practice this evening, I have my clothes to wash, more snow to move, and I need to prep my greenhouse supplies orders.
