Dancing Across the USA 1- Missoula

The start of our month long trip across the country. We left the house pretty early and had a beautiful drive through the gorge. Love that drive, and we had some great music to listen to as we did. Thanks to Tom & Glen, we are programmed! Yeah, we have an Iphone, a GPS, a digital camera and mp3's to get us over the rivers and through the woods.

Crossing the Columbia into Washington

We cruised through Spokane, then through some more beautiful country across Idaho and Montana. If you go the speed limit in Montana, are you able to enjoy the countryside?

Speed Limit on the Freeway:  80 mph.  They gonna need a lot of white crosses.

Missoula is a delightful college town. We cruised the old town on foot and did some window shopping.

County Court House

Hanging baskets downtown

This picture below was taken on the campus of the University of Montana.  The horizontal lines to the right of the M are the several ancient shorelines of Glacial Lake Missoula.  During the last Ice Age, 18,000 to 13,000 years ago, an ice dam formed and blocked the Clark Fork river, forming a huge lake.  Where this picture was taken, the water was 900 feet deep.  When the ice dam broke, it flooded the Columbia River basin and the Willamette all the way to Eugene.  The water was about 60 feet deep at Rocky Butte if I remember correctly (I was pretty young at the time).  It also formed the Channeled Scablands of Eastern Washington.

Stratlines of Glacial Lake Missoula

Today's Travel Tunes: 

On the Road Again by Willy Nelson
Reelin' Down (That Old Highway) by Dan Hicks & his Hot Licks
Montana by Frank Zappa
(unfortunately, we forgot the zircon encrusted tweezers)