Lincoln, Missoula, Superior

As I sit here in the Library in Superior, I honestly can't remember much about the ride from Lincoln to Missoula. I Remember it was pretty long, seemed even longer, and with five mile to goI had to be motivated by Lisa saying "Jut five more miles until our day off!" That's all I remeber, but we made it none the less.

We got into Missoula, made ourselves a great pasta dinner and then hit the town for our first night out in over two weeks! Most of us ended up at the Iron Horse Bar & Grill where I'm pretty sure we overwhelmed them when we first walked in. The opened up a special room upstairs, the "501 Lounge" and we had a great night just hanging out and enjoying ourselves.

I woke up pretty early on our day off, I guess its just engrained in me these days. After breakfast at the church Lisa and I met up with Sophia at a coffee shop where I spent the rest of my morning reading. I haven't been to diligent in the reading department this summer, so it was good to give my brain a little workout.

We headed back "home" for lunch, and then a group of us headed out to go float the river all afternoon. Maybe the fact that there were 13 of us should have been some kind of ominous warning, but we didn't pay any attention to it. After a good ride up the river, our guide dropped us off for a 5 mile float trip. We grabbed our tubes, jumped in, and immediately realized just how cold it was. Honestly it wasn't too bad unless you were in the shade of the trees, but once the sun went behind the mountains, things turned colder. Most of the group got out and walked down the highway to our pick up point, but a few of us decided to tough it out (probably not my best decision on this trip). By the end I was balancing on top of my tube, shivering, hoping that no more rapids would cause me to get wet. It all ended up okay though. We all made it back safely (including Kate and Courtney who apparently hitch hiked back into town and left the rest of us a little worried), and it was a pretty fun way to end the afternoon. On our way back from the store where we rented rafts Lisa, Julie, and I stopped and got dinner at the Pita Pit (this WAS one of the better decisions of my trip).

Oh, side note. Julie is back as I just mentioned in the paragraph above. It was fun getting to hang out with here on the rafting trip and on our way back from dinner. She was definitely missed, and I'm glad she's back! Now all 31 riders are back.

The ride from Missoula to Superior was, well, superior! (yeah, lame joke, i know) No, but really, the 60 mile day just seemed to melt away as we travelled down the side roads next to the interstate and along a beautiful road following the river into town. In the morning, a big group of maybe 20 of us rode together most of the way before breaking up at a gas station. Mark, Shira, Lisa, Marita, and I kept going, and reached lunch pretty quickly. We had some great bakery donations (specialty breads!) and lunch was very good. We also had some not so good donations, like the angel food cake that seriously tasted like cotton candy,but I'm sure it was all eaten by the end of lunch anyways. After staying at lunch for quite a while, our same group minus Mark hit the road again. Following the river for most of the afternoon was great, and then we had mail drop once we got here! Mom sent me a new video camera/picture camera since mine died on me, so hopefully I can get back into the habit of posting pictures again. I guess I'll just have to steal everybody else's pictures off facebook so I have some from Nebraska and Wyoming.

Tonight we're going to the Mineral County Fair where our dinner is provided. Tomorrow we head to Idaho again!