We arrived yesterday in Missoula before noon after a short 55 mile day. The ride was dedicated to Kelly and Lisa, friends of Jody and Kevin who are currently battling cancer.

We arrived and hit up the local favorites from amazing BBQ at the Notorious PIG, Big Dipper Ice Cream, and Thursday live music at Caras park. The church we are staying at broke our pasta and lentils streak by graciously providing us a tasty catered pasta dinner yesterday and chicken pot pie and salad this evening. When we woke up this morning most of us got bagels for breakfast and shopped in thrift stores for our promwear. On our only day in Washington next week we will be having I4Prom, an I4k tradition. The theme is ‘whatever you can find in a thrift store for under $10’.  People have started to prepare by doing ‘prom asks’. Dylan set the bar pretty high by incorporating an ask to Neeca during a morning Mosher involving tapped pieces of paper on people’s backs and Neeca’s characteristic “dropping the weapon”.  If you are not sure what ‘dropping the weapon is” I’m sure Urban Dictionary can fill you in.

We got to visit with Adventure Cycling HQ, a not for profit that promotes bike travel and sends bike expeditions, they even made routes that people could follow across the US and South America. We had a bbq cookout with the staff and got a tour of their modern office. On their walls they had polaroid’s of people that had passed through in 201, doing their own cross country tours. I was surprised that there were three walls filled with adventure seekers riding their bikes across the US. We even spotted a guy we met on the road into the Tetons. I think many of the graduated seniors were low key thinking about applying to the organization because it seemed like an amazing place to work.

Later on today we went whitewater rafting, a Montana favorite. Luckily Jessica got us a group discount and we piled the whole team into a school bus to the Gorge 30 minutes away from town. Our guides were a bunch of college age hippies and they showed us a good time rafting for 4 hours. We had awesome canyon views lined with pine trees and we even got to see a bald eagle in flight. We were lucky enough to be some of the only people on the river.  All of us were jealous of our guides being able to get paid to go rafting on a daily basis.

It’s safe to say that Missoula was the best rest day.

I will be back Missoula.

MB