Missoula is a college town too - the University of Montana is here. It's bigger than Bozeman, and not as cute. There's a sprawling quality here, but the downtown is quite nice. Also, there is a river running through town, with a jogging trail along one side (Mark really liked it). And, when it was rainy on Saturday, Katie and I discovered that the children's museum here is small but very good. Here she is in the lobby of the old 30s building with the museum in it. You could make local calls free from these old phones:

Here she is listening to a story:

The Cat in the Hat was there to play reading games that us parents could pick up on and use to teach syllables and rhyming and stuff to our pre-readers. It was nicely done. Also, Katie liked their painting area:

and the dinosaur dig, which featured actual pieces of fossil bone which the kids could dig up, as well as some big plastic ones that even the littlest ones could find.

On Sunday the sun came out and we headed to the town's carousel, along the river downtown. It was a community effort built by the town (except that the horses were built by a master craftsman), and each horse's decoration was designed by somebody or some organization. It had an old time carousel pipe organ and a dragon holding rings you could grab (the first carousel we've been on on this whole trip where you could grab for the brass ring). And it was the fastest one too--it goes 11.5 mph, I'm told, so you gotta hold on. Here are some pics:

Me and Katie about to ride; it was only 50 cents for her (1.50 for me). I was impressed by the good pricing.

Somebody trying to grab a ring:

The guy in front of us grabbed the brass ring (mine was pink) so he won a free ride. He was a local dad who told me how fast the ride is and stuff. He said that the community also built the really neat playground next door. It was shaped like a castle, with an upper room you climb to and then slide down from. Here is Katie playing behind the castle, with a neat brother & sister she met:

After playing, we walked around downtown a little and found their local bookstore (not as nice as the one in Bozeman) and a store that sold bear stuff and whose profits go to helping grizzly bears. We bought some fudge and gifts there. Then we drove around UM and looked at the nice old houses near campus. It's a nice town, and we kept trying to decide if we like it better here or in Bozeman (not that we'll move to Montana). I like Bozeman's food co-op better than the one here, and also their bookstore, but the carousel and the riverwalk here are very nice. Bozeman has that great Museum of the Rockies, but then this town is bigger, with more going on. They're both pretty neat.

Today is Monday, and we're off to Glacier National Park, our last national park on this trip. We'll check it out tomorrow (it looks like the roads are clear, even after the rains this weekend--but anytime now, they can close with snow for the season), and then on Wednesday, we turn "Martha" toward Portland. We won't make it in one day, so we'll have another stop someplace along the way.

I think we're all ready for our trip to be ending, and we're already making our moving plans to get our stuff up to Oregon and stuff, but it's been so much fun too. Oh well, better go--Mark's ready to move.