Allison Cafe

Part 1: We flew into Missoula, Montana on a new airline, Allegiant Air. We were very impressed with Allegiant, the fares are hard to beat, $59 for a one way fare. And the service was friendly and we departed on time and landed early. We drove to Divide, a small town south of Butte and stayed several nights at the Divide Campground. We were really impressed with the Divide campground, we had a semi-private campsite right along the Big Hole River, a blue ribbon trout stream. Here we spent time visiting with old friends, learning how to fly fish and I reminisced about my childhood. This by far was our favorite part of the trip. We can still close our eyes and imagine sitting by the river, hearing nothing but the rush of water over the river rocks, with the warmth of the sun on our faces, a cool breeze on our skin, and sipping cafe lattes in the afternoon with my parents, and our friends Jack and Judy. Oh and lovable BJ too!

Divide is the small town in rural Montana where I grew up. My parents built the house we lived in. Jack and Judy were our neighbors, but actually much more than that. They are our Montana family. I attended a 2 room schoolhouse (see the slide show above) just a short distance from our house. And yes, in the winter I did ski to school on occasion. That is something for the grand kids someday! It meant so much to come back here, but also even more to share it with my husband.

Stay tuned for the next stage of our journey, Glacier National Park!

Montana Dreaming

Well, we made it back home to sunny California. Our great road trip has ended, but the memories we made will last a lifetime.

We saw so many incredible things, we visited 4 National Parks in one week, that’s a lot of nature! And Steve and Hayley got to experience Montana for the first time, something that I truly will treasure. I’m pretty sure that Hayley is still day dreaming about all the freedom to run she had there, we misses her new friends Jack and Judy and their lovable golden retriever, BJ. Steve is missing the serenity of Montana, as we return to our noisy street of restaurant music, car horns and ambulance sirens.

Judy's Beautiful Garden

We also got a first taste of the RV lifestyle, it really is a culture of its own. We met a lot of interesting people along the way and stayed at some entertaining RV parks. But all in all, we liked the whole experience and are missing the “GuyLin”, a Dodge Sprinter RV, a little this week.

Here was our route: View Road Trip 2009

There is so much to say about our trip, that I will have to publish our itinerary in a 5 part series. Stay tuned!