Moving to DC, I figured this could only be improved. More people, more options or places to go. Well, I neglected to realize that more people meant more traffic, all the time. 2am? Doesn’t matter. People everywhere. Plus I soon realized that all roads lead towards the city, so to go in a different direction meant travelling in a zigzag fashion. And guess how long it takes to get pretty much anywhere??
30 minutes.
I guess that’s life. Or at least, life on the East coast… DC is a really centralized place. A fact that I took full advantage of during my time there. It was not uncommon for me to make trips to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Richmond, etc. on a regular basis. Visits to Megs at Delaware, back to Blacksburg for football games, trips to random places all across Virginia, NC, NJ, PA, etc. All within 2 to 6 hours of driving.
Now I realize that, for some folks, driving that much seems absolutely ridiculous. I know plenty of people who can’t stand being in a car for more than an hour even… But long trips are just what my family does. Growing up we would drive 2 hours to the lake, 2.5 hours to see Maine family, 2 hours to see Massachusetts family. Week long road trips to PA and VA to Gettysburg, the Shenandoahs, Virginia Beach, etc. We even drove 18 or so hours to Florida to visit our grandparents and go to Disney World! A couple times!
Looking back at it now, I feel pretty fortunate that everything is so manageably close on the East coast.
The West? Not even remotely the same… Oh there are direct routes to most every place of interest; it will just take you hours and hours to get there. The 30 minute rule has been blown to pieces…
Case in point, today’s drive! Yellowstone National Park to Glacier National Park. 8 hours by car, 10 by RV… Our two hour drive to Bozeman, MT last night certainly helped cut down today’s trip though. And it helped that Montana has some great scenery to help keep us occupied…
We stopped for a little while in Missoula, MT to pick up some prescriptions, have lunch, and shop for some legitimate cold/rain gear. I picked up a sweet marked down jacket and some waterproof gloves. Megs got herself some good hiking shoes and a jacket as well. We both got wool hiking socks too, since we seem to be doing lots of hiking.
Growing up, I remember Little Ceasers commercials were all over the TV. The little Greco Roman guy saying, “Pizza, Pizza” seemed to be everywhere. But we are a Pizza Hut family… So we never tried Little Ceasers and you rarely see them in the east anymore anyhow. Well, over the last few weeks we have been seeing them everywhere! Their “Hot n Ready $5 Large Pizza” seemed like an amazing deal. So when it turned out that there was a Little Ceasers right next to the CVS we stopped at, we decided that it was destiny. $5. No tax in Montana. Deliciousness.
Missoula actually surprised us. It was a lot bigger than we expected. Probably helps that Montana State is there… But it was also a really nice city. We weren’t there long enough to see if it really has any unique character, but a nice good size city for being in the middle of nowhere Montana…
The rest of our trip was more Montana scenery. We went through the Flathead reservation and took some pictures of Flathead Lake…
But the Northern Rockies were calling. And glaciers!! We got into Glacier National Park and found a campsite without any issues. There was even enough daylight left that we could take care of a few housekeeping tasks around the RV that we had been neglecting.
Headed to bed early because tomorrow was to be a full day of Glacier National Park!!!
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