Lolo Hot Springs and Missoula, MT

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The last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind.  We have been visiting with family almost the entire time and have also been really active.  Now it is catch-up time!

After our stay in Arco, ID, we continued north to a little tourist trap called Lolo Hot Springs.  It was about a 40 minute drive from Missoula, so we spent a few days here to explore the area.  Another reason for this particular stop was that it would make for an easier day drive to my Aunt’s house in Columbia Falls.
The hot springs themselves were all sealed up and the water was piped into a swimming pool that they charge people to enter.  Being that that is exceedingly lame, we opted to find other things to do in the area.  Although, the campsite that we had was probably the best one we have had so far, even though we only had partial hookups and the road into the campground was badly marred by potholes.  These pictures say it all:

Our first day out didn’t turn out quite like we had expected.  Since we had no cell reception and the campground didn’t have internet access, we had spent part of the evening that we had arrived in the hot springs’ bar and lodge area so we could use their WiFi.  We had looked up a local climbing area and set off to find it the next morning.  Unfortunately, we never actually found it…  Instead we found a guy and his family who had just finished their morning of digging for quartz crystals on a mountain side in the middle of nowhere.  He showed me one about the size of the palm of my hand.  Intrigued, C and I grabbed what limited digging utensils we had and set to work digging holes and getting dirty.  In the end, we found a couple of small pieces and had a lot of fun in the process.

We spent our last couple days exploring Missoula, checking out some local breweries, and going on a nice hike through a river gorge in the Bitterroots.

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