Day 15

Up at 8am, eggs/bacon/toast (that Montana Wheat bread is really good), hoping to go to church in Helena, but we didn’t get things in together in time.  So I took the dogs down to the creek and bathed them.  We almost lost a tennis ball downstream twice, but Emily saved it both times.  Usually it’s Buddy who is brave and thinking, so I was pretty proud of her.  

Yep, it's morning, and that's a marshmallow!  Can't let some good fire go to waste!  :)

Working his magic!  Made of 60% stubborn and 40% genius.  <3

I washed my hair in a 5 gallon bucket of creek water and finished rinsing it in some boiled water.  It all went more smoothly than I expected, but the water was just as painfully cold as I expected.  

There are a few things a girl can do to help her world even if she can't have a shower.

Ok, fair warning.  If there are any guys reading this who get embarrassed as easily as Joshua does, you might want to skip this next paragraph.  If you’re a girl, this is a important tidbit of advice.

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Always and forever take a tank top with you when you’re camping.  Even if it’s winter time.  A wool one is just perfect.  Especially if you find it on clearance at STP.  ;) It will allow you to change shirts, wash hair and underarms in relative modesty without having to make a scene about it.  Very valuable thing.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah was finished up the breakfast dishes for me, sweet guy that he is!

Just behind our campsite

The crick.

Lil bit of sun tea

My mom.  Eating a plum and sewing up a dish towel to keep her dishes in.

This is where the stove lives, always ready to light.

Left camp for Helena to eat out at Panda Express and do another load of laundry before we disappear into the hills again.

We spent a good amount of time in the laundromat parking lot, after the laundry got done, trying to find a campsite for the night near Kalispell.  It was decided to purchase a MT State Park pass because the Whitefish campground had showers and we are planning on spending some time around Kalispell. We got back on the road around 6pm.

Doing what he does!

Doing what I do!

The bewitching hour is upon us!  Love driving and picture-ing this time of day!

Anybody know what these things are?  Saw a lot of them in this stretch.

And a dirty windshield keeps things interesting.

Absolutely loved the Garnet Mountains ... something about their shapes is fascinating!

We pulled into the Whitefish Campground just before 10pm after dead ending in the driveway of a extravagant house thanks to the GPS.  10pm was the deadline for unregistered campers entering the park.  We spent an hour realizing that all the available tent sites had tent pads that were too small for the tipi and the substrate of the pads would be very hard to stake.  The sites that had large grass areas around them were either occupied or designated “Hike/Bike” sites.  We decided that we wanted to try to get a refund on our park pass.  We weren’t interested in camping there in the future.  We headed toward the Whitefish/Kalispell KOA at 11pm.  

They had $20 campsites that were great for the tipi, individual sink/toilet/shower rooms, and free hot showers.  I was thrilled and felt a little jipped for washing my hair in a 5 gallon bucket of creek water this morning.  Mom and I showered while the guys set up the tipi.  We skipped on dinner again and I crawled in my bag at 1:30am.

2,675 miles in.