One Park, One Museum, One Stamp at a Time
Bitterroot Valley, MontanaFollowing a nice morning at Big Hole National Battlefield, we hit the road for the final stretch of our adventure to our new home and lives in Spokane, WA. There were a few stops in Montana that were on my National Parks passport list but timing was not on our side. The Ravalli County Museum in Hamilton has passport stamps for 3 different National Historic Trails and looked really interesting on their website. Time was not on our side though, they are closed on Sundays and that happened to be the day we made our way through the area. There were also a couple of stamping locations near and in Missoula but we decided to pass on these as well. We had been on the road for almost a week at this point and were close enough to home that we made the choice to push to the finish line with just a few quick stops. I went to Catholic school my entire education, including Gonzaga University. This back ground has led to an interest in the history of early Catholic missionaries in the west and, in particular, the early Jesuits missionaries. St. Mary's Mission in Stevensville was just a 5 minute detour from our path so we stopped for a brief visit. The mission was founded by Father Pierre De Smet, for whom a building at Gonzaga is named. The mission is a quaint and beautiful little area nestled against a mountain backdrop. We took a quick walking tour of the historic buildings and displays they have up for guests. The mission was one of the earliest white settlements in Montana and the west. The mission worked with many of the native tribes of the area and still offers some services today. We next stopped in Missoula for lunch and a beer at Highlander Brewing. My fiance and I love to visit small breweries anywhere we travel and Missoula is a great beer town. Montana has a brewery passport program for anyone that plans on visiting the many breweries in the Big Sky State. Idaho Panhandle and SpokaneAfter lunch, we hit I-90 west in Missoula and headed for home. The drive between Missoula and Spokane features a brief visit to the Idaho panhandle. We stopped to stretch our legs and visit another brewery, Wallace Brewing Company. Wallace, ID, the self-proclaimed "Center of the Universe" is a historic mining town resting between the mountains in the Silver Valley. We had visited Wallace once years ago but were excited to wander the streets and visit WBC. Breweries in eastern Washington and north Idaho have a passport program called the Inland Northwest Ale Trail. I had started collecting these stamps during various visits to Spokane over the last few years and wanted to get the Wallace Brewing stamp as something of a welcome home present to myself. Home at lastA little over an hour later we were finally in Spokane and our new home! June and July were going to be major moments in our lives as we moved, looked for jobs, started school, and got married. I went to college in Spokane and my fiance had grown up there. We were excited to get to town and start our new lives and adventures together.
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