Our first day on the road proved to be highly uneventful….I’m writing this from the not so fabulous but very cost effective Motel 6 in lovely Missoula, Montana. No internet service here so this one will be posted up a day late a crappy cable feed no coffee until seven so I will be tired… again…

We had an issue with the trailer lights early on from Seattle, but it must have worked itself out. Our borrowed F350 super duty is a little weak in the braking and power department for the FULL load of equipment we have, but we are making due. An ABS light early on in the trip had us a wee bit worried but it has seemingly worked itself out as well. My rough estimates on fuel costs were a little under estimated as the truck is getting around 9 mpg into Missoula. Somewhere between Spokane and Butte we lost one of our sweet Meister Gauge Faces magnetic number backers from the truck, so those are going to stay in the truck from now on….someone got an awesome souvenir.

The weather has been fantastic so far, we seem to be following clear sky and only saw a bit of rain as we started over the Cascades early in the day. Temperatures ranging from as low as 39 at the top of Snoqualmie Pass to 59 in the flatlands of Montana. The snow at the top of the passes is a bit unnerving, but we’ll deal with that if we have to.

I’ve never seen so many deer hit areas in one road trip before….Montana is a dangerous place for animals crossing the road, and a great place for yocals to pick up dinner. Mullet Central. Found a couple of names, numbers and addresses of some gentlemen Charlie is interested in meeting from the local Rest Areas here in Montana, apparently the men-folk are friendly out here.

At one point today while coming up on Spokane I noted that we must be getting close to civilization again as a Jet was taking off at a pretty high rate of climb. Phil said, “Yeah there must be an airport around here.” I said, “Thank you Captain Obvious.”

I’ll be posting some images I took on the fly

820 miles down…on to day two.