He said:
I should probably let Shannon go first one of these times, but we've only finally gotten internet back. Today was much better. It was unbearably hot in the tent last night and I didn't sleep at all. The morning started out as a real scorcher. But we had breakfast at the campsite (mini cereal boxes - classic), then went to the Carousel for Missoula, a local park area. They have a handcrafted carousel that goes super fast and a play area callled Dragon's Hollow that is quite a tall wooden castle. Then there's a children's museum. I've said it every trip, those children's museums are great. This was probably the smallest one thus far. I bet our house has more books and toys than this one. Yet the kids spent hours in there. We had to make them leave for lunch. We should definitely have one of those in Edmonton. Some paints, some fake food and a cart or two, and you're good to go. It's been too hot to think of having a fire, so we've been eating out. Nothing to write home about. Famous Dave's, once again. Gillian loves those ribs. Fuddruckers - Gillian says it's not the best. Hmm. Maybe we should have her do a food blog.
In the afternoon we went to the tiny pool here but it was a blast. We bought this collapsible disc that pops up into basically a hula hoop with a net in the middle. I had grabbed three, but we settled for one to try it out. It was awesome! Everybody loved it. I could float down the river in one of those. We went back to Target and bought 3 more. Small, portable, and effective. We ended up spending 2-3 hours in that water.
Definitely noticing a shift in the states. I still love their choice. Doesn't matter what product we have, be it pickles, oreos, jam or even tubes of mushed seasoning (ginger, garlic, etc), they have two more versions that we've never seen. On the other hand, my cell phone costs $200 MORE here than in Canada. There have been 3 or 4 things I've bought recently enough to remember the price of, that I'v ebeen surprised to see MORE expensive in the states. I was looking forward to the on-par exchange and lower prices, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Books still are. I could've spent $500 on books at Barnes and Noble. Again, very close to a Chapters yet somehow...more.
Anyway. It's cooled off nicely tonight, I was able to get Ryan to sleep, the rest of us had a small fire and some marshmallows, and now the girls are off to bed. The stars are out, there's a breeze, all-in-all it's been a wonderful (I'm takin' it back, Louis CK!) day. Still have no idea where we'll go next. Looks like MT Rushmore is out, Vegas is out. We may try to head back to the Oregon ocean, but I'm not too keen on that. Probably drive to Coeur D'Alene tomorrow and get a nice hotel for a night, then see.
She Said:
Well, there's not much more to say. Ryan enjoyed the pool yesterday. We had him in one of those full body type bathing suits with flotation inserts in the chest and back. They made him more bouyant, but not quite enough to be a life jacket. It looked horribly uncomfortable and kinda rose up around his face, but we threw him in the middle of an inflatable spiderman tube and he just floated around for hours. He enjoyed sucking the water out of the bathing suit around his face. There was an odd little 6 year old girl that got my attention by squirting water at me incessantly. I finally chatted with her and learned that she was the fifth of 6 kids and was camping with her grandparents while her dad was working. She had no interest in playing with Mara or Gillian, just wanted to follow me around. It seemed a little sad. I didn't ask her about her mom because I was afraid the answer might be more sad.