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Brian- Visiting two auto shops for free |
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(average per gallon) |
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Daily Didactic
It was a mighty productive day, which began around 9:00 in the interesting Missoula KOA. As KOA's go, it's a little busy and is weirdly located in a small forest just adjacent to Missoula's box store district. That said, it was quiet, clean, and the bathrooms (we're serious) smelled like that Betty Crocker yellow cake. We wonder how they do that. Brian had a list of bus maintenance he hoped to get others to do and Theresa had a shopping list. We dropped off the bus at Costco for their free tire balancing and rotation and hit Barnes & Noble and Old Navy. Brian worked the phone and finally found a really helpful fellow at Zip Auto that could get us in at 2:00 to look at the starter and a clunking in the right rear of the bus. We then let Google Maps on the iPhone direct us to an REI and then all the way across town to Zip Auto. That was pretty incredible, it would be really hard to get lost with this little thing.
While Shane at Zip took the bus in for a look and tried to find a replacement starter, we wandered around the very pleasant downtown Missoula. Theresa bought some more "road clothes" and Brian did not. About an hour later we stopped back at Zip and the bus was ready. Shane hadn't found a starter in town, but his mechanic was able to silence the clunk which was really preferable. Better, he didn't charge us because the fix was just tightening a shock bolt that Brian should have noticed himself and it only took a minute. We left our new favorite auto shop and revisited the Iron Horse Pub for a late lunch.
It was now 4:30 and we were going to Idaho today. We got on the road out of Missoula with rush hour traffic and put in a long evening of driving along the very pretty Bitterroot Mountain range and then up into the Sawtooth Mountains. We called it a night a little before 10:00 at Mormon Bend Campground, just outside of Stanley.
Road Trip HomeRoad Trip Tomorrow