Before heading out, Aven and Aniya showed off their buttes in Butte, MT.
About 40 miles East we found the Lewis and Clark Cavern State Park along the Jefferson River. We found the name interesting even though Lewis and Clark never actually found this cave way up on the hillside, but they did travel through the scorching heat down below.
We started wondering what we were thinking as we took turns carrying Aniya up the steep trail for a mile in the unrelenting hot sun to reach the cave. On the way the cliff-side rock revealed many fossils from an ancient sea floor. It was fun to catch our breath while searching for them!
We welcomed the 55-degree temperature drop as we entered the cave mouth. There were stairs and railings built in the most difficult to navigate areas, as well as many electric lights.
The kids found it easier than we did to move through the sometimes low-clearance and tight openings between the stalagmites and columns.
We wound our way down inside the cavern for about an hour, seeing incredible mineral formations of every kind. We heard and saw bats hanging and flying, and a packrat skeleton along the way. We learned the average growth rate of the formations is a square inch every hundred years!
Is it Indiana or Dustin Jones?
Just after returning from the cavern exploring, our hard-working truck gave us a scare. A loud new noise coming from under the hood can’t be good. Just after completing 2,800 miles, had it had enough? The friendly bearded maintenance guy with a hook for a hand tried to help us figure it out. We eventually made it to the nearest town and the small-town mechanics guessed it was the power steering pump. Yay! We can make it home without servicing! Hope they are right!
Just a few hours behind schedule, we traversed the remainder of Montana, the handle of northern Idaho and made it barely into our home state. Uncle Steve and Aunt Debbie graciously hosted us for the night at their home in Spokane. Nothing against Best Western or Super 8- but after a week, it was a treat to stay in such a comfortable home with family.
Road trip stats:
- Total miles driven: 3,130
- Total days since we last saw our dogs: 10
- Total # of meals we ate out: 2 (Jackson Hole for lunch and Coeur d’Alene, ID for dinner)