We left Yellowstone (all feeling a bit sad, which is unusual - we're normally ready to move on), and spent the night in Paradise Valley RV Park before our long day's drive back to return the RV (we had to cover about 400 miles in a lumbering RV in one day). The only interesting stop was in Missoula, where we went on a carousel made by the local community.
Spent a second night in an RV park in St. Regis (we'd stopped there on the way in), then drove up to rent bicycles and do the Hiawatha Trail! This was another rail-trail conversion: 16 miles gently sloping downhill through pristine Bitterroot Mountains scenery, beginning with a 2-mile pitch-black tunnel. Even though it was about 80 degrees outside we were all chilled to the bone by the time we emerged.
The ride wasn't as good as the Galloping Goose (which regular readers -are there any? - will remember). The surface wasn't as good, there were far more people, the scenery was less varied and it was VERY hot, all of which meant for slightly less happy children and hence slightly less happy parents. We caught the shuttle back up to the mountain-top to return the bicycles, had lunch in the car park there, then drove on to our final RV park near Coeur d'Alene in Idaho.
The next day was a bit of a nightmare. We had to return our RV then somehow get across the Rockies to pick up another one (a 3 or 4 hour drive) all within one day. This was made harder by the fact that there were no buses or trains doing the route. In the end we drove to Spokane airport to rent a car, then returned the RV, then drove as fast as we could across to Kalispell to pick up the new RV, getting there ten minutes after the depot closed (fortunately we'd called ahead, so the man stayed behind to show us it). And what was the RV like? Well, that's another entry.
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