Sometimes you need stops between the stops for laundry, electric hook-up, showers, and groceries. Sometimes you get lucky that these stops can be in towns as special as these and that between all the internet catch up and folding clothes, you can still (easily) find vast amounts of mountains and streams for fishing and hiking.

• We stayed: Bozeman Hot Springs Campground (will def do it again for the access to the pools), Jim and Mary’s (it serves our purpose but was close to the highway and not one of our faves)
• We explored: not a lot of time in Bozeman, so only the fantastic town and the fantastic pools, but in Missoula we not only explored its downtown, but we got out to the Rattlesnake Recreation Area of Lolo National Forest, and the famed Blackfoot River.
• We hiked and fished: Rattlesnake Trail and along the Blackfoot River
• We ate and drank: Sweet Peaks ice cream (in both places; Townes gives five stars to Grizz Tracks), Mountains Walking Brewery (five stars!), Zoo Thai (because we loved Teton Tiger so much), Biga Pizza, Five on Black
• We did not read A River Runs Through It only because I have so many times, but I did start (not finish due to time) This House of Sky by Ivan Doig.
• Next time: more time along 191 between Yellowstone and Bozeman, more time in both these towns (or in the parks just outside them), fish the Blackfoot from a boat