Day 8 - West Yellowstone, MT to Missoula, MT 265 miles

Dirty clothes, dogs, and BMW's

Tired from yesterday's all day excursion around Yellowstone I slept in till 6 AM.  Letting Kathy sleep I gathered the dirty laundry up and went in search of a laundry mat.  A quick ride around the little town of West Yellowstone proved fruitless so I had to stop and discuss laundry mats with a convenience store clerk. Notice, I did not ask for directions....

The clerk told me about a good laundry mat close by so I went and reconnoitered the place. Oh, it takes money and I had neglected to get any funds from Sleeping Beauty.  So I stopped by an ATM and got me a twenty dollar bill.  Back to the laundry mat I went...Oh, the change machine doesnt' take twenty dollar bills. Back to another convenience store to buy a snack and Diet Coke to break the twenty...Oh, this store doesn't have Diet Cokes.  Back to the original store and original clerk, I buy a sausage and biscuit, and a Diet Coke, and yes I did find the laundry mat you had mentioned.

Since I now knew the clerk well enough to banter in idle chitchat, I asked about Montana's no speed limit policy.  A friend and I had discussed this no speed limit policy a few days ago and both agreed I would probably like it.  It seems I'm too late, Montana cancelled the policy quite a while back account federal tax dollars or some other bureaucratic snafu.  Glad I hadn't been speeding....wink.

Back at the laundry mat, where, by the way people are starting to wonder what I'm up to, I actually start a load of clothes.  Instead of going back and waking Kathy, I decided to man up and just set there and wait. There is a book shelf with a good variety and I find a novel by Daniel Silva and begin to read.

Soon the proprietor comes in and starts cleaning the laundry mat.  With her come two little Yorkies, one timid with a beautiful coat of hair, and one friendly and bald.  I thought it was a really short clipping job done by an over zealous groomer.  I guess the owner saw me eyeing the dog, and to dispel any worries I might have she tells me  that she has taken the dog to several doctors to find out why her dog is bald but to no avail.

Petting the dog soon encourages it to want to be in my lap so I oblige. Here I am in West Yellowstone, Montana, sitting in a laundry mat reading a novel, and petting a bald Yorkie. Then it starts to rain, not that it matters, I'm having a great morning !

Finishing the laundry I tell my bald friend goodbye and head to our cabin. Kathy is up puttering about and soon we are on our way north on Hwy 191.  It's a great road that largely follows the Gallatin River as it flows north toward Belgrade, Montana.  The canyon is nice and gives us many views of rapids and river runners enjoying the snow melt.

At Belgrade we head north by northwest on an interstate 90 dodging thunderstorms along the way to Missoula.  Once in Missoula I locate the BMW dealer there hoping to get a Missoula BMW t-shirt but the only size they have is large.  They do have a sweet 2014 BMW GSA 1200 R that makes me drool.  Ah, maybe one day.  At the moment we have places to go.