Two days ago, we were supposed to be on a plane down to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Yesterday we were supposed to be in Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos. As we are now in a lonely cabin 20 minutes outside of Kalispell, Montana, you might deduce that something went wrong, or that this is some elaborate April Fools joke. It is not.
You see, it was virtually impossible to get on any flights this past week. In some cases, flights were actually oversold with 20+ standbys on certain routes. This was something I hadn’t seen since pre-pandemic days. Call it spring break, or revenge travel, or anything you like. It was one of the biggest disruptions in Bricole’s travel plans since the beginning of our nonrev days, second only to the time Nicole got Covid in February of 2020 and we canceled a trip to Scandinavia, then Poland, then Vancouver Island, before ultimately just getting in a car and driving to Palm Springs. At least this time, one could get on flights if they didn’t involve beaches or warm sunny weather.
The great irony in that is that Montana is experiencing a heat wave right now. It was nearly 70 degrees when we landed at Missoula’s airport. Due to construction on the terminal, we had to walk outside from the aircraft, a challenging prospect under normal weather this time of year. We got our rental car which is a very ostentatious Toyota RAV4.
Perhaps later I will provide you, dear reader, of a full body shot of our rental car, but for now here’s a tease of the hood. From Missoula, we had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us. It went by fairly quickly with good conversation and good scenery. In the summer when tourism really explodes, one can land at the much closer Kalispell/Glacier Park airport. I myself have done a fair number of these direct flights from Los Angeles. It is, however, a seasonal route, and direct flights from LA to Missoula didn’t even begin until . . .today.
Tomorrow we plan to go to Glacier National Park, and we are very torn on what to wear. On the bright side of a failed trip to Scandinavia last year, we have some good boots for the snow. With that being said, while we expect to encounter lots of snow, it is also in the 60s during the day, so that’s kind of confusing. Wish us luck with our adventures and our wardrobe choices.
passports & pepto bismol 