road trip: night one

koa camping in missoula

We pulled into the Missoula KOA about 7:30pm or so.  We had very few expectations of a campground whose directions included, “Right behind Famous Footwear”.  We were pleasantly surprised, however, by the quiet we experienced, given that there were a few hundred campers:  RV, tent and a few motorcycles.

…well, more than a few motorcycles.

Setting up camp proved to be pretty easy.  Nathan started off crying and the dogs began getting restless, but everyone quited down pretty quickly.  The campground itself got real quiet about 8:30, before we had a chance to blow up our air mattress.

It’s a very noisy air pump.

So, Niki, being more concerned about disturbing others and getting kicked out of the KOA than comfortable sleeping, decided to just roll in out and not blow it up.  We soon wished we blew it up.

We froze.  And tossed and turned on hard rocky ground.  It was miserable.  Unprepared for cold nights (it’s August, for crying out loud!), we even forgot a hat for Nathan.  Niki improvised:  taking one of her fluffy socks, we cut a slit and popped it on his head.  Perfect.  Nathan had no clue that we were so cold.

Or miserable.

Lucky kid.

Tuesday morning we called a Best Western.

– Josh