Day 1

By flying Northwest Airlines out of New Orleans, we can make Missoula, MT with just two hops. First from New Orleans to Minneapolis and then from Minneapolis to Missoula. Here we have the tail of our plane. We know this is our plane because of the large "N" on the tail. This obviously stands for Nancy.

We visited the Mountain Flying Museum at the Missoula airport. This DC3 was the plane that dropped the 15 smoke jumpers who lost their life into the Mann Gulch fire in 1949. There was a movie loosely based on this event.

We also visited "A Carousel for Missoula". These are hand carved horses from a local cabinet maker.

For the railfans. This 4-6-0 Northern Pacific steam steam engin was on display just outside the old Northern Pacific depot. Notice the old signal semaphores.

A real train! Well sort of. These three MRL engines are switching some cars in the Missoula yard. Engines in the background are being refueled. Missoula is the corporate office of the Montana Rail Link.

A funny for the day. We will find a train anywhere. This funny little critter was at Dragon Hollow childrens park. You can't tell from the pictures, but we should also mention that Missoula had a record high today. 98! And we thought we left the heat back in Louisiana.