Our trip began with a 2-hour drive from Helena to Missoula – many thanks to Dad for driving us (4 hours round trip for him, barely a month after triple bypass open heart surgery). Despite planning and preparing for several weeks beforehand, we still had a mad rush to get everything packed and the house ready for the housesitter before we left – thanks to Mom for helping out with this process!
The hotel (Wingate Inn) had a free shuttle that brought us to dinner at Mod Pizza and back to the hotel afterwards. The kids have been missing Mod Pizza since we left Seattle, so this was a fun treat.
Mod Pizza in Missoula
Another surprise for the kids – the hotel had a water park with water slides! They provided life jackets and even goggles. We stayed for several hours – the kids played while P reviewed a book.
We woke up at 4 a.m. for our 6 a.m. Delta flight to Oakland via Salt Lake. First flight was 1.5 hours, 40-minute layover, then 2 more hours.
We had 11 hours in Oakland before our Norwegian Airlines flight to Stockholm. We considered visiting the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, but decided against it because it was raining and we had our backpacks to carry with us.
Instead, we decided to go to the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. We took the BART one stop from the airport, then back to the airport, no cost. We decided that it was easier and cheaper to take an Uber to the science museum. It would have take 2 different BART trains, then an Uber ride to get there, since it’s in the middle of Redwoods State Park.
R found the workings of the broken escalator at the BART station very interesting.
We had 11 hours to kill in Oakland, so we took an Uber (first time ever) from the Oakland airport to the Chabot Space & Science Center. $20 each way. The BART would have been $40 plus an Uber.
The Science Center wasn’t huge, but had enough to keep us busy
