Which way to go?

 Above is the Idaho Falls to Three Forks route.  It's 200 miles through Classic Big Sky Country.

And here's the Three Forks to Helena route.  These two routes keep us off the interstates.

We obviously know where we are going but we don't know where we are going to get there.  We're conflicted between the EZPZ straight, Fun Route and The Pickleball Route.  Being as how we're kinda pickleballed out right now, we're swinging back toward thoughts of the EZPZ Fun Route.

That would mean we drive up through Island Park to Henrys Lake and then turn north to cross over the Continental Divide at Raynolds Pass.  There we would leave The Snake River Watershed and drop into the Missouri Watershed via the Madison River drainage.  We'd head up through Ennis and reach Three Forks, Montana about 200 miles from Idaho Falls.  We would camp at the Missouri River Headwaters State Park right smack dab where Lewis & Clark & Crew camped in 1805.  Chances are we'd spend two nights there because it is such a special spot.  But maybe not.

Anyway, then we'd head north on A Montana state highway to get to Helena and thence via more state highways to get to Saint Mary, Montana.  If we weren't worried about playing pickleball, it would be a relaxing and fun trip.  So, that's the way we are leaning as of Monday morning on the last day of July.  It's only 271 miles from Three Forks to Saint Mary and that's a pleasant amount of travel time.  We could probably leave Three Forks in the 9-10 AM range and easily arrive at Saint Mary at or before 5 PM.

We don't travel fast when we're towing the trailer.  Our trailer tires are only rated for use at 60 MPH max.  So, we're kinda pushing it to drive 62 miles per hour.  Anything over 65 is out of the question except in the Salt Lake City corridor when survival matters more than the integrity of our trailer tires...but we digress.

Anyway, as of Monday morning that's looking more and more like "The Plan".  We've had enough pickleball lately to last us a long time.  Maybe we oughta blow off pickleball until we make the return trip.  There will be plenty of places to play heading south.  Hum...we shall see.

 http://stateparks.mt.gov/missouri-headwaters/