Newman Lake is a vortex for sure, so it was difficult to leave. At one point we joked that we would never actually go on the road trip, but instead spend the entire 2 months at the lake.

Eventually, though, we packed the car back up and thanked the Bock's for their incredibly generous hospitality.

Leaving Washington really made the trip seem as though it were happening. Until this point, it just felt like a weekend vacation.

Traversing the northern part of Idaho takes about 5 minutes, so by late afternoon we entered the great state of Montana. Skipping the ranch on this leg of the journey, we pushed south towards Bozeman.

By nightfall, we were looking for our first rest stop when a storm rolled in. This was not a meteorlogical storm, but rather a storm of bugs, which wind shield wipers are useless against. The car surrvived, many bugs did not.