One of our priorities at Monitoring Montana Waters is to connect and build relationships with the groups that we fund. This can be difficult over email and phone calls, so meeting in person is important. To do this MMW takes an annual road trip to visit as many of our funded groups as we can. Our road trip this year was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. Rescheduling the trip meant that we had to shorten it and only visit groups based around the Missoula area. The first stop on our road trip was the Lee Metcalf wildlife refuge near Stevensville Montana. Here, we met with Michael Howell, the project team leader for the Bitterroot River Protection Association. We got to check out one of the monitoring sites and discussed how the sampling was going this year. Next, we headed to Hamilton, Montana to meet with Alex Amann, the Big Sky Watershed Corps member for the Bitter Root Water Forum. Here, we discussed monitoring on Skalkaho Creek and the restoration projects the group had done in the last year. We visited Skalkaho Bend Park in Hamilton and viewed the stream bank revegetation project the group had completed to help with river bank erosion. After meeting with the BRWF we drove back to Missoula and met with Elena Evans at the Missoula Valley Water Quality District. We discussed the impacts of development on the streams in and around Missoula and the next steps. Meeting with these three groups in person allowed us to form a stronger connection and learn more about challenges they are facing and how we can best assist them in their monitoring efforts.