Back to the USA

31^st July

It was a short drive to the Canada/USA border where we had no issues as we had eaten all our fruit and tomatoes. These are prohibited to take across the border. We looked for a supermarket in Bonners Ferry in Idaho but ended up driving into Montana. We passed the beautiful Lake Bull and found a forest camp on its shores at Bad Medicine. It was a great shady site with easy access to the lake where we had a couple of swims in the warm water. A warm night so we sat outside until bed time.

1^st August.

It was a lovely drive to the city of Sandpoint, back in Idaho, along the shores of Lake Pend Oreille. We found a Super Wal-Mart and had a giant shop up. Everything in Canada is much dearer than the USA so we had let our stocks run low. Even bought cheap spirits to see us thru the trip hopefully. I rang Ashley (my cousin) and found that he would be overnighting at Wallace about 150kms down the road on Monday so will catch up with him there.

We stopped at Farragut State Park and booked in for 2 nights. The camp was full but they have some primitive camping which suits us. We had a nicely shaded camp site. This was some sort of ex military base. We rode down a steep hill to Lake Pend Oreille and enjoyed swimming in a small bay with many holiday makers. The ride back up the hill will keep us fit for the next few days.

 

2^nd August

This State Park is huge so we followed a series of old disused roads and trails around it with some great views eventually finding the military museum. It turns out this was a naval training camp hurriedly set up after Pearl Harbour. Seems a strange place for a naval base 1000s of miles from the sea, but its location was chosen because it could not be bombed by the Japanese. Back down the hill for another couple of swims. In the night we had an electrical storm and some hail!

3^rd August.

The storm has cooled the temperatures and we have decided to stay another night here and then drive straight to Wallace to see Ashley. It was haircut day in camp. It looked like a couple of grey rabbits had come to a sticky end when we had finished! We cycled back to the visitors centre and paid for another night. Back down the hill for another swim and the fitness cycle back up. A caravan has parked close to us with a very noisy generator. We got fed up with the noise and shifted to another site before dinner.

4^th August

We drove to the I-90 and followed it for 60 miles to Wallace. It is a long time since we have been on an interstate highway and I have not missed it. We found the hotel Ashley was staying at and an RV park nearby. At around 1:00pm he phoned us and came around. He had not changed a bit. Just a little greyer! We had not seen him for 32 years. He was on his way from Vermillion, South Dakota to Port Townsend near Seattle, a three day drive. We spent the afternoon catching up on family stuff. After he left we walked around the town. This is a mining town for silver and lead. There is a flyover bypassing the town and it feels like it has stayed the same since the 60’s. Perhaps, when they built the flyover, the town went into a time warp and everything stopped.

 

5^th August

I walked into town again for a couple of photos, water and a second LED torch for our bike ride. We left Wallace and continued up the I-90 to the Idaho/Montana border at Lookout Pass Ski Resort where we bought tickets for the Hiawatha mountain bike trail and the return shuttle. The cycleway follows the Chicago, Milwaukee and St Paul railway thru the Bitterroot Mountains. A luxury passenger train, the Olympian Hiawatha, travelled from Chicago to Seattle but eventually went bankrupt in 1977. The first part is a 2 mile tunnel thru the St Paul Pass (thus the extra torch).

Half way thru the tunnel we crossed the Montana/Idaho border. The trail was 16.5 miles but all down hill. There were many groups riding the trail which went thru 8 more tunnels and across 7 trestle viaducts.

The largest viaduct was 850ft long and 230ft high. It was a great ride but not very challenging. At the end we boarded an old yellow ex school bus (like you see in the movies). The back half of the bus was full of our bikes. It dropped us off at the ‘big tunnel’ which we cycled again back to ‘Ernie’. All in all a great experience. Back on the road and we turned off the I-90 and towards Flathead Lake and found a forest park camp by the Clark Fork River beside a railway bridge. In the night we had 5 trains thru which made for an interrupted sleep also not helped by another time zone change!

6^th August

We continued on to Flathead Lake with a quick stop to shop. It was a great drive following the river and eventually into farming country. Unfortunately we have smoke from forest fires spoiling the views of the mountains again. There were a few stops for road resealing. They only have a few months for this work and reseal long sections at a time. You stop for quite a period waiting and then the line of traffic follows a truck with a “follow me” sign. We decided to go up the east side of the lake, which seems to be less populated, and stopped at Finley Point State Park getting the last site. We were backed right onto the lake but the sites are very small and quite crowded. The water was very warm and we had several swims. There was no shade in the evening and we had our last swim at around 8:00pm.

7^th August

We drove the short distance to the other end of the Flathead Lake.

The full sign was up at the State Park we had chosen as our next stop but we went in and they had 1 site. Val did a huge wash and after lunch we went down to the beach. The swimming was just as good as yesterday’s. When we returned to our site we were in shade and it was nice and cool. In the evening we walked to a different part of the lake where the kids were jumping off large rocks into the water.

8^th August

We left before 9:00am to try and insure a campsite at Glacier National Park where we want to stay a few days. The more observant of you will remember we have already been in a Glacier National Park. This is an entirely different one. The other one is in Canada.  It is Friday and there are many people around and finding a camp site is getting harder. We arrived at the first camp in the park but it was full. They sent us around the end of Lake McDonald to another camp and we managed to get one of the last sites for one night only. We cycled back around the end of the lake to the visitors centre where the free shuttles leave from. The scenic parts of the National Park start at the other end of Lake McDonald 16 miles away. We had a bit of a wait for the shuttle which took us to the end of the lake and then we transferred onto a smaller shuttle to climb to the summit of Logan Pass on the famous “Going–to–the–Sun’ road, another 16 miles. This road is not suitable for larger vehicles and we could see why. It was a marvel of engineering climbing up a narrow windy road to the pass at 6646ft. We walked up a trail to a series of view points and sat and ate our lunch with mountains all around us. Further up the trail there were patches of snow and many wild mountain goats, some with kids. Back on the shuttles for the long 32 mile trip back to our bikes and the ride back to our camp.

9^th August

We had hoped to get a cancellation for another night but no such luck. The decision was to head back to the first camp we came to yesterday. As we drove around the camp we heard a thump. It was another rock jammed between the tyres like we had had last year. A guy on a bike raced away and got heavy duty tools and soon had it out. We headed around the end of the lake to the other camp and got one of the last sites, all this before breakfast. We have managed to get a great site and will stay here for two nights. After a late breakfast we spent a lazy morning cleaning and reading. We walked to the small tourist town of Apgar and looked in the shops which were all souvenirs etc. It is a short walk to the beach for a couple of swims and the water was surprisingly warm considering it is glacier feed. We have decided to stay another night.

10^th August

It was cooler in the night and we had Val’s pancakes for breakfast. We caught the large shuttle to Avalanche Creek and followed a trail up to the beautiful Avalanche Lake. It was a 5 mile hike up to and around the lake. We ate lunch at the far end in the shade with a view of 3 large waterfalls. We have started using a bear bell. The experts say that bear bells have limited effect in warning the bears of your presence, but as we have not seen a bear so far this trip perhaps it is working! Back to ‘Ernie’ and a couple of swims in Lake McDonald to cool off.

11^th August

We left the west side of Glacier National Park and drove 70 miles over the Great Divide to East Glacier N.P. and into another camp at Two Medicine. Again we secured the last available site.

Sooner or later our luck will run out! The mountains and the Two Medicine Lake are spectacular and we followed the ranger’s advice and walked to the Appistoki Falls and then continued up a steep trail to get some great views all around. Back to the lake and we shouted ourselves an ice-cream. In the evening we went to a ranger talk on mountain goats. He was very funny and the information was fascinating.

12^th August

We set off on a long hike around Two Medicine Lake taking in a couple of waterfalls on the way. At the far end of the lake we had lunch at Twin Falls. On our return journey we had a black bear cross our path about 30 metres ahead. The round trip took us about 4 ½ hours and we covered about 9 miles. There were a few claps of thunder and some light rain later in the afternoon. In the evening we went to another ranger talk on Grizzly Bears. Unfortunately there we some light drizzle so she kept the talk short. Again very interesting.

13^th August

We turned our back on the Rocky Mountains and started the long haul along the ‘2’ across the Montana Prairies towards North Dakota. It is about 450 miles to the border and we will take 3 or 4 days. The towns are small and far apart. It is either wheat and grain crops or grassland and very flat. We stopped and shopped at one small town and got LPG and petrol at Shelby where we have camped at a barren RV Park for the internet and laundry.