Stop 25: Libby, MT

We've been spending 2 nights in Libby. When she was young, Kristen's family used to come up to Libby to visit her Dad's Aunt Bernice and Uncle Leonard.

Bernice was Kristen's grandmother's sister, and, when Kristen's grandmother died when she (Kristen) was 2 years old, Bernice stepped in to fill the role (she and Leonard had no children of their own). Leonard and Kristen's grandfather served in World War I together. When they returned home, they double-dated and married the 2 sisters.

Our first order of business here was to find Bernice and Leonard's graves. It was easy to use the internet to find out what cemetery they are in and to even pull up a picture of their headstones. Finding the actual graves was another matter. We ended up at City Hall where they not only knew where they were but were able to give us a map of the cemetery with the names on all of the graves. Even then, we almost decided that the map must be of a different cemetery before we finally started finding names that matched. To shorten an already too long story, we found the graves.

The stream beside our campground. Very full (like all other waterways that we've seen).

On our only full day here, we did some sightseeing once we had completed our search for the graves. Our first destination was Kootenai Falls and swinging bridge.

The Kootenai River - very wide and fast flowing and, apparently, so deep that it almost looks calm.

Mom and Dad taking the baby ducks out for a swim on the Kootenai River. Kristen commented that they had better stay close to shore or those babies might find themselves in Astoria.

Beautiful woods on the way out to the falls.

The Kootenai Falls are not so much a falls as they are a really intense (class 16?) rapids.

More of Kootenai Falls (from the same location as the last shot).

The swinging bridge (just downstream from the falls).

The swinging bridge.

Upstream from the swinging bridge.

Downstream from the swinging bridge.

This is as close as Kristen got to the swinging bridge.

That's me.

Our next destination was Libby Dam. Kristen didn't remember there being a dam and that was with good reason. Her last visit was in '61. The US and Canada didn't agree on the building of the dam until '64 and the dam wasn't completed until the early '70's. Agreement was needed because the reservoir extends across the border.

On the way to the dam, we spotted this bald eagle. We also spotted a pair of golden eagles and didn't get a picture. Nests were everywhere.

Libby Dam from downstream.

Libby Dam

Libby Dam from the backside. The water is low because the dam's primary purpose is flood control and there's a huge amount of snowmelt yet to come.

The Koocanusa Reservoir (KOO from Kootenai. CAN from Canada and USA from USA)

We were thinking that the 67 must be air temperature. If not, who's ready for a dip?

Finally, we headed for Libby's Heritage Museum. The museum was very well organized (I guess anyplace would seem organized after that place in Polsen) and we really enjoyed it.

The indoor part of the museum is inside this huge 12 sided log cabin.

Kristen wanted her picture taken with this giant frying pan. That previous picture wasn't good enough so here's another.

Here's the explanation for why that giant frying pan even exists. Apparently, they actually cooked with it.

Tomorrow, we're off to Couer d' Alene, ID

Just had this visitor as I was sitting outside the trailer, finishing up this post.

-JC-

Stop 24: West Glacier, MT (Glacier National Park)

We had a short, beautiful, 68 mile drive to West Glacier. We started late but still would have arrived so early that we called ahead to make sure that our site was empty.

Beautiful mountains like this surround our campsite.

Another shot of those mountains with our trailer in the center of the picture.

Kristen walking through the woods near our campsite.

Our first full day: rain, rain and more rain

We intended to spend our first full day, exploring the park but the rain definitely made a difference. Upon doing a little bit of research we learned that Glacier's highlight, the Going-to-the-Sun Road, had 80 feet of snow this Winter and, so far only 16 of its 52 miles are open. They've actually cleared a lot more than 16 miles but, so far, there's no place beyond the 16 mile mark where they can reasonably turn traffic around. The road might be open in 2 weeks or so but that won't do us any good.

We spent the day taking care of some laundry and making some more RV park reservations. Later, we went in search of lunch and a good piece of huckleberry pie (found pie but found it lacking) and then we explored the shops in the local communities. We haven't had access to the Fox Network for the last couple of weeks so, upon our return, we took advantage of the great internet connection at this park and caught up on the last couple of episodes of 24.

Speaking of TV, West Glacier has been one of our weirder locations. We've been in the Mountain Time Zone since way back when we entered Utah. Prime time starts at 7pm in the Mountain Zone. We don't have cable at this park but the reception with the antenna is excellent. The part that's weird is that some of our channels originate in Kalispell, MT (prime time starts at 7pm) while the rest of our channels originate in Spokane, WA (prime time starts at 8pm Pacific which is 9pm here). We can watch 2 hours of prime time on NBC before the other networks even start prime time.

Our second full day: we finally get to Glacier (at least 16 miles of it)

The first 16 miles from Glacier's West Gate climb very gradually toward the mountains but never get there. The entire route is heavily wooded. Most of the route follows the shore of 10 mile long Lake McDonald. The rest follows McDonald Creek.

Glacier has an enormous variety of wildlife, including all of the major American predators (Grizzlies, Black Bears, Wolves, Coyotes, Cougars, etc.). They were all asleep ... we saw these 2 deer.

Looking East along Lake McDonald.

Looking West along Lake McDonald.

McDonald Creek (looks like a river to me).

Foot bridge over McDonald Creek.

Looking upstream from the footbridge.

McDonald Creek (love the carved out rocks along the edge).

Better example of those carved out rocks.

McDonald Creek.

McDonald Creek.

Kristen over McDonald Creek.

Once we reached the end of the road (at a campground called Avalanche Creek - why would anyone stay at Avalanche Creek) , we parked and hiked the Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail. It followed Avalanche Creek about 1/2 mile upstream, crossed over and then came back down the other side - just beautiful.

No nature trail is complete without its Grizzly warning (there were a lot of people on the trail so we weren't worried). Good place to mention that the stores around here only sell the king-size (dog-the-bounty-hunter-size) bear spray canisters. The woman in one store told us that they were forced to stop selling the small, self-defense size because they gave people a false sense of security. In use, the small canisters were just enough to make the bear angry.

As a precaution against grizzlies, I sent Kristen ahead on the trail.

Avalanche Creek.

Avalanche Creek.

Couldn't believe the amount of moss on the rocks.

Avalanche Creek with mountain in background.

Closeup of the waterfall on the side of that mountain.

Confluence of Avalanche and McDonald Creeks.

After our hike, we drove back to the McDonald Lodge for some lunch (and an excellent piece of huckleberry pie).

The old red buses at McDonald Lodge. When the Lodge first opened, these met visitors at the West Glacier Station and shuttled them to the Lodge. The only way to get anywhere else from there was by boat.

Inside the McDonald Lodge.

Inside the McDonald Lodge.

The lobby in the McDonald Lodge had this enormous fireplace. There was actually another tier of bricks around this so the chairs and benches were actually inside the fireplace (very cozy spot).

One of the boats that I mentioned earlier.

The middle fork of the Flathead River in West Glacier.

Tomorrow, we're off for Libby, MT

-JC-

Stop 23: Polson, MT (Flathead Lake)

We had a beautiful drive up to Polson from Salmon. We followed the raging Salmon River for quite a way before we crossed the Bitterroot Mountains at Lost Trail Pass. That was our final brush with the Continental Divide for this trip (we'll cross over and back when we get to Glacier National Park but that'll be without the trailer so it won't count). At Lost Trail pass, we were within a half mile of the Divide but it veered away from our route at the last minute.

After the pass, we traveled up the beautiful Bitterroot Valley, through Missoula to our destination.

Kristen took this photo from the car. We were thinking "Wow, look at Glacier". We were wrong. This is just another beautiful shot of the Rocky Mountains.

Looking North across Flathead Lake on our arrival day. The barely visible snow covered peaks in the distance are Glacier National Park (we think). Flathead lake is the largest fresh water lake (not counting the Great Lakes) West of the Mississippi. We would have thought that that would be Tahoe.

On our only full day in Polson, we started off by looking for every opportunity that we could find to walk along the beautiful lakeshore.

As far away as those islands on the left seem, we were surprised to discover that Polson is on a relatively small bay at the Southern end of Flathead Lake. The Islands are at the narrow point that separates the bay from the main part of the lake.

A better shot of the islands and Glacier in the distance.

Looking West along the Southern Shore.

Looking East along the Southern Shore.

After exploring the small downtown and grabbing some lunch, we visited the Miracle of America Museum. Stacy and Jack blogged about this monument to hoarding when they visited Polson last summer and we had to see it ourselves.

We occasionally watch Pickers on the History channel and this place seemed to have everything that Mike and Frank ever lusted after. We have encountered a couple of places that have been visited by the Pickers so, of course, we asked the woman at the the front desk if Mike and Frank had ever paid them a visit. She replied that they would need to be willing to sell something in order for M&F to be interested and that they don't want to part with a thing (except for the rare cases where they have duplicates).

I took some pictures of some of the funnier items.

This is a small part of their mousetrap collection.

And their collection of eggbeaters.

A Kansas beauty.

We saw at least 2 of these home perm machines (M&F might be able to get their hands on the duplicate).

Random funny photo.

Funny stuff. There's probably a Pet Rock and a can of Billy Beer around here someplace.

We got back to the trailer in time to sit outside in the balmy 75 degree weather until it clouded over and poured. Good time to sit inside and blog.

-JC-