Hampton Inn Kalispell

This is a really weird feeling, leaving home for a five month adventure. We do a lot of traveling, but never one of this length. It's required an humongous amount of planning and while we've tried to think of all contingencies, we know that's not even possible. <br>And that's OK--part of the seat-of-your-pants traveling we're best at.<br>We ...

... dogs on (verbal) leashes in the woods -- National Parks do not. It dropped below freezing the first night and snow magically appeared on the higher mountains the next day.<br><br>Then horror, while we were packing Bogie cried/yelped while chasing a squirrel up a tree and came back to us on three legs. We were lucky finding a good vet that said he likely had a bad sprain on his right front leg (up to two weeks of being a gimp - if ...

Kalispell is actually starting to feel like home away from home! The mechanic ran into delays, truck won't be ready till Wednesday, so we are catching up with laundry, grocery shopping, haircuts, and resting. Wondering what we'll find when we open up the trailer after this long week. Need to get re-organized before we head west again. <br>

... us a loaner, we will leave the camper at the dealership for the week and we will head towards Canada in this red Corolla. Drive through Banff and Jasper? Try to find V's distant cousin that we've been wanting to meet for over 25 years? Looking on the map, they live waaayy up north in British Columbia. What the heck! Maybe we'll just go for it!<br>

Glacier National Park is fantastic. The highway, named "Into The Sun<br>Highway" (exactly what we were doing!), hugs the mountainside, dips<br>into valleys and brings you up through glorious passes. It's like a 50<br>km scenic roller coaster ride. Wheeeee!

... br><br>Something that has caught my eye in these parts are the small, free-standing espresso shops, little cabins that offer great coffee at a drive-through window. They're everywhere and very uniquely decorated. Haven't seen them elsewhere, yet.<br><br>Hidden in the trees after miles of gravel roads, we come upon this beautiful ...

... the discovery of gold in Silver Bow Creek. It didn&#8217;t take long before the gold was depleted, and the copper mines became the salvation of the area. The sad part of this is that somehow I failed to pack my gold pan on this trip, and as we travel along seeing all these little creeks &#8211; one of them even named &#8220;Gold Creek&#8221; &#8211; I am sure we are passing by up our opportunity to pay for this trip in gold nuggets. Do you ...

... in West Glacier. Friday, October 10th - Drove to Two Medicine, too icy to hike, then to St. Mary Visitor Center where we decided to go on to Canada and Waterton Lakes Park. Hiked/walked the Prince of Wales trail and around the lake. Motel - The Crandell Mountain Lodge. Saturday, October 11th - Attempted hike to Bertha Falls but too snowy. Drove back to Many Glacier, hiked around Swiftcurrent Lake ...

... we crossed it... Eventually we hit open road out of Washington and through Idaho. High rolling hills and low mountains covered with pines. They may have been Ponderosa Pines because we were constantly inspired to sing the theme from that hit show from the past "Bonanza". Little Joe would have been proud :) Idaho. Very pretty. Lasted all of eighty ...

... Road, and Todd and I oooh and aaah at the spectacular 3,000-foot vertical mountain valley walls all around us. Covered in lush green conifers, leafy ferns, and wildflowers in full bloom, the valleys spread out in every direction, carved by ice age glaciers, massive fields of snow and ice that once covered this entire terrain. The remaining visible glaciers, perched high up on ledges above, are puny in comparison to their gargantuan ancestors. Each glacier feeds long white waterfalls that ...