Holiday Inn Express 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 ...

... Day) and used her backyard as our last different official campsite -- number forty-nine (an even fifty if one includes the Wisconsin pop-up camper - I don&#8217;t). The next few days will see us drifting west -- more updates and flashbacks will be posted soon.<br><br>Tidbit:<br>- US Glacier National Park is very large -- I will do size comparisons of all the visited National Parks once I have time and a good internet connection. <br>

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!

Lake Koocanusa - Kootenai National Forest - Driving through forests<br>older than time, glimpsing sparkling rivers through the trees and<br>suddenly coming upon the lake, which is very long and narrow. Clear<br>water, clear air, lots of space, friendly towns. Then on through Eureka and towards Whitefish, where we hope to find a nice ...

... a few minutes, with me sitting on the sunny side of the vehicle, before I punched the AC button. Tough about your fuel mileage, Wendell; momma doesn&#8217;t like to sweat! Further up the road, we took a more westerly route and were able to switch back to vent while the sun was behind us. We have averaged 13.5 mpg since we left home and that makes us very happy. Vent instead of AC certainly helps with those numbers and mpg equates to $$$.<br ...

... Lodge in Essex, directed to Glacier Haven Inn for the night. Dinner at Izaak Walton Inn. Monday, October 13th -Up and breakfast at Izaak Walton Inn then hiked the Scalplock Lookout trail. Drove back to Kalispell area. Motel - Super 8 in Columbia Falls. Tuesday, October 14th - Depart Kalispell on Delta, Arrive Salt Lake City, Depart Salt Lake City, Arrive Atlanta; Depart Atlanta Delta, Arrive Greenville.

... we'd pick up a room somewhere in Montana about 150 miles from Glacier. Bad plan. Every town we hit was booked. Luck was with us in the end. The sun was well below the horizon when we saw a sign for Logan State Campground. Lots of empty camp sites and just enough light to set up the tent. Endless showers too. Tomorrow we can use our new espresso pot. :)