I’ve put a few pictures in the picture album from Glacier National Park. We were there on Thursday, June 26th and Friday, June 27th, 2008.

No pictures because I haven’t downloaded them. It’s about 11 p.m. at night and getting to bed is a higher priority than a picture for some reason. Tomorrow likely will include some pictures. We spent the morning at Glacier Park and then drove back to Heron, arriving here about 5:30 p.m. After cleaning up and showering, Nina, Dawnmarie, and I went to a lovely little nearby lodge for dinner. The halibut was very good and worth ordering. The lodge is on the edge of the national forest and while we were eating a herd of elk crossed in front of the inn and a couple of deer were feeding in a meadow. A feast for the eyes as well as for the belly.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be on our way. As previously advertised, we’re headed around the Selkirk International Loop. We’ve made reservations at Crawford Bay for the next four nights. A few days vacationing on our own before going back home.

I’ve put up two movies that should work on your computer…. The first is of Kirk’s parent’s house and environs. To see this one click here. The second is on Kirk and Dawnmarie’s property a bit away from Kirk’s parent’s house. To see that one click here.  Download times are fairly lengthy for these short videos. Comments welcome!

Yesterday we drove up to the Ross Creek Cedars, an old-growth cedar forest that somehow escaped the devastating wild fires of 1910. As we approached the area, we were greeted with the sign on the left. Because I have already written about being “near the end of the road,” I was happy to actually find that there was an end of the road!

The cedars were quite spectacular and were discovered in the late 1950’s by a young forest ranger marking trees for logging. It’s since been made into a lovely place for families to visit and walk through. I took a whole bunch of pictures which eventually will be put in the picture album (the pictures are now there!)

Today is a quiet day and we’re staying around the area. Tomorrow we’re headed to Coeur d’Alene and the lake, Thursday and Friday over to Kallispell and Waterton-Glacier National Peace Park. Saturday we’ll proceed on our own way around the Selkirk International Loop.

I need to find a place that sells AA batteries. That sounds like a good purpose for the day!

Today is a partly cloudy day with occasional rain showers forecast. It will get up above 90 degrees today, an unusually high temperature for this part of western Montana. After getting up this morning, I took a few pictures. Clicking on them will show some additional information. Clicking again on the picture will show the larger view.

We’ve been here not quite twenty-four hours and I’m starting to wind down. This is a place where one can definitely do that. Will it be successful??

We’ve arrived in Heron, Montana (clicking on the link shows a Google map). I think this is the most rural I’ve been in many, many years! The road turned to dirt, but continues a ways beyond the driveway where the motorhome is parked, so we’re not entirely at the end of the road!

I drove from Hamilton to here, so no pictures (yet). We arrived about 4 p.m. this afternoon. I brought a Wifi access point with me and it’s plugged in and working great. They have DSL here and it seems pretty fast. There is no cell phone service. I’ll probably not miss that, though.

Tomorrow I’ll take some pictures around here. It is very pretty here and very, very quiet. Nature is definitely the order of the day here.

Our first stop was at the Black Rabbit RV Park in Hamilton, Montana. We managed to get away from the house about 10:50 this morning. The last task, hooking the Tracker onto the motor home, took quite a while as the safety chains hookup had become quite corroded over the winter.

Our route of travel has been mostly on normal roads other than the drive from Pocatello to Blackfoot on the freeway. We drove through the Idaho National Laboratory and past EBR-1, the first nuclear reactor to generate electricity and Atomic City, the first town to be lit up by nuclear energy. The we turned north in Arco and drove past Mt. Borah, the highest point in Idaho and onto Challis, Idaho. Another turn north took us through Salmon, Idaho, over Lost Trail Pass (and the interesting ski resort there), the Continental Divide, and down the other side into Hamilton, Montana. Much of the drive from Challis northward was along the Salmon River as far as the Divide, and then along the Bitterroot River. Our campground is on the banks of the Bitterroot about three miles north of town.

Our map index says that the population of Hamilton, Montana was about 3,000 souls. Wikipedia says 3,705 in the 2000 census. It cannot be true. This must be a much larger town. There are three grocery stores, just about every fast food restaurant, and a couple of movie theaters. It seems to be a very vibrant place.

With gasoline prices around $4 a gallon, we’ve decided to slow down to 55 mph as we’ve got more time available to us now. Today that resulted in a 20% increase in gas mileage, even though we’ve been going up and down mountains much of the day. We’ve pretty much decided to drive the motor home out east in October for The Wedding and take some time around that to do some vacationing. It looks like by slowing down we can dramatically reduce the cost of the trip.

The vacation has begun!

Tomorrow morning we’re headed out in the motorhome on our way to Heron, Montana. Kirk, Dawnmarie, and family are there visiting with Kirk’s family. We’ve had their oldest daughter Madison here for the past week making sure that she’s thoroughly spoiled and will deliver her back to her family on Saturday afternoon.

The plan is to stay in Heron for about a week, visiting and playing. Dawnmarie and Kirk are leaving at the end of next week to drive back to Pennsylvania. We’ll leave about the same time for another week of playing. We’re going to drive around the International Selkirk Loop. We’ll start in Sandpoint, Idaho and go counter-clockwise around the loop … through Bonners Ferry, cross into Canada, through Creston, Crawford Bay, and Nelson, back into the US at Metaline, Washington, south through Cusick and Priest River. The main route is about 280 miles but we’ll take several side trips. We’ve not spent any time in that part of the country and we’re quite ready to take a short vacation.

We’ll avoid freeways on our way up and around the loop. We’ll probably come home on the freeway just because there’s not much other option. By keeping the speed down I’m hoping to get around 10 mpg in the motorhome. So the route: We’ll go to Blackfoot, then east to Challis, north through Salmon, Idaho and Hamilton, Montana to Missoula, Montana. Then we’ll head northwest to Heron. A week later we’ll head to Sandpoint and do the loop. Then we’ll probably come home on I-90 to I-15 to Pocatello. We’re planning to be home on Saturday, July 5th. This should be a lot of fun! Pictures and blog posts coming, as well as the occasional twitter.