Pacific time.......

8:30 am - Friday - July 31st - Coeur d'Alene, ID - 72° F, 48% humidity, wind - CALM......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 100° F.....our first triple digit day this summer.  On this day in 2018 we were dining at Beale's Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor, ME..........↴

 Lobster Rolls and Allagash White.....

......the best Belgian White ever made!

I was up shortly after 6 am Mountain DST (really 5 am Pacific DST) in anticipation of an 8 am departure....very early for us, but needful since the high temperature for the day at our destination, Coeur d'Alene, was going to be 97° F...we wanted to arrive while it was still in the high 80's.  True to plan we exited the KOA around 7:55 am, and were soon floating westbound on I-90.  At about the 6 mile mark we got off the Interstate to pay the rent at the local Love's truck stop where we took on 110 gallons of diesel at $1.87/gallon....this will be the least expensive diesel we see until we pass through Washington State, and into Oregon.

We were warned by our friends Richard and Rhonda that there were numerous construction zones standing between us and our destination, and two of them were quite lengthy.....

The cone zone

.....we made good time in the light traffic, and soon we were at the halfway mark....Haugan, MT checking out the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar......

....we stopped here back in November of 2008 on our first long Newell trip to my sister's home in Spokane, WA for Thanksgiving.  I actually bought a silver dollar back then.

Just past Haugan, MT is Lookout Pass, and then the Idaho border......

....where we re-entered the Pacific Time Zone for the first time since March 3rd of this year.  After Lookout Pass we had just one more pass to slip over.....4th of July Pass standing at just 3,069' above sea level......

 4th of July Pass - all that stands between us and Coeur d'Alene, ID

......the first view of Lake Coeur d'Alene (just past Wallace, ID)....not far now......

.....the last time we were in Coeur d'Alene in the Newell was September of 2013.  Then we stayed for a month on the banks of the Spokane River at River Walk RV Park....we got winter rates then ($440 for a month), but now their winter rates do not begin until October, and their weekly rates right now are $325, so we opted to stay at the Coeur d'Alene Elks Lodge #1724 for $20/night.  They have a 30 site RV park in the back of their property providing 50 amp electric, and water.

We arrived around 11:30 am Pacific DST, and were set up in site #11 shortly thereafter after paying for one week.....

.....this is a tight 'cheek by jowl' park, but very quiet.....we are about 4 miles off the Interstate here.  Once we had backed our 62' into site #11 I quickly connected the shore power, while TLE turned on both A/C's to cool the hot interior.  The high temp hit around 5 pm, and then it finally began to cool, but oh so slowly.

We spent the rest of the day staying cool inside the Newell....I took a long nap to make up for my early start to the day, read some, and napped again.  We had a subtle sunset around 8:25 pm....about an hour earlier than the past couple of months whilst we resided in the Mountain Time Zone.....

.....thanks for stopping by!

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Hurry up and wait.....

6:50 am - Thursday - July 30th - Missoula, MT - 57° F, 86% humidity, wind - CALM.....clear, blue skies today with a forecast high in Missoula of 95° F.....it' going to be a warm one!  On this day in 2012 we were in Long Beach, WA on the Olympic Peninsula.......↴

With only 86 miles to drive Wednesday, and a tentative check in time of 3 pm at the KOA in Missoula we had a leisurely morning.  We didn't take anything out of the trailer, except the car and the anti gravity chairs so all I had to do after putting away the anti gravity chairs Tuesday evening was put away the sewer hose, water hose, the VW, and finally our electrical umbilical cord.  Even leaving at 11 am (we actually left at 10:30 am....you know me.....when I'm ready to go, I'm ready) we would still arrive in Missoula well before the posted 3 pm check in time on the KOA website, but we thought we would just call when we were about 40 miles out and see if we could check in early....that usually elicits a positive response.  Take it from me, it is never well received by office staff when you arrive early....unannounced.

The drive west back to Missoula was mostly downhill as that is the direction the Clark Fork River flows, and rivers tend to follow the pass of least resistance which happens to be downhill.  By 11:15 we were just 41 miles outside Missoula as we pulled into a Rest Stop.  I called the KOA, and was advised we could check in as early as 1 pm...perfect.  We were around 45 minutes out, so that meant we had to kill about an hour.  We hung out at the Rest Stop for about 15 minutes, and then continued on to Missoula.

When we exited I-90 it was just 12:30 pm so we found a large parking lot in which to park, and kill the last 30 minutes.  By this time it was edging quickly toward the high of the day, and it was getting warm in the Newell....this is one of the reasons why we prefer to begin our travel days earlier in the day during the summer so we can beat the heat to the next RV park, plug in and get the A/C going before it gets hot.  On this day we had no choice but to begin our day much later than we prefer.  At any rate, we arrived at the park at 12:55 pm, and were in our pre-paid site by 1:05 pm, and cooling down the Newell interior with both A/C's running.  Within 10 minutes the interior was pleasantly cool, and we were relaxing.

So why only travel 86 miles Wednesday to Missoula, when we could have left early from Deer Lodge and been in Couer d'Alene, ID?  Well, our good friends, Richard and Rhonda, who also own a Newell, were traveling east bound on I-90 into Missoula, and we made arrangements to meet them at the KOA....it's been 18 months since we last saw them at their home in Inverness, FL and we needed to catch up......

Richard and Rhonda in front of their 1999 Newell....9:30 pm and it is still quite light outside!

.....we've known them since 2008, the year we bought our 1982 Newell, and have become good friends, and this is what good nomadic friends do........they adjust their travel schedules to hookup with friends!  They arrived at the KOA a little after 4 pm, and by 5 pm we had walked over to their coach for cocktails, dinner, and lots of conversation....about 4+ hours of fast paced conversation.....even though it has been 18 months since we last saw them, it felt like just yesterday.

And that my friends was our Wednesday......we roll our wheels in about 45 minutes to Coeur d'Alene where the forecast high today is 100° F.....got to get there before it gets too hot!

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A little inconvenience.....

7:06 am - Wednesday - July 29th - Deer Lodge, MT - 52° F, 75% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south....partly cloudy today with a forecast high in Deer Lodge of 83°......on this day in 2012 we were in South Bend, WA on the Olympic Peninsula having breakfast at Hamps 101 Restaurant after an early morning bicycle ride.........↴

TLE said she thought the table was looking at her

We had plans Tuesday (the reason we stayed over until Wednesday) to visit Fairmont Hot Springs down in Anaconda, MT for a good soak in their hot pools.  In preparation for this foray I vacuumed out the VW for the first time in weeks, then took it next door to the Conoco fuel station where they have an automatic car wash.....something else I have not done for months.  By the time I finished with all that and returned to the mother ship it was after 10:30 am.  As I walked in the door TLE announced she had called Fairmont and was told that due to the Wuhan Flu (Covid-19 strikes again) only annual members can use the facility, and the price for membership per year is $450/person......we both agreed $900 for a soak would be a little on the high side, so it was on to plan 'B'.

The high temp for Tuesday was supposed to be in the area of 86° F, but it was already getting humid which we all know makes it feel warmer than it really is, plus the heavy cloud cover looked threatening, so we opted to remain home reading in the air conditioned comfort of the Newell.  I was in the middle of another book by Elmer Kelton titled 'The Day the Cowboys Quit', and was eager to see how it ended so it was an easy decision.  Around 3:30 pm I went outside to find it had cooled significantly, so we turned off the A/C, and I moved to the 'Lido Deck' to finish my book.

As long as the sun was hidden behind clouds it remained very comfortable outside, but as soon as the clouds parted, and the sun returned it became too warm and humid again, so we closed all the windows, and turned on the A/C once again.  Around 6 pm we walked over to the local Subway at the  Sinclair fuel station to buy a foot long sandwich for dinner (we had a discount coupon from the RV park office), and then ate it onsite.

Upon our return 'home' we queued up a couple of Hallmark movies and passed the balance of the evening laughing and crying....sometimes at the same time.....lol.  We were in bed a little after 10:30 pm.....time to roll our wheels again, and we do just that in 3 hours!

I managed to catch a large flock of birds in the above photo

Interestingly, since we departed Wittmann back in early May we have been inconvenienced very little.....I can count the times on one hand.  We have pretty much been able to go where we want, and do what we want when we want.  I think a large part of that freedom we have experienced is due to our travel plan, which we have followed pretty faithfully.  Our plan has been to travel secondary roads as much as possible, and reside in very remote areas.  As a result we have been able to dine out pretty much whenever the mood strikes us.  Until we arrived in Kalispell about 10 days ago we rarely saw masks being worn, and when we did it was usually the employees of the establishment we were frequenting.  As we move westward we are beginning to move through larger and larger population centers where we are seeing more mask wearing.  We still only wear masks when required to do so in order to go shopping, or get a haircut.  The early shortages of paper goods have all but disappeared, however it is still difficult to find those Lysol hand wipes.....we have never run out, but have come close a couple of times.  All of the counties we have been in including Flathead County (Kalispell) have zero to two deaths since March, and a handful of diagnosed cases.  The only person we know who we think had the Wuhan flu was our daughter Sharon (an elementary school teacher), but neither her son, nor her husband caught it from her.....this was back in late February....she had all the classic symptoms of the Corona virus, and was quite ill for about a week, then lethargic for a month afterwards.  We both continue to be asymptomatic, and that's all I have to say about that.

Thank for stopping by!

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Home again.....

7:52 am - Tuesday - July 28th - Deer Lodge, MT - 57° F, 69% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the southeast.......cloudy today with a forecast high of 86° F.....the view this morning.....↴

 We are back at the Newell after a two day hiatus

.....on this day in 2012 we were in Raymond, WA camped on the Willapa River......↴

Our brief vacation from our 'vacation' came to a conclusion Monday morning.  Bob and Hilary were heading back to Spokane, and we back to the Newell in downtown Deer Lodge.  We had a wonderful fun packed two days with them, and we will see them again when we reposition ourselves to Coeur d'Alene near the end of this week.

It's about a 30 minute drive from Rock Creek Cattle Company back to Indian Creek RV Campground, and about 70% of that is a well maintained dirt road.  We were home by 10:30 am, and within minutes had the patio awning deployed (we do not deploy it when we are going to be gone for more than a few hours), and were relaxing in our anti gravity chairs reading, and listening to Classic Vinyl on XM Radio, and that is how the bulk of our day went.....reading and listening to music.  Around 2:30 pm it was close to 90° F (the high for the day), so we opted to move inside to the air conditioned comfort of the Newell for the balance of the day.  It looks like we are in for another heatwave of temps in the 90's and low 100's over the next week, so we will need shore power to survive the heat.

We had a rather dramatic sunset sequence lasting about an hour......

 Takin' a walk

....we took a walk around the park around 9 pm, and got back to the Newell just before it began to rain.....it didn't rain hard, or for long stretches, but I heard the rain falling periodically throughout the rest of the night and early morning hours.

Thanks for stopping by!

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"RAZRing...."

8:15 am - Monday - July 27th - Deer Lodge, MT - 55° F, humidity 50%, wind - CALM.....7 days in a row without morning wind  Skies are clear, and blue with a forecast high of 90° F.  

Day 2 at Rock Creek began with Bob and I heading to the driving range.  I haven't swung a club in a few years, and just wanted to hit a few balls.  I started with a pitchig wedge, and didn't do too bad.  The same with the 4 iron.....not too bad, but with a 7 iron I stunk.  I moved onto the 3 wood where I shined the best.....out of ten drives I hit 7 pretty straight, and (for me) pretty long.....about 225 yards.....of course, straight is the operative word.  Next up was working on my putting at the putting green. After 3 years I did okay I think, but that was enough golf for the day.......hitting the links will have to wait until we get to Spokane.

Next up on the menu was a RAZR ride into the local mountains to get a view of the little valley in which this upscale developement is located.....TLE joined Bob and I for the ride, while Hilary went to play a round of golf with her future son-in-law, Jake.  As always, the ride to the top of the mountain was a blast.  On one side of the mountain you can see I-90 in the distance, as well as the Clark Fork River......

.....and on the other side the Rock Creek development.....

.....below you see the 16th and 18th holes of the golf course......

......and then a short video of the ride to the top in Bob and Hilary's 4 seater RAZR.....

.......Bob drove us over to the shooting range, and then  to the site where he shot his first elk last year.  By the time we had finished with that it was time for lunch so we headed directy to the poolside grill to meet Hilary.  We sat talking and eating until almost 3 pm before heading back to the house.  Then I did something I have not had time to do for a few days.....take a long nap! 

Around 6:30 pm we all conveyned to the firepit area for pre-dinner cocktails followed by a sumptuous dinner prepared by Hilary on their patio.  We drank good wine, ate great food, talked, listened to some Nora Jones until after 9 pm when we retired to the living room for more conversation until almost 10:30 when we bid adieu to our hosts and retired to our unit for the night.

Our two day interlude with my sister and her husband has exceeded our expectations in everyway, but Monday we will return to the Newell to continue our journey westward to Coeur d'Alene, ID.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Drummond, Garrison, or Deer Lodge?

8:00 am - Saturday - July 26th - Deer Lodge, MT - 45° F, 71% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal, clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 82° F.... the view this morning......

I was up by 6:30 am Saturday morning in anticipation of our departure from Kalispell.  TLE, on the other hand, arose around 7:30 am.  Nevertheless, we were rolling our wheels out of the Elks Lodge a little after 8 am on our way across the street to the Exxon station to utilize their free dump station to do just that.  Within 30 minutes the deed was done, and we were heading southbound on US-93  toward I-90.....

Just coming into Polson, MT at the southern end of Flathead Lake

.....the drive to I-90 is just over 100 miles passing through milles of beautiful  farmland.  Our Jello plan was to drive as far south on I-90 (I-90 is an east/west Interstate, however, this section goes north to south for quite a few miles) to Drummond, MT to park the Newell at a city park I found in the Days End directory (Escapees) providing water/electricity for $15/night.  I  did neglect, however to check to be sure the park was open, which TLE did do while we were underway only to find out that the park had been closed in late March due to the pandemnic, and was still closed......doh!

We pulled off US-93 just before the I-90 to work on plan 'B', and we both thought we had found a small RV park just south of Drummond in a small town called Garrison.  I called the park to be sure they had a space, and got their voice mail, so I left a message, and we continued our journey, this time on I-90.  About 10 miles out of Garrison I received a return call from the park advising they had 'no room at at the inn', so now we begin working on plan 'C' by pulling off the Interstate at the next Rest Area.  We finally find a park in Deer Lodge (Indian Creek RV Campground) which has one pull through space left fitting our 62' length.  I gave Kelsey my name, and we were back on I-90 within minutes.  She advised she might be at lunch when we arrived, and if so, we were to pull into site #67, and come in to pay at 2 pm.  We arrive at exit 184 (Deer Lodge) around 1:10 pm, and find, as expected, Kelsey at lunch until 2 pm, so we proceed to park in site #67 as instructed, and begin to set up.  

Our reason for coming to Deer Lodge was to visist my sister, Hilary, my brother-in-law, Bob, and girls Stephanie and Caroline at their second home located about 10 miles from paved roads on the Rock Creek Cattle Company property.  This is a beautiful, very upscale, destination vacation developement with an 18 hole golf course, a large restaurant, small country store, offroad driving, a large club complex with pool, jacuzzi, poolside restaurant, etc.  

By the time we had packed our overnight bags, and finished deploying the window awnings, and locked up the Newell it was 2 pm, and we were on our way for a two day vacation from her (after stopping in at the RV park office to pay for our stay, of course).  This is the first time since Christmas that we have not slept in the Newell.  It's about a 30 minute drive from the RV park to Rock Creek, and we arrived just before 2 pm to find Bob and Hilary having lunch at the poolside restaurant, so we joined them for some street tacos, and some brews.  By time we finished it was going on 4 pm, so we followed Bob and Hilary in their golf cart to their home (part of a duplex) where we deposited our belongings in the unit next to theirs.....

.......after depositing our belonging at our home for two days I left TLE with Hilary whilst Bob and I joined Caroline, her fiance (Jake), and their two cousins (Julian and Kiki) who were at the driving range.  Bob and I did not play golf with them, but just went along for the ride.....

 Kiki hitting an iron shot

 Julian hitting a fairway wood

......the kids only played 3 holes before it was time to head back home for pre-dinner cocktails, and then dinner at 7:30 pm at the Cattlemen's Club.......

 Stephanie and Kiki by the firepit prior to dinner

.....we headed over to the restaurant at 7:30, and were quickly seated at our alfresco table on the banks of Rock Creek....

 ......we sat talking, laughing, and consuming wonderful food and wine until almost 9:30 pm........

The aforementioned Rock Creek

.....after dinner we all convened at the outdoor fire pit for after dinner beverages, and more laughter (a lot of laughter) before calling it a day around 10:30 pm.......we haven't seen Bob and Hil since they visited us in Maine two summers ago.....way too long.....life is good!

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The third in five days......

6:46 am - Saturday - July 25th - Kalispell, MT - 40° F, 89% humidity, wind - CALM....crystal, clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 79° F......love Montana!  We roll our wheels in less than 2 hours.

On this day in 2013 we were hiking the High Line Trail in Glacier National Park......↴

Friday was to be our last full day in Kalispell, so after TLE had completed another wash/dry cycle in the splendid Splendide we headed out around 12:30 pm first to the local COSTCO to retrieve a prescription for moi, then to the local Cabela's where TLE bought some new flip flops, and a new blouse.  Next up was another round of 'junking'  at Flathead Industries, and then a large, local antique mall in old town Kalispell.  Neither of us found anything without which we could not live, so around 1 pm we headed a couple of blocks further south on US-93 to Kalispell Brewing Company.....when we drove by this establishment the other day we noticed they had an upstairs outdoor dinning area, so we had to check it out.......

....we quickly ordered 2 pints of their seasonal stout, then ordered some flatbread sandwiches from the food truck in their parking lot (KBC does not serve food)......

  

......TLE ordered their Huck Chut (turkey,spinach, red onion and huckleberry chutney), and I  their Italian Pesto, as well as a basket of beer battered french fries, which we split.....

.....both sandwiches were perfect compliments to the brews we chose.  We sat talking about our time in Kalispell, and the near future plans to head south toward Deer Lodge on Saturday to meetup with my sister and her husband who own a second home there, which we have never seen.  All too soon it was time to pay our beer tab and head for home......

.....so that's 3 breweries in 5 days, and not a bad one in the bunch.....Yelp gives KBC 4 solid stars on 64 reviews, but we would be closer to 4.5 stars.  

We spent the rest of the day reading outside, and enjoying the balmy breezes until after 6 pm.  We were still full from our late lunch, so there was no dinner, but there was an unexpected, beautiful sunset.....

.....thanks for stopping by!

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