Good intentions.....

8:00 am - Friday - July 24th - Kalispell, MT - 47° F, 90% humidity, wind - CALM....WOW, 4 days in a row!  We have partly cloudy skies today with a deliciously nice forecast high of 79° F.....love Montana summers!  On this day in 2012 we were near Coupeville, WA (on Whidbey Island) visiting friends Bob and Karen Fenstermacher......↴

Thursday started with good intentions on our part....we intended to stay home and take care of a few projects, but then someone suggested I cook bacon outdoors for breakfast on our Coleman single burner to test out the new splatter screen we had purchased sometime back.  The last time I cooked bacon on the burner we didn't have the splatter screen, and bacon grease was everywhere......

.....this time, with the aid of the splatter screen there was little or no bacon grease to wipe away.  TLE added scrambled eggs and toast to the bacon for a wonderful breakfast.

After such an auspicious beginning the day deteriorated into a lot of relaxing, napping, and reading on the 'lido deck' in the anti gravity chairs with very little in the way of projects being worked upon.  To my credit I did rouse myself around 3 pm to undertake one project I knew I could complete in pretty short order.....remove, and replace the right rear mudflap which had a large tear in it.  I have been carrying around mud flap stock for 8.5 years for just such an occasion, and finally used some of it Thursday.....

 The old, torn mud flap

.....there are just three bolts which affix the mud flap to the frame of the Newell, so it was quite easy to remove the damaged one.  I used the old mudflap a a template to mark, and cut out the new mudflap.  I drilled three new holes in the new mudflap, and reattached it in short order.....

.....in all it took me under 30 minutes to cross this project off my 'to do' list, and then it was back to the anti gravity chair for the balance of the afternoon.

Around 6 pm I roused myself once again to turn  on the Sea-B-Que in preparation for a wonderful filet mignon TLE had just purchased on Rosauer's Supermaret Wednesday.  Using TLE's meat thermometer I got it to a medium rare 130° F before pronouncing it fit for human consumption.  To this TLE added asparagus, and re-crisped steak fries left over from our Wednesday lunch at Tamarack Brewing.....what a great dinner!

After dinner TLE roused herself from her recliner to do a load of wash in our NEW splendid Splendide 2100XC.  So, not as many projects as we had envisioned at the beginning of the day, but enough accomplished for us to retain some of our self respect.....lol.

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The Holy Grail.....

7:18 am - Thursday - July 23rd - Kalispell, MT - 56° F, 90% humidity, wind - CALM.....three days in a row without morning wind!  Heavily cloudy today with a forecast high of 83° F.  On day in 2014 we were in Lake Tahoe for the summer.......↴

View of Lake Tahoe from the Flume Trail

Tuesday night TLE suggested I get out our Holy Stone drone and take some pictures of our current location, so first thing Wednesday morning while there was no wind I did just that......

....I even shot a longer video with much slower rotation (I'm getting better at controlling the rotation) so you can see clearly what a cool area we are in right now.

The weather guessers proclaimed that Wednesday would be a hot one....upwards of 96° F, so we decided to circumnavigate the shores of Flathead Lake, which is about 50 miles long.  We have driven the highway from Kalispell down to Polson in the Newell back in 2013, but had never driven down the east side of the lake, so that is where we headed in the Beetle around 10 am.  About half way to the southern end of the lake we found a nice turnout with a dock so we could walk out over the lake and get some good pictures......

 Looking north.....

 .....northwest....

 .....west......

 ....and south....

 ....the clarity of the water reminds us of Lake Tahoe....

.....by 11:15 we had reached Polson, which is located at the very southern end of Flathead Lake.  We spent about 5 days in Polson back in 2013, and loved the town.  We drove through the 'old town' area to see how things were doing, and business seems to be good.  It was far too early to stop for lunch so we continued our circumnavigation of Flathead Lake by heading north out of Polson on US-93.  We hoped to find, along the way, a good micro brewery at which to have lunch.  Whilst I drove TLE researched places on her iPhone and found a cool, funky place called Tamarack Brewing in a small town called Lakeside.....about half way back to Kalispell.....Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on a whopping 219 reviews, so now we have no choice whatsoever but to stop there for lunch.  We arrived there right at Noon, and were quickly seated outdoors on their very large deck which sits right next to Stoner Creek.....perfect....just perfect........

.....TLE chose their Sip 'N Go Naked (Apricot Wheat Ale), and I their Switchback Stout (Oatmeal Stout)....frankly I could have died and gone to heaven with either beer choice they were that good.......

 You bet we are happy!  Great find TLE!

....for our entrées I ordered their Bleu and Brie Burger (bleu cheese, brie cheese, bacon) with fries.......

.....and TLE their Wild Caught Grilled Salmon sandwich with a side salad......

.....once again I could have died and gone to heaven eating either entrée......forget 4.5 stars....forget about it.....we would be right at 5 stars......yup, the Holy Grail........that is a rarity for us.  The setting, ambiance, service, brews and food were all exceptional.  This brewery is a wonderful local treasure, and we would definitely visit them again.......a great place to while away an afternoon.

We were home by 2 pm at which time we turned on the rear A/C as it was fast approaching the forecast high for the day of 96° F.  While we would have preferred to sit outside reading, it was just too hot, however, by 6 pm it had cooled sufficiently that I went outside to read until after 9 pm.  We were still full from lunch, so there was no dinner, but TLE had purchased some wonderful Wilcoxson's Huckleberry ice cream while watching TV.....what a great way to end our even greater day!

My best effort at capturing the crescent moon on my phone camera

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What we do well......

7:15 am - Wednesday - July 22nd - Kalispell, MT - 50° F, 96% humidity, wind - CALM......crystal, clear, blue skies again today with a forecast high of 92° F...the view this morning.......↴

Tuesday was our first full day in Kalispell so we did what we do so well.....junking.  About 1.5 blocks away is one of the largest Salvation Army Thrift Stores we have visited, and it, in fact, is called the "Mega Store"........

.....TLE found a pair of shorts without which she felt she could not live....you can never have too many shorts, flip flops, or t-shirts, right?  I, on the other hand, left empty handed.  As we walked back home we decided to drop off TLE's new treasure, and drive the VW across town to Lowe's so I could buy a new 4' fluorescent light fixture for the trailer.  It turned out the existing one into which I put the two new 4' tubes had bigger issues, plus the lens was cracked so time for a new one.  Additionally, I wanted to replace the traditional fluorescent tubes with the new, much more expensive tubes, which should tolerate the continual moving down the road than the traditional fluorescent type.  With the help of Ted, a Lowe's associate, I found exactly what I needed for about $46, and we were on our way to our next stop......the local Goodwill......

The new fixture replete with LED tubes

......we both found something to lug home from Goodwill....TLE some more shorts/yoga pants, and I a pair of very funky Martini glasses.....

The 'funk' is back....50¢ each.....killer deal!

....after a quick stop at the local Montana State liquor store we were home relaxing outdoors in our anti gravity chairs.  The forecast high for Tuesday was supposed to get to 86° F, which would mean we would probably need to run the A/C if we were inside, but we are tired of living in air conditioned interiors, so we sat outside all day reading, and listening to music until almost 8:30 pm....we even ate outside.  Outside, on the lido deck, it was nothing but cool breezes all day.  I finished another Elmer Kelton Western about the Texas Rangers, of which I have read 6 so far, and began the 7th in the series.....I would classify this series as definitely of the Western genre, as well as good historical fiction.

We had another subtle sunset, and I was even able to catch a private plane coming in for a landing.....

.....and thus ends another day in the life of the full time Whatsnewell vagabonders.....it takes a while to settle into this lifestyle, but have figured out what makes us happy, what works for us, and I think we do it quite well.

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Kalispell redux.....

6:48 am - Tuesday - July 21st - Kalispell, MT - 51° F, 96% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal, clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 86° F......the view this morning.......↴

.....on this day in 2014 I was at Mammoth Mountain riding my Intense 5.5 in their bike park.....

On the way through Valier to the Lake Frances Campground on Saturday afternoon we noticed there was a self serve car wash with a large RV bay.  We haven't been able to wash the Newell for some time, so when we departed Lake Frances Monday morning around 9 am our first stop was that car wash.  It costs 25 cents per minute, but is well worth the cost.  As I was rinsing off the Newell I noticed the water was nice and hot so on the spot I decided to also give the big rear facing radiator a good cleaning.  By 9:45 am we were back on the road heading northwest toward Kalispell, MT on Montana 44 to US-89, which would take us to US-2 in Browning, MT and then around the southern edge of Glacier National Park to Kalispell.  As has been the case the past few driving days the views did not disappoint......

....as we approached Browning, MT the mountains came into full relief once again, and soon we were back in the coniferous forest gliding along beautiful mountain rivers.....

Middle Fork of the Flathead River

.....Browning, MT is in the middle of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and the eastern gates to Glacier National Park, which are all on Reservation land are closed at the time due to the Wuhan virus.  Our destination for the day was the Elks Lodge in Kalispell, MT located on the north end of Flathead Lake.   There are no reservations at this Elks Lodge, so we arrived not knowing if one of the 10 sites would be vacant, and available......there was just one single site left......it always works out for us......😋 

....these are all 'back in' sites, but we opted to pull in nose first to face the mountains and the local municipal airport.  We were here (Kalispell, not the Elks Lodge) back in July of 2013 for about a week.  Kalispell is a Salish Indian word meaning 'flat land above the lake'.....the lake in this case being Flathead Lake.

Once we were set up we found a local micro brewery, Sunrift Beer Company, at which to take a leisurely late afternoon lunch.  Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on 30 reviews, but we would be right at 4 stars.  As is often our habit, we ordered a flight of brews to sample.  Flights can vary from 4-6 brews, and in this case it was 4.  We sampled (from right to left) their Blonde Bomber, Coconut Heff, Sundown Honey Brown, and Sol-Gravy Stout.....

.......we loved them all, but both settled upon the Sundown Honey Brown to pair with our late lunch choices.....

 Great alfresco dining!

....a spinach salad for TLE, and a Caesar for moi.  We added a plate of sweet potato fries for good measure.....

......they have a lovely covered alfresco dining area, which really sealed the deal when we were trying to decide between three local breweries....we'll check the others out later in the week.  The food, service and atmosphere were top notch....a perfect way to while away a lazy Monday afternoon.  We were home by 4:30 pm thoroughly pleased with our decision to visit Sunrift.

We had a subtle sunset, and a quiet evening spent reading, and watching another Hallmark movie.  Life is good....we'll be here at least 5 days, perhaps a week....time to slow down and smell the roses, or the brews, whatever happens float your boat.....:-)

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Whoooosh......

6:50 am - Sunday - July 20th - Valier, MT - 49° F, 90% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the west by northwest......partly cloudy today with a forecast high in Valier, MT of 74° F.....we roll our wheels in 2 hours....the view this morning......I love empty campgrounds.....↴

I took out the drone again Sunday to get an aerial perspective of the Lake Frances Campground, and surrounds.....

 

...and am throwing in a short video as a bonus.  It was a beautiful 80° day in Valier, MT, and as is often the case on Sundays in most campgrounds around America the proverbial 'vacuum' was activated, and by 1 pm the campground was empty of all but the long term folks.....you could almost hear that 'whoooshing' sound as one RV after another rolled out of the campground.........

.....I spent the morning working on a few minor projects, including doing some of my own vacuuming in the trailer.  I also cleaned the rear A/C condenser of a year's worth of lint buildup, and installed a new air filter.  The air flow increased immediately, which means the job was a success.  Additionally, using my new windshield squeegee purchased at the Sheridan, WY Super Walmart last week I cleaned the bug apocalypse from Saturday's drive off the front windshield, and nose of the coach.  By the time I was done with all that it was time to get out the outdoor TV and watch the final round of the Memorial Golf Tournament won ultimately by John Rahm by 5 strokes.....he was up by as many as 8 strokes on the back 9, and by as few as 3 strokes as he made a few mistakes, and the chasers made birdies....pulling away on the last hole. Tiger and Phil both finished well outside the top 10.  Only 10 golfers finished at, or under par....the course made the best of them look like amateurs. 

TLE and I took our 4th walk in as many days around 7:30 pm.....the skies were beginning to look threatening, and we even were pelted by a few drops on our walk, but it never really rained.  We did, however, get a small rainbow......

....the sunset looked like it was going to light up the skies, but this was as good as it got, which, when you think about it, is not too bad at all......

.....we'll be rolling our wheels again on Monday to Kalispell, MT the home of Flathead Lake....we were last there in July of 2013....it does not feel like like 7 years.

Thanks for stopping by!

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