Home Again Home Again

 I didn't mean to leave the end of the trip hanging in the air, but we ended up changing plans.  Bill decided he wasn't that excited about heading to our last stop on the way back to Portland and we just pointed the car back to our hotel there.  We arrived in the afternoon, packed up boxes to take to UPS to ship and called the girls to let them know we were back.  Sadly our daughter-in-law (an educator) had been exposed to covid and was still awaiting the all clear so Marianne came out and visited Bill, retrieved some of the very helpful things we had borrowed from them and give us some things to take back.  She and Bill were able to sit outside and have a visit.  The next day we shipped back $350 worth of UPS shipping, dropped off our rental, and walked back to the girl's house grabbing some delicious and cute cupcakes along the way.  We sat outside - distanced and masked for a visit that included pizza delivery and the cupcakes.  We said a sad goodbye and our flight the next day was uneventful.  

The next day we met friends and had a WONDERFUL day with them.  It's been so long since we were able to gather and this visit with vaccinated friends felt really wonderful.  The home cooked meal was a real treat too and included Wanda made birthday cake for Kathy and Bill!

Some final thoughts on travel in a time of covid.  We are both fully vaccinated (until they approve the booster) and felt safe because masking was required in the airport and on the plane.  We even saw a flight attendant have someone pull up their mask when it fell below their nose.  In hotels it was hit or miss on masking, but Bill and I masked 100% of the time when we were out of our room and ate almost exclusively in our room or outside via picnic or outdoor dining.  When we saw someone without a mask in a hotel we avoided them if possible.  The park visitor centers with the exception of one in the Tetons were all closed.  Most had rangers available outside and masked.  A parks visit where we are outside felt pretty safe for these covid times.  We missed the visitor centers and dining out in a normal, served fashion but you do what you gotta do.

With the help of friends and family we had an amazing trip.  Thank you for joining us electronically.  Now we begin the process of getting back to real life.  

The Palouse and Steptoe Butte State Park

 We had a nice breakfast at the hotel (bringing it back to our room to be safe) and had a nice lazy morning before hitting the road and heading out into the Palouse area of Washington State.  

Our target for viewing this was Steptoe Butte State Park.  Here's our first view of the butte.

This is an area of beautiful rolling farmland.  At times it almost seemed to envelope you - it was all around us.  

It was so beautiful when it's all harvested and not actively growing.  I can only imagine the beauty when the crops - mainly wheats, peas, and lentils are actively growing providing more color.  

The road up to the top of the butte was a white knuckle one for Bill - but once again his expert driving got us there safely.  Besides being narrow with no side rails, it was a seriously winding road!

After working our way back down we headed to Uniontown to the Artisans at Dahmen Barn.  We enjoyed browsing the many crafters stalls and made a few purchases. 

On the way we saw this sign on the side of a hill - not sure what it was about, but it was huge and quite an accomplishment!

And then there is the Codger Pole in Colfax, the town we are staying in celebrating a return to the field 50 years after a football game for the same "codgers" who played.  

Most things are closed as it's Sunday so we went to the grocery store across the street and purchased a salad each and to round out the meal a yummy cupcake to call dinner.  Another really fun day in a beautiful area.

Great Times in Great Falls!

 Sept 9

We got packed and on the road headed toward Augusta, Montana.  Along the way in the Helena area we stopped where there was supposed to be a rest area.  It was closed but we found these dinos!

We met Hap and Jacquie in Augusta and hopped in their car for the ride to their cabin.  The cabin is great!!  Hap is very handy and has done a bunch of work on both that and their home.  And Jacquie has a great sense of style so you put the two together and you get really great space!

Sadly I neglected to get any interior pics.  We walked a short distance to the nice waterfall near their place.

Woody loved chasing sticks Hap tossed in the water.  He is such a great boy (Woody that is - but Hap is a great guy too!). We had a lovely lunch then walked a bit more amongst the cows grazing on the property.  

The view was beautiful, but very smoky.  This is the view from their porch!

We then headed to their home where they treated us like royalty.  

Sept 10

After starting our morning with great coffee, delicious home made zucchini bread and fresh fruit we headed to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  It's a wonderful center that has a wealth of information.  

We were greeted by a beautiful bison.

We watched 2 movies shown during our time there.  One was about medicines used by the Lewis and Clark group.  After the movie we discovered that the doctor in the movie was in the audience!  This was the first of several "celebrity" sightings of the day.  

We walked a bit and saw one of the shortest rivers in the country -  the Roe River.  

We took a ride to see some of the other pretty waterfalls in the Great Falls area.  

Later we went downtown to check out some music and grab some dinner.  During our time downtown we had other celebrity sightings including a guy who looked like Letterman and had been on his show, the mayor's wife, and a Victoria's Secret model!  There was also a luminary lined walk that we enjoyed.  The bags were all decorated by local kids.  

Back at the Burchard residence, we enjoyed Jacquie's culinary skills.  She had made a wonderful crustless blueberry pie with ice cream.  YUM!!

Sept 11

We enjoyed a lovely breakfast with Hap and Jacquie and then set along our way.  We had a great visit with them, doing some reconnecting and walking down memory lane.  We will miss them and Woody too!

We headed down the road and got a call from Hap.  We had left 2 bags behind!!  Fortunately nothing of importance and even more fortunately they offered to mail them to us!  Geez... 

Hap and Jacquie had told us about Sculpture in the Wild which we could easily make part of our route to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.  We really enjoyed it and it was a great break spot!

It was a nice ride with winding roads, much of the time along waterways.  We enjoyed a nice dinner and will be heading to Washington tomorrow.

Glacier Days 5-7

 Sept 6

The wind howled the whole time we were here – I think Many Glacier might be the windiest place we've been! It sure is pretty though. Here's the pic I promised of the front of the building.

The back looks onto the lake – which is where our balcony faced. We packed up our stuff and headed down the very bumpy under construction dusty gravel road to the Two Medicine area – about an hour and a half down the road. We arrived plenty early for our 1 pm boat ride across the lake to our next hike, so we took a hike that started right there to Paradise Point. It was a very nice hike that led to the lake.

The rocks from the bottom of this lake were smaller but still had those pretty colors.

Ghost berries - we were told they would kill you, but my google search doesn't show that to be true.   

We took the park's boat, Sinopah, who was 95 years old and the oldest in the inventory of boats at the park across the lake to the trailhead. 

Last year while the east side was closed due to covid they refurbished it and it looked like new! There was nice commentary while we headed across the lake and we could choose to hike with the guide – the young woman doing the commentary – or do it by ourselves. We opted to go alone and are glad we did. She had 29 people she was leading on the hike. It was a very easy hike that led to Twin Falls. Beautiful! 

We hiked back and got in line for the return boat. It turned out that not everyone waiting was going to fit on the boat and guess who was near the end of the line? Those 29 folks who went with her!

On the way out of the Two Medicine area we stopped at Running Eagle Falls – a short .3 mile walk that may not be the biggest falls we've seen but I think it was one of the most beautiful!  Along the way we had our only close up goat sighting - as they were running away!

I didn't mention the road to Two Medicine – wow! Narrow, winding, and steep at times! Bill handled it with his excellent driving skills but wow!

Did I mention we were close to Canada?

Back to Many Glacier area (and that lovely construction zone) just 1 mile down the road from where we stayed the last 2 nights to the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. We can stay here for 3 nights for just about $100 more than we spent for 1 night at Many Glacier. We got checked in and had to circle the property twice to find our room!

Next up – dinner. And the restaurant here – Nell's – had PIZZA! And it was good! Everything is carry out so we grabbed our pizza and chowed down.

Another good day in the books. We plan to see how we feel tomorrow.

Sept 7

We slept well! We got a bit of a late start but got moving, breakfast, and headed out for a hike to Redrock Lake and Redrock Falls. Along the way is Fishercap Lake where moose are known to frequent. We knew we were a bit late for that but we swung down to the lake just to see and there was a bull moose at one end of the lake laying down! I got the best pic I could with my phone, but Bill got a better one with his camera. I'll try to get that one from him to put in the blog.   Got it!  The bull is laying at the end of the lake. 

The hike was a pretty easy walk in the woods and an out and back hike totally about 3.8 miles. 

It was well traveled by other hikers. Bear have been frequenting the area so we made sure to let them know we were around! One hiker we passed asked if we had seen the bear ranger. We had seen a ranger, but didn't know he was checking for bear activity! We have our bear spray just in case... The hike was beautiful. The lake was very nice and surrounded by beautiful multicolored mountains. The rocks were indeed red!

On the way back we swung by Fishercap again and the moose had apparently just gotten up and left, so folks got pics of him walking. We also heard that a Mom and her baby had been there earlier but we missed that.

Back to Many Glacier for lunch because Swiftcurrent's kitchen was closed till dinner. The number of cars parked along the road as we went by tells us if we want to park to walk the Swiftcurrent Lake trail tomorrow we better get moving earlier!! So that is our plan.  Here are a pair of tired feet!

IMPORTANT UPDATE!! We were on our way to go back to Fishercap Lake later in the day and came upon a very excited couple of ladies telling us they had seen a huge bull moose just up a horse trail by a waterfall. So up we went and WOW. There he was! 

Such a glorious HUGE animal. His big rack still had blood on it where he had been rubbing off the velvet he had developed. We watched him for a bit then headed down to the lake where we were met by a female moose in the lake! She was feeding and popping up and down while breast high in the water. She would occasionally shake like a dog – haha!   I know this pic is small... but it gets better later. 

Such a really exciting end to our day. Then dinner and to celebrate further we got a cup of soft serve ice cream. Yummy! Our alarms are set for an early start tomorrow. Night night!

Sept 8

An early start we did get! We headed out just as the sun was beginning to shine and headed for the trailhead for the Swiftcurrent Lake Loop.   The sun shining on this mountain made it glow red!

Such a pretty walk.

It's an easy but beautiful 2.6 mile loop around the lake – surprise surprise! It passes by the Many Glacier hotel so we opted to stop and get some coffee and make a pit stop. My attempt at a pit stop was delayed as the bathroom was closed for cleaning – glad they are keeping it clean! We finished our walk, did a few things back at the room then decided to get some lunch, forgetting that the only lunch available here was box lunch purchased at breakfast. So we hopped in the car and made our seecond trip to the Many Glacier hotel for lunch. As usual, a pit stop was called for and once again the ladie's room was closed for cleaning (it had opened earlier because I waited for it to do so). Geez. We came back, did a bit of packing and Bill worked on his pictures a bit. Then we packed up and headed for Fishercap Lake in search of more moose. We were not disappointed! As we headed down the trail a lady said there's a moose down there but “it's just a cow”. JUST A COW?? In this age of women you are saying just a cow??? I was downright irritated. But she was there, and she was beautiful. Bill got some fantastic shots of her and I even got some decent ones with my phone. 

Happy to have seen another moose, we headed back to get some dinner. Pizza here is really quite good, so pizza it was. I got up to use the rest room and – a trifecta! Closed for cleaning! It got quite comical and Bill said you HAVE to put that in the blog. We topped off our last day here with some of their yummy soft ice cream (yes the second day in a row – we are on vacation!) Tomorrow we will pack up and head out toward Augusta, Montana to see my cousin and his wife! Stay tuned for adventures with Ashby and Jacquie!