We woke up this morning and prepared to pack up and move on. I was telling Jon in an email that Glacier is no doubt a phenomenal place to be, but it has to be under the right conditions and staying in a 31 foot travel trailer with 2 dogs who aren’t allowed anywhere except for the parking lots is not it. We knew going in that we wouldn’t be able to really see a lot of the national parks on this trip and that it would be more of a scouting trip for which parks we’d eventually like to go back and really explore. Some parks, you don’t need more than a day or two to assess and decide if it’s worth going back. Take Petrified Forest for example. A really cool park, but one you can do in a day and one that’s not worth visiting again. Same for Cuyahoga except that it’s not even a cool park. It’s about as exciting as any mediocre state park at home. Whatever. Glacier however, does not fall in that category. I definitely want to go back, but it would have to be without the dogs so we could do a multi-day backpacking trip. Backpacking seems to be the way to go – there’s little in the way of accessing the really cool stuff from the main road. You gotta work for it. And that’s fine, just not on this trip.
So…knowing Glacier is an amazing place for us but not for the Pups, we decided to head back into Idaho where they are always welcome in the vast National Forest lands that comprise the state. We love it here.
We drove from Hungry Horse through Whitefish (we’ll miss you beloved downhill) and made our way towards the Idaho state line via route 2. We found some really awesome national forest campgrounds along the way. We figured we’d end up at Farragut State Park but we never really know where we’ll end up until we get there. Jack called us while we were exploring one of the campgrounds and rec areas where we were going to let the Boys play awhile. We chatted with Jack-O for quite some time. He gave us some advice on areas to explore on our way to Coeur D’Alene and we made plans to be in Spokane to visit him and Trish by Wednesday. It’ll be great seeing them again. We’ve seen Jack a couple of times on his various business trips to the East Coast, but we haven’t seen Trish since Christmas of ’06 I think. Victoria was only a couple months old and we’ve never met Riley, so it’ll be fun to see some little Usabs. :) I have a feeling they’re going to be precocious and amusing.
As we meandered along the scenic byway (our preferred route of travel), we passed lake after lake after lake. They have A LOT of lakes around here. Not small, puny little lakes either. Ginormous lakes that would take hours on a jet ski or pontoon boat to explore (Bill and Michele: HINT, HINT). :)
We drove along Lake Koocanusa on route 37 south in Montana and were amazed at how long it was taking us to get around it.
No surprise – it’s 90 miles long (some of which is in Canada). THAT is a big lake. Technically, it’s a reservoir but who cares – that’s still a lot of water.
We stopped at one of the campgrounds along the way and utilized the day use area to let the Boys play and get some exercise. As soon as I saw the beach area was clear, I let Merlin off his lead and he took off down to the water. Twist followed closely behind, and soon they were having a grand time running in the water and playing stick.
He's so handsome...
Bull Lake, along route 56 in Montana and tiny by comparison with a meager 12 miles of shoreline, was quite lovely as well. Obviously, we passed this in a much shorter period of time.
Pend Oreille Lake, along route 200 in Idaho was beautiful. It is 65 miles long and is Idaho’s largest lake. It’s actually one of the largest inland lakes in North America with 143 miles of shoreline and, in places, has been measured at over 1,170 feet deep. The unique thing about Pend Oreille is how the lake blends into marshland along the edges. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of moose feeding along the shoreline, but all we saw were birds.
We arrived at Farragut State Park around 6 (Pacific time) and were shocked to find that the 220 site campground was full. On a Monday. Weird. We shrugged, I did some mapping and some quick internet research (while I was graced with signal), and located a virtually unknown campground (Mokins Bay) on the eastern shore of Hayden Lake. It’s in the Coeur D’Alene National Forest and only has 15 campsites, so we weren’t truly expecting it to work out. We figured we’d give it a shot since it was close – we weren’t expecting the road closures and detours that took us around the lake on a narrow, winding road with 10 and 15 mph turns. Oh, and it was starting to get dark – how fun. The campground was barely marked and was about 8 miles in so it took quite awhile to get there. When we did, we were relieved to find that, aside from the campground host, there was only one other site occupied. Sweet. We drove around the loop to find a suitable site and were thinking we’d have to find someplace else to camp since the sites were teeny and wouldn’t accommodate our rig. Fortunately, site 13 was PERFECT. Probably the best site we’ve had so far – including Sunny Gulch. I still love Sunny Gulch, but it was never vacant so the Boys were pretty much on lead most of the time. Not the case here. Aside from keeping them on lead after it got dark (strictly because it’s bear country), we let them go and they snorked around and did their dog thing.
It was crazy quiet and the temp was perfect. Cool, but not cold. I thought the bugs would be a problem (got munched by a mosquito while leveling the trailer) but aside from the one (who unfortunately met an untimely but justified death), I was mosquito free the rest of the evening.
We had hamburgers and leftover mac’n’cheese and veggies for dinner and then downloaded our pics from the previous few days to the computer. Very weak signal here, so updating the blog with pictures wasn’t much of an option. Eh, we’ll have plenty of time to do that when we’re in Spokane and have real signal. ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment