September 3

Today officially ended our trip. We started early again and drove straight through from Salmon to Leslie and Matt’s home in Idaho Falls, arriving shortly after noon. We spent until about five PM visiting with Les, playing with the boys and helping with their computer. We then drove to Pocatello to see Lance and Aubri and baby Taylor. We visited, played with Taylor and helped with wiring a light switch. We then went to the Gardner’s to chew the fat and got a tour of their new motor home. Wow is it nice! We then returned to our home to find all well and that Lance has done a wonderful job of caring for our home and property. We appreciate him very much! As mentioned earlier we logged 3669 miles on the way up and we have now logged 3291 miles on the return trip in the motor home. In addition Gene and I have logged just under 3000 miles each on our cars for shared rides. Thus we have each traveled very nearly 13,000 miles overall for our trip. We love all of you who have followed and supported us on this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

September 2

We took an early morning stroll to the lake shore and hit the road earlier than usual. The scenery has been pretty all along the way with lakes and lots of trees but without the rugged mountains of prior days. The cedar trees of this area are particularly impressive with their size and unique beauty. We passed through Missoula and went on down highway #93. We stopped for a look-around in Darby and found the most amazing combination antique and candy store you can imagine. It would have taken hundreds of pictures to show the inventory of antique items they had on display, most of which was for sale. They spanned the U.S. Cavalry, farm, household, mining, ranching, livestock and horses, clothing and on and on from the late 1800’s through about the 1950’s. Prices varied generally from a few dollars to over $4000. The store spanned an entire block with separate entrances from the sidewalk as well as internal doors passing from one theme section to the next along the entire length. We then went to another gallery of items made of wood and stone that were also very impressive and gave Mom a number of creative ideas. From Darby we went over the Lost Trail Pass which had the old motor home wheezing but she made it. The pass climbs from around three thousand feet and change to over seven thousand feet over a steady climb at thirty five to forty miles per hour for a steady seven miles. At the summit we crossed into Idaho (yeah!) and gave old Betsy a breather at a very nice rest area and then headed down. There were numerous hairpin turns with one place where three consecutive twenty-mile-per-hour hairpin turns and a ninety degree turn all occurred within about one half mile. After a nice drive down the North Fork of the Salmon River we arrived in Salmon and determined to look up and old friend and mechanic from Pocatello who moved to Salmon ten years ago, Arlen O’Brien. We found his shop and after a brief conversation he called his wife, Judy, who drove from their home about ten miles north of town back in so we could go to dinner together at the Bertram’s Brewery and Restaurant where we had a delicious salad bar and blackened catfish with baked potato and veggies. We then caught up on old times and had a lot of good laughs during a lengthy campground conversation in the Saveway Food Store parking lot before calling it a night. We had not gotten to know Judy well in Pocatello because most of our dealings were with Arlen but Mom and Judy really hit it off and found that they have a lot in common.

September 1

Today we and Gene and Lynn went separate ways to finish the trip. They wanted to explore Glacier National Park another couple of days and they were also going to stop in Belgrade, Montana for another couple of days to visit Gene’s aunt. We were ready to go on toward home. We stopped for a stroll around Big Fork, Montana near Kalispell. It has a charming village with many art galleries, gift shops, theatre and a marina on the shore of Flathead Lake. One of the stops was the Eric Thorsen Sculpture Gallery where we saw some of the most exquisite and detailed wildlife sculptures you could ever imagine. Some of the fish were so perfect I could have sworn that it was taxidermy work. The man has won world class competitions and it is easy to see why. From there we followed highway #83 down to Seeley Lake, Montana. It followed the Swan River and passed Swan Lake and several other lakes until we arrived at the Big Larch forest service campground. It is on the shore of Seeley Lake with a nice sandy beach where we took a cool swim after dinner.

August 31

We started with two white tail does in our camp this morning. Then we spent the day touring Glacier National Park on the Going to the Sun road, making many stops along the way. We first made a couple of stops to view the McDonald Falls. There was considerable construction on the west side of Logan Pass. The scenery was comparable to the Icefields Parkway in that it was most majestic. The highway itself is amazing with tight curves, steep grades, overhanging rocky cliffs and sheer drop offs with a new mountain vista around each curve. We hiked a total of seven miles today on three different hikes. The first was to Hidden Lake from the Logan Pass Visitors Center. There was beautiful scenery along the entire hike as well as the beautiful lake. As a bonus we also saw a marmot, two big horn sheep and numerous mountain goats. I think we got some great pictures of them and some of the goats were so close that I could have reached out and touched them. The path consisted of a boardwalk most of the way. I counted most of the stairs and got one hundred fifty so I know that we climbed well over three hundred stairs. We then hiked to Saint Mary Falls and on to Virginia Falls which was much higher and more beautiful. There were several lesser falls on the way. Each one got more breath taking. The water was transparent surf green with red rocks and many other colors in the bottom. The final hike was shorter to Baring Falls near the Sunrift Gorge. About halfway along the shore of Saint Mary Lake we headed back to camp and caught the last half hour of an amphitheater program by a talented Blackfoot Indian named Jack Gladstone who sang and told stories about Indian culture and traditions.

August 30

Today was a day to rest and to be spiritually fed. We found a ward in Colombia Falls. We enjoyed the meeting. At the end as we were leaving a lady approached us to ask if we would know Arnold Davis. We know Arnold and Karen very well. It was Arnold’s sister Jean. We have found a connection at every ward we have been in to either Pocatello or Inkom. It is indeed a small world. It goes to show that you better be doing the things that you should all the time because you never know who will be watching you (even at our age). On the way home we took a short side trip to see Hungry Horse Dam and Reservoir then we came home to eat and took a nap. Then we drove to Lake McDonald lodge to see a ranger presentation about the park. It was a very good and informative. We walked the shore of Lake McDonald after dark. Now we are back to camp to go to bed.

August 29

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning as we were leaving camp we saw about a half dozen wild turkeys wandering through camp but getting close enough for a decent picture didn’t work out very well. We went back to spend a good half day at the Fort Steele Heritage Town and still didn’t see and do all we wanted. The highlights were the art gallery and museum in the Wasa Hotel, the ice cream making demonstration, a delicious lunch at the International Hotel Restaurant, a behind-the-scenes tour of the bakery and another skit at the Government Building. Mom really enjoyed the art gallery. We all participated in making ice cream from breaking up the ice block to taking turns sitting on and turning the crank on the freezer before getting a taste of the delicious mint chocolate ice cream. Our waiter at the restaurant was Master Earl, or Robbie for real, who was a first grader. His mom helped out and we got to conversing with her and, because she was both the restaurant and bakery manager she offered us a tour of the bakery. The bakery next door was a true pioneer bakery with the original huge brick oven that was wood-fired. The lady who is the lead baker demonstrated how the oven is fired and how baked goods are put into and taken out of the oven in large sheet pans using wide wooden paddles with very long handles due to the depth of the oven. After that we watched a skit involving a constable, a magistrate, an accused drunk and a lady accused of selling booze being tried in court at the Government Building. The skit involved several audience members and was very funny. After that we headed down the road for the border. At the border we were pulled aside for further checks. We had to give up fireweed and other seeds and fire wood. Fortunately Mom still had her Alaska fishing license or we would have also had to have our freezer full of salmon confiscated because we could not otherwise prove we had acquired them legally. The agent was a lady who was polite and treated us respectfully but let us know that there is no room for error in declaring what we had without consequences. After that we traveled quite uneventfully into Glacier National Park to the Apgar Forest Campground where we will spend the next three nights. The drive through Montana was very nice with a mix of forest, lakes, farms and small towns and cities along the way. It feels good to be back in the good old USA.