July 20 - back into Glacier

We went back into Glacier for the afternoon. We had not been able to find a park at Apgar Village when we went this past weekend. We found one and went in all the shops and walked down to Lake McDonald for a few more photos. Then we road up the only other road (other than Going-to-the-Sun Rd.) as far as the pavement went. Phil likes to avoid gravel roads, if possible. We did not see any animals, but I did get a few more wildflower photos. It was a nice afternoon. We are about to go eat lunch at a Mongolian restaurant here. I hope everything will not be spicy hot! If they have egg rolls, I'll be OK. LOL! Then we will go to Walmart to pick up a few items and a refill prescription for Phil. We are really enjoying the cherries here. We are waiting for the Flatheads to ripen to try them. We have had the Ranier and Bing twice each. We are getting more today.

July 18 - Apgar to Logan Pass

Another WOW day. I fixed a sandwich for each of us and packed some chips and drinks. The plan was to picnic somewhere in Glacier N.P. It takes about 30 minutes to get to the west entrance, just passed West Glacier. We headed for the Apgar picnic area. The tables by the river were all taken, so we just parked and took our chairs down to a nice area right by the water. The scene was beautiful and would have been very tranquil had it not been for millions of flies! Before I tell you something, I first must tell you that mosquitoes love me. I am four or five star dining to them. They have to be desperate to go after Phil. He says I am the best mosquito repellent he could get. OK, so back to today and the flies. We are sitting there. I am eating, and Phil is slapping himself silly trying to eat. I casually said, "The flies really seem to like you." He turned to me and said, "I must be the closest thing to crap they can find." It is just a good thing I had just swallowed, or I would have surely choked to death. I nearly died laughing.

When we finished lunch, we made a hasty retreat to the truck, and Phil decided we should drive up the Going to the Sun road for a little bit. Once we got started, we did not turn around until we got to Logan Pass, about half way. This is a VERY narrow road. The is no shoulder, and the wall of rock juts out in many places, making this quite a thrill ride/drive, especially when the shuttle takes up part of both lanes.

We saw seven mountain goats. Four were two moms and babies. On the way back, a mom and baby were going down the middle of our lane. Then we reached a snow slide (complete with rocks) that had covered our whole lane. With the goat jam, we had to just sit there forever. I got more goat photos than I needed. My dad had told me about almost running into one on a trail when he and Mom were here years ago. Dad, Phil wants to know if any of these are the one....hahaha!

It was a lovely day. We will probably take the shuttle from St. Mary's on the east side when we camp over there and ride it to Logan Pass and back. We hope the flies are not on the east side!

July 15 - Road to Kalispell

Flathead Lake - beautiful! There is a community/town called Lakeside that is gorgeous, right on the lake.

The campground here is nice, even has cable tv. We have not had any tv the last two places, although we had wifi. If I could only have one, it would be wifi! We are in a woodsy site, which I like. It is also a pretty large site for a private campground.

One thing Phil asked me if I had put in my blog is how much we are enjoying the cherries here. We have had Rainier and Bing, and both are delicious. We have gotten them for $1.99 or $1.98 a pound twice, and $3.33 once. We are 20 miles from the entrance to Glacier National Park (west side). It is also nice to be in an area with good grocery stores and a Walmart. We will stock up before we leave here.

We have found out that Smith grocery stores, Fred Meyer grocery stores, and Kroger are all owned by Kroger. They all carry Kroger brand products and accept a Kroger card. The gas is $2.73 at Smith's, the cheapest we have seen in a while! We also like that they have no sales tax (or haven't on anything we have purchased so far). Sweet!

July 13 - On the Road Again to St. Regis, MT

You can't tell much because the actual dam is almost hidden. It is a very tall dam!

This is the back of the Grand Coulee Dam.

This was the view we had from the back of the camper.

That dot is a head of a swimmer. It was in the 60's that day.

And we went from Pacific to Mountain time. I think I could be an early riser if I lived in the Pacific time zone all the time! On a secondary road in Washington before we got to I-90, a big black bear ran out in front of us crossing the road. Phil braked, and the bear and we were all OK. There were signs warning of deer crossing, but not a thing about bears crossing! Of course, it happened too fast for me to get a photo. The drive was a lot of climbing and descending. Phil is pooped. We rode by the Grand Coulee Dam. That is one big dam! We did not stop to get photos, but I shot them from through every window in the truck on the driver's side!
St. Regis is supposed to be a flyfishing haven. Phil said it is a float river. He may see how much it will cost to fish a day. We leave here Thurs. morning for a week in Kalispell.
I took a few photos at the campground in Winthrop, WA, that I will try to post. I wish we had gone downtown because it was the cutest thing I have seen. It is totally Old West looking. It was a long drive (with a mandatory stop at Cabela's in Post Falls, ID). We left at 8:07, and got here at 4:39 (or 3:39 Pacific time).
I cooked mac and cheese to go with the left over chicken nuggets I had fried last night. Then I made a blueberry cobbler to use up some sorry blueberries we bought in Bellingham, Washington. They were amazingly good in the cobbler. :-)

Winthrop, WA - July 11 and 12

This is a charming campground on the Pearrygin Lake. There is a state park right down the road, but they had no vacancies in their campground. It is 62 degrees here, and people are swimming, boat riding, tubing behind a boat, skidoing, sun bathing..... I am walking around with jeans, socks, t-shirt, and fleece. Also, the wind is gusting to 33 mph with steady breeze at 19 mph. Are these people crazy???? I saw a teenager catch a trout. That was cool. I took a photo. I am going to try to post some photos from yesterday's trip through the North Cascades National Park, but the internet here is so slow that I do not know if I can upload any. I could not yesterday (but I could on FaceBook). Go figure! Tomorrow morning we leave for St. Regis for two nights.

Larrabee State Park and North Cascades National Park

Sat., July 10 - Grocery shopped and went to Larrabee State Park because my maiden name is Larrabee. It was lovely. We hiked down, down and got some photos of the beach and water.
Sun., July 11 - We left Bellingham and the Pacific Ocean and traveled through the North Cascades National Park. Wow! The water was gorgeous, and the scenery was awesome. The beautiful color of the water is given by the sand that washed down from glaciers. The mountains are truly majestic and HUGE! The trees look like a tree version of a skyscraper. We arrived in Winthrop, Washington, and set back up for two nights here. They have a nice lake full of trout, but Phil is balking at paying $30 to fish for one day. I told him it would be worth it to get a photo where you could actually see the trout, but it is up to him. We do not have television reception here, nor cell phone. The cell phone can access the WiFi, though. Tuesday, we head to St. Regis, MT, for another two nights and then head to Kalispell, MT, for a week. We will "do" the Glacier National Park from there.

July 9 - A Whale of a Day!!!!!

Today was a God thing. I have always wanted to go whale watching, but never in a million years did I ever think I'd get to do it. On this whole trip, every time I see beauty or animals in nature, I feel it is God saying to me, "Child, I love you. This vision is for you." Today felt absolutely spiritual. The boat ride through the San Juan Islands was beautiful. Mt. Baker and the jagged mountains near it were beautiful.

It took two hours to get to the whales. We had already seen some harbor seals. I learned that they must get out of the water to warm up every four to six hours or they get hypothermia. They only have an inch of fat. They are called rock sausages when they are sunning.

After two hours, the first orca was spotted. With the boat rocking and my excitement, I took a lot of shots before I ever even caught a fin. Then more showed up. We were seeing L pod. There are three pods in the area, and today we got to see L pod and some K pod. J was way south of us today. The company sends a seaplane out every morning to spot where the whales are for the day.

If I needed confirmation that today was definitely a God thing, the naturalist who goes on all the trips and gives narrative and info of what we are seeing told us that today was the best day in two years. We saw more breaches and whales than she has seen in two years' trips. There was a baby born very recently. In some of my photos, I can see a smaller fin. She said the milk is the consistency of yogurt and the mother and baby do not sleep for the whole first month after the baby's birth.

Today will go down as one of my best, most awesome, thankful days! Thank you, Lord! It was a whale of a day!