Just keeping cool and doing our thing... here in the great northwest.  Staying close to camp relaxing in the shade. We want an open site for solar and satellite but then again when it's hot out a little shade would be nice. In our case, we head for the shade under the front of the 5th wheel overhang.  It got to the upper 90s but today at 2 PM it is only 80. Went for water up at the dam site and explored a few more side roads. The highlight of each day is when the sun goes down behind the mountain and we like the rest of the animals come out of hiding and play.

We did wake to a thunder storm Friday early. I had to get up and retract the awning and satellite dish. Didn't think much of it... but we have been having a few of these fly over. Not a good sign. I went to the national fire web sites and didn't see anything going on so don't know what's up. 

Miss not having a Sunday paper, but I guess you hae to give up somthing for this life of boondocking away from populated areas. I just have to repeat how great this COE campground is. It just doesn't get any better than this and the best part is we know it. There are about 10 campsites here and room for about double that. So none are close. The center area is natural grass. 

We see many floaters drifting by fly fishing or just tubing it. A great float of about 15 miles down river to Libby, MT. 

We are now in the early stages of decieding when we will be heading out for more adventure. Today I'm on the big desktop computer and Terry is on the Netbook exploring the path ahead. That is if he's not reading Harry Potter stories...
The general direction is Sandpoint, ID. A Wally World and Bank of America can be found there. 

I get paid for one web site via paper check and need to get that in the bank while they stilll honor it. Never like that Void after 90 days printed at the bottom stuff. I see there are some COE campgrounds near Sandpoint or might splurge for a one night stand in a cheap commerical RV park. 
The COE sites closest to Sandpoint might have to many trees and not long enough to handle us. Planning ahead gets to be important if you don't want to just pull into a fancy (as in expensive) RV park. That's not life fulltiming as we like to do it, so we have to work at it a little more.Great sites are out there you just have to work to find them.  It's not like we're running around in a pop-up now are we. 
So sometime next week we're off.  Now if Terry starts catching fish all bets are off.  He has a sore shoulder and has not been fishing, so if he can, he is going later today. Me thinks we have to many deciecions to make... Or maybe not enough!
 

Off to Libby, Mt again for our 11 AM appointment at the local Chevy dealer. The only one in the county, by the way for an oil change. When done they brought the truck around freshly washed no less. This is the smallest dealer I think I have ever seen. And all for $60.32. Now if you own a diesel truck you know that is a more than fair price for that service. Next we got fuel and stopped for lunch. No more bad lunches for us this week. Stopping at McDs for their new sirloin burger.  It looked and was also shall I say yummy... But I could tell it was full of salty spices to make the taste. So we went for the safe bet today. Propane went for $15 for 7 gal another bargain. Diesel here in the outback of Montana is running $2.65.  Not too bad me thinks. Next we trekked over to the Farmers Market in the city park.  Not large by any means but people were having a good time and for many looked like their big outing for the week. 

These Eagles are at several points in town. This is a old lumber town and now trying to mark it on tourists. 
We like it here, friendly people and very laid back. 

Terry bought green beans, beets, and a green pepper. We were hoping for Tomatoes but all said they were a week or so away. I have been eating store bought ones lately getting ready for the real thing. We did buy a couple of them at Rosauers Food and Rx, of the same chain we found in Kalispell. A huge fine store with everything a great store should carry and all this in Libby. The locals are lucky to have this grocery chain in town. 

Need a bird house.

Since the COE campgropund has no water (it is FREE afterall) we found water in the park next to the farmers market. They have a city campground $10 a night, allowing you to stay for 5 days. 

Since it is so hot... I didn't tell you that, did I.  It has gone hot on us here as mid to upper 90's. So on the way back we decided to go a couple of miles further up river and stop at the dam  visitor center as in Air Conditioned Visitor Center located high on the far side above the dam.

Facts you never wanted to know. 7000 cubic feet per second is a bunch. 
Terry sez Navajo Dam in NM discharge was more like 500 cubic feet per second. 

Now back in camp... you didn't hear or read this but we started the generator and said YES to running the A/C. We are in the sun without shade... Ya that is nice for solar power but not so nice for keeping cool. Weather Watcher sez it is to cool off a bit in a day or so, so this should not be a continuing trauma. 
Watching the national NBC news on TV. Look at us all cooped up inside, this is not camping, me thinks. But I got a blog to do, and now is the time to do it while cool inside with A/C blowing on me with a Gin and Tonic.  A little later we will be outside watching the river and wildlife like we should.
Later Ron

Terry start here... We went on a Ron and Terry excellent adventure today.  After a leisurely breakfast we loaded the truck and set off on FS 228 en route to points North.  The FS(228) runs along the west side of Lake Koocanusa. 

We crossed to the east side on the Koocanusa bridge  to visit Rexford, MT and Eureka, MT.

The bridge is about a mile in length and quite high,  a bit scary for those who do not like heights or long bridges.

The Koocanusa bridge was built in 1970 under a contract from the US Army Corps of Engineers, as part of their effort to relocate roads, bridges and the Rail road line that ran i the valley floor/soon to be lake bottom.  The roads now run quite high on the hill/mountainside, and were literally blasted out of the mountain side,  there are many areas where the drill bore holes are still visible in the rock faces on the side of the road. 

A plaque mounted on the west end of the bridge proclaimed the bridge to be a winner of the most beautiful long span steel bridge in 1972 in a contest sponsored by an American Steel producers trade group.  Never knew there were beauty pageants for bridges. Beauty must be in the eye of the beholders,  the bridge does not do much for me, but the setting more then makes up for any other shortcomings.

Leaving the close confines of the river valley we took off across the hilltops on the way to the two communities in the area, Rexford and Eureka. 

Rexford was our first stop,  originally the town was in the valley, now lake bottom and was relocated to the hill tops above the valley.  The down town consisted of three buildings that looked like they might have been moved in from the original town site, and a tavern/restaurant.
The three buildings were all setting empty and in varying states of disrepair, but the tavern seemed to be doing very well.  The rest of Rexford consists of a mixture of mobile homes, stick built homes (some very nice, some not so) and a couple of large RV Parking lots.  The towns main claim to existence is the boat launch, marina.

Eureka Mt. is about 7 miles east of Rexford and seemed to be much better off.  There was a nice main street that spread out along the valley floor.  There were even a few touristy type shops,  pottery, knickknacks, an art gallery.  They even welcome the visitor into town with the bear sculpture waving to the tourists.  We picked up sandwiches at a very nice local grocery store.  The Stein's market was a very nice small town grocery store with a nice deli, hot food counter, a large wine selection and everything else you might need while staying in the area. They were in a new building on the North end of town and we wish them well in the years to come.

Main Street Eureka, MT.

Leaving Eureka, we recrossed the Koocanusa bridge and went North about 6 miles then Headed west on our way to Yaak, MT.  The road is a very narrow mountain road that winds its way up and down the mountain sides.  In many places it is not much more then 1 1/2 lanes wide with turnouts.  The scary part is that the log trucks us this road as a short cut from Eureka to Hwy 2 west of Libby. As we ate lunch at a roadside stop at the west end of the Koocanusa bridge we saw a very heavily loaded log truck head up the grade on the west side of the lake on its way west to hwy 2,  that was the last time we saw him, and I can only imagine how he might have taken off on those narrow roads.

It is approx. 40 miles from the bridge to Yaak, and there are not to many landmarks to aid in navigation.  I was lost most of the time, but Ron seemed to have a good Idea of where we were.  I was not to worried about knowing our exact location,  there was only one paved road going to our destination and we were on it... very hard to get lost.

Yaak, MT. is a nice little mountain settlement, with a collection of homes and a couple of commercial buildings and a tavern/convience store.
They must be doing something right as they are in a newer building.

The Yaak River seems to be the principal focus of the community.  Several of the residents had their backyard get-a-ways on the river banks.

Heading home, Libby is at the bottom of the hill, then a quick run up the river valley to our happy home.

Tomorrow we will be getting our truck's oil changed and take in the Thursday afternoon farmers market in Libby.

Till next time 
Terry
 
 
 

We sat on the banks of the Big Blackfoot River for a week, fishing in hallowed waters made famous by Professor McLain, and a Brad Pitt movie. So much to take in, so many fish to try to catch,, but we are full timers, sit to long and we start to to get antsy, the feeling will then become an urge, then an itch, hitch itch! The urge got to be to much last Thursday, we had been at Russell Gates for a week and had to move. The DNR Maintaince person hinted that we might be allowed to stay longer if the usage of the campground stayed low, but we needed to move on, to see new sight, experience new byways, and search for the perfect campsite.

Looking at the maps and doing a bit of research we decided on a short move up Hwy 83 to the town of Swan Lake. I had talked to a fisherman the day before and he was telling of the virtues of the Swan river. We also like the idea of a short move, after all we are running out of Montana, we keep going West and North and pretty soon we end up in Idaho or at passport control at the Canadian Border..

It was drizzling and threatening rain when we were getting packed, and then began to rain for real when we hit the road. I had to dump the trailer tanks at Clearwater Crossing and the rain continued as we made our way up hwy 83 to Seeley Lake. We stopped for groceries at Seeley lake, picking up the supplies needed for a few days in the out back of Montana and set off for Swan Lake.

The rain continued as we drove North. When we reached Swan Lake it was evident that we would not be stopping, the campground was off the highway in a heavily forested area, it was still raining and Ron had the look on his face (stop now are you crazy!!--- I just got started a few minutes ago.)

We zipped through Swan Lake, took a few pictures out the rain streaked truck windows and searched for places to land on up the road. Our next attempt at landing would be at Big Fork, Mt. On the shores of Flathead Lake. There was a state park there and we couldn't go to wrong at a state park, could we?

We were wrong, very very wrong.

The rain had slacked off to a light drizzle by the time we arrived at Big Fork, and we made the turn at the light and drove into town and were promptly lost. The only place to get off the road was a fruit stand selling sweet cherries, we were followed into the lot by another fifth wheel, and a truck pulling a large boat, the parking lot was getting a lot smaller by this time. Ron decided on the expert advice of his backup navigator F.R.E.D., and while he was trying to get answers from the computer/gps I went to the fruit stand, to get direction from the kind Lady that ran the stand, I also got a couple of lbs of sweet cherries for a dollar per lb. (they are very yummy)

By the time I got back to the truck I knew and so did Ron that we had turned the wrong direction at the light. We then proceeded to look for a place where we could get turned around to go back to Flathead Lake State Park, Wayside unit. F.R.E.D. was showing the entrance to be about 200 yard north of the place designated by the hwy sign, we followed the advice of the roadside signage, the entrance used to be where F.R.E.D. Was telling us, but had been moved. If we had followed F.R.E.D.'s directions we wold have ended up at a locked gate on a very narrow residential street, trying to back out onto a busy highway in the rain, not have been a happy camper moment.

The Lady at the gate station was less then helpful when asked about campsites, she was more concerned about getting the 5 dollar gate fee than answering our questions--- Will we be able to find a spot to park our camper? --- Will we be able to get a southern exposure for the satellite dish and direct TV dish?--- Just how heavily wooded is this place, and can a larg fifth wheel trailer such as ours be able to get in.

After being assured that there were lots of spaces we would fit, that would allow access to the southern skies for big F.R.E.D. We drove into the park and found out that the not so kind lady at the gate was a sadistic *itc#. The road was very very narrow with many low hanging branches that were scraping the sides and top of the trailer and the roof mounted accessories. There were a couple of places we barely made it through the trees without doing damage to the trailer. WE then discovered that there were absolutely no sites we could get the trailer into and that the only sites with a southern exposure for the satellite dish were designated as tent campers only.

Back at the guard station the *itch# that lead us astray with her lies was no where to be found as we stopped. Ron waved a 5 dollar bill out the window and yelled to the attendent to come out of teh hut and get it if you want it. We argued that we would not have come into their ratty little park if she had just told us the truth that the place was over grown, tight and hard to maneuver through. He took the money his argument being “We used to let people in to look at the campground, then we would never see them all afternoon while they picnicked then left without paying”, what an @ss. Why didn't your co-conspirator just tell the truth. So much for our run in with petty low level state employees. We have never been forced to pay to just drive through a state park naywhere to see if we might want to stay there. But MT is different I guess, screw the public.

The actions of the staff at the park soured us on the prospect of staying in the Big Fork area, and we got the heck out of town as fast as we could. The grocery store, fruit stand, and gas stations all missed out any chance at our business on that day, There was even an agate house that was advertising quite heavily on the billboards in and around town, to bad buddy I'll never darken the steps to your establishment.

After consulting with F.R.E.D. We found a commercial campground in the town of Lakeside, MT. about fifteen miles down the road. On the west side of the lake, and a million miles away from the attitude of the state park employees.

We had landed, and it was only one in the afternoon. After lunch we went into Kalispell to find a Best Buy. Ron is having problems with the desktop computer and thinks that the hard drive has a couple of sectors that are going bad. I must now be very careful not to rile the resident computer geek while he struggles to install and format a second hard drive in the desktop. Time to hide out for a while.

Kalispell's downtown seemed to be doing well in spite of the growth of the big box stores on the North and East sides of town, and the decline of the older retail sprawl on the South and West sides of town. Lot of coffee houses, speciality stores, and creative reuse of the downtown buildings, along with lots of traffic trying to get to Hwy 2 East and the road to Glacier Park. .

Friday found us moving again, in the rain again! We had two landing sites in mind, the first being the forest service campground at Lake McGregor, about 20 miles west of Kalispell. We arrived at Lake McGregor, and left. Nothing wrong with the Lake or campground, we never drove in, It was just to early in the day for Ron to land. Ron then informed me of our true destination for the day, Libby MT., and the Kootenai River below Libby Dam. In his searching of the data bases FRED had found a Army Corps campground Dunn Flats and Ron wanted to go there.

We are at the red dot above and below at COE Dunn Creek Flats. 

Libby, MT  and    Libby Dam    web sites.

We are now setting in the Dunn Flats campground congratulating each other on our skill and luck (mostly luck) at finding the perfect MT campground, open field on the edge of the river, forested hillsides surrounding us, and the last people to use the site left us a stack of firewood which we used on Saturday night. We sat outside till 9:30 watching the sunset, listening to the radio.

Got to have our big boy toys... Netbook hooked to WiFi , XM radio, and DirecTV. 
Now just to see if you are paying attention did I say this COE campground is FREE. Now don't tell anyone, and don't be here when we want one of the few sites ya hear. I (Ron) found this on www.freecampgrounds.com it was not listed on any COE site I looked at. 
 

Every now and then an Eagle or Osprey will fly overhead. The Eagles often times land in the trees on opposite bank and will call out. Don't know if they are proclaiming this as their territory, or calling out to their family and friends but it adds to the mystique of the area.

Now as long as we do not have any four pawed critters coming through to inspect the trash cans we will be OK. There are always the tent campers on the other side of the clearing which will make much better bear bait. Hoofed, horned, antlered and feathered pine type critters are welcome, but we are suspicious of the Bears that the bulletin board warns of when we came into Dunn Flats.

Must not be too much of a threat as they have normal trash cans at each campsite.

There was a outdoor concert/beer bust last night in Libby WoodRock 09. It must have been a big deal for the locals, the Fly shop and restaurant down the road from our campsite were closed all day Saturday for the party. Fourty-five bucks at the gate with the party starting in the middle of the afternoon with the local talent. The headline group was an Aerosmith tribute band starting some time around ten in the evening, if you've been there all afternoon they may sound pretty good by then, then again at that hour of the night anybody would sound good to the crowd­if they can remember in the morning.

We are going to be in the Libby area for a few days, there is a lot to explore, and the river will take some getting used to for my fishing, IT'S BIG WATER, REALLY REALLY BIG WATER, the kind of river that is intimidating for us wade fishermen.

Till next time, Terry and me Ron
 
 

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