Leavenworth Continued

 These two pictures are of Icicle River at the RV park where we are staying.

 Salmon change color as the move up river to spawn.  I never realized how much

 they changed color or how big they got.

 ...not to mention aggressive!

Things were a bit more sedate in downtown Leavenworth.  This coming weekend is the beginning of OKTOBERFEST and the city is getting ready.  Probably a good thing we are leaving.  Arlyene might get carried away.

The Queen, Miss Gizmo was waiting for us when we got back.

When we went for our walk this morning we ventured over the hotel named "Sleeping Lady" which is very close to the campground.  This is a very cool place, open year round.  On the grounds are various sculptures and some great views of the river.

Mid 70's and clear here today.  Very pleasant.  Will be headed for Tulalip tomorrow.

Leavenworth, WA

Orchards along the Columbia River

Part of the Rock Island Dam on the Columbia.

We made it safely to Leavenworth, WA about 3:30 and are settled in.  It was about 230 miles and 5 hours from Coeur d'Alene including a short stop for fuel and another for lunch.  It is raining so we are going to just stay in the coach the rest of the day.  Tomorrow we will go into town and do some walking around.  Apples and Pears are being harvested locally now so we will also make a visit to a local fruit stand.  Hopefully I will have some more interesting pictures to post tomorrow.

Coeur d'Alene

Mostly just puttered Saturday.  It was close to 90 all afternoon. Arlyene cooked a great dinner for David and Colleen's visit in the evening and we had a good time.   We have clouds this morining and it is much cooler.  Possibility of thunder storms.  Heading into downtown today to check out the waterfront and the Olive Oil shop.  (That's olive oil as in cooking - can you visualize a shop based on Popeye's girfriend?)

Tomorrow we head for Leavenworth, for three nights.

SE Spokane County Fair, Rockford, WA

Two Tractors from the 30's.

Drove to Rockford, WA to visit with good friends David and Colleen Lura and attend the county fair there.  Saw cows and sheep and chickens and rabbits, lots of home made stuff for sale and a couple of 30's era tractors.  Had a great dinner at the Lura's and looking forward to having them visit us here in Coeur d'Alene for dinner aboard Norv.

Lewiston/Clarkston back to Coeur d'Alene

Note burned off field on the left compared to field on the right.  Ignore the dead bugs on windshield.

We made the 112 miles trip from Clarkston/Lewiston back to Coeur d'Alene today in good time through Idaho wheat country.  We are back at the same park where we stay on our way to Glacier National Park.  We will be here for four night and are looking forward to staying put for a few days.  Our parking spot looks out on the Spokane River right where it begins at Lake Coeur d'Alene.  From Wikipedia -"The Spokane River drains the northern part of Lake Coeur d'Alene in the Idaho Panhandle, emptying into the Columbia River at Lake Roosevelt, approximately 180km downstream.  

Tomorrow we will be driving back down to Rockford, WA to visit with our good friends David and Colleen Lura and have dinner with them.  Saturday they will be coming up here to have dinner with us.

Lolo Pass and Canyon and the Clearwater River

 The only Moose we saw was a little tiny stuffed one in a gift shop.

 Note snow depth marker in background.

 Loved the Lewis and Clark connection and the history in this area.

 Clearwater River in Lolo Canyon.

 Premier RV Park in Clarkston, WA.  and......

...our waterfront view out the windshield of the Snake River.

Drove Highway 12 from Missoula to Lewiston/Clarskston today.  A five hour drive over two lane highway for abut 230 miles.  Pooped but glad we took this route.  It is full of Lewis and Clark history as well as the Nez Pierce Indians.  The highway crosses the Bitteroot Mountians at Lolo Pass.

From Wikipedia - "The Clearwater River is a 74.8-mile-long (120.4 km)^[1] river in north central Idaho, which flows westward from the Bitterroot Mountains along the Idaho-Montana border, and joins the Snake River at Lewiston. In October 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition descended the Clearwater River in dugout canoes, putting in at "Canoe Camp," five miles (8 km) downstream from Orofino. By average discharge, the Clearwater River is the largest tributary of the Snake River, although the Salmon River is longer and drains a greater area."

Wish we had more opportunities to stop but Norv is a bit too big for many of the historical sites, which were mostly on the other side of the road anyway.  The weather was GREAT!.  All the rain and nasty stuff from yesterday was gone and we had clear skies and sunny weather.  Ended the day in T Shirt and shorts sitting by the river.  We are going to spend two nights here before heading back up to Coeur d'Alene.  Hope to get both the coach and the truck washed tomorrow. 

Camp Jellystone

Everbody loves Yogi and Bo Bo. . . . .

. . . . EVERYBODY!!

After a wet and windy 3 hour/142 mile drive down from Glacier National Park we made it to Camp Jellystone.  Not much going on here and it looks like Bo Bo and the gang have all left town or gone to hibernation  The only one left here is Yogi.  He'll be going in to hibernations at the end of October when the park shuts down for the winter.

After fueling up in the morning we will head for Lolo Pass and follow the Lewis and Clark trail down Lolo canyon to the Lewiston/Clarkston area where we will spend two nights.  That's about all the news for today.

LOGAN PASS, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

We Made the trip to Logan Pass in Glacier National Park today.  Here are a few photos.

 Road construction delays on the way up.  The road closes completely at midnight tonight (Sunday)

 Looking back into the valley from which we came.

An actual Grizzly track with my hand in it for scale.

 .

Campbell Lake between West Glaicer and Logan Pass

My truck afterwards.  At least it makes the coach look clean.
( I had taken it to a car wash in Polson just a couple of days before! )

As expected the weather was not great.  Many of the peaks were completely hidden from our view by the clouds.  Still, we got a little view here and there.  There are no pictures from the top as it was completely socked in by the clouds, it was raining and the wind was blowing a good 30 knots.  We literally ran from the car to get inside the visitor center.  Stayed long enough to stamp our National Parks Passport and headed back down through the construction.  The valley floor was more hospitible.  No rain, no wind.  On a nice day we could have done this trip in less then an hour.  Today it took over two, with two 15-20 minute delays going up and one going back down.  Even the bears were not out.  No "bearjams" on the road.

It is supposed to be worse tomorrow.  I feel for the construction folks but they were dressed for it.  We, on the other hand, will be headed south in the morning.  We'll make it back to I-90 and camp for the night with Yogi and Bo Bo before heading for Lolo Pass and Clarkston, WA

This is the 10 day forcast for Glacier National Park as of this morning.  After tomorrow lots of sun.  Maybe some sun this afternoon - just before they close the road.  Looks like we may be driving back to Missoula in the rain tomorrow which will make for a long ride.  Light rain here now.  Hope the forcast for this afternoon is correct.  One way or another we are going today, with our warm jackets.

West Glacier - KOA

We made it to the West Glacier KOA this afternoon and it is a ghost town.   This is a very nice, well maintained KOA but just barely "big rig friendly."  We might of had problems if there were more campers here.  It turns out that Highway 2 through Glacier National Park will be closed at the end of the day tomorrow for paving.  This is a big time closeure for a long period of time.  Logan pass will only be accessible from the east side of Glacier and going there is out of the question for us at this point.  It already feels like winter is breathing down our necks because so many people have already left.  If we had been one day later we would have driven up here for nothing.  Lesson learned about checking road reports this late in the season.  Although the weather is not predicted to be good tomorrow we will try and drive up to Logan Pass.  It is windy here today so it could be much worse tomorrow.  On Monday we drive back to Missoula to visit Yogi and Bo Bo at Jellystone Park.  Can't wait to send you those pictures.  That's assuming they have not gone in to hibernation already.  I suspect they have.

Here are some additionla pictures of the campground.  These are posted in a Picasa website.  If you do not have the Picasa viewer loaded on your computer the link may as you to download it.  It is free.  After you view the picturesyou may have to use your BACK button to come back here.

CLICK HERE   for pictures of the campground.  I am experimenting with this method of posting more pictures so if you have feedback send it to me at waltdews@gmail.com.

POLSON, MT

NORV III Overlooking Flathead Lake

Prevost in the lot below us.  Thought this might actually be Larry The Cable Guy but probably not judging by the old guy reading the paper otu side.

The neighboorhood.  For a change we don't feel like we stick out.

We made the roughly 230 mile trip from Coeur d'Alene to Polson, Montana today.  All went well, we made good time and Norv III did an good job with the mountains.  We are in a "motorcoach resort" and boy is it fancy.  We are on a hillside wth an unobstructed 180 degree view of Flathead Lake, a very big lake I might add.  We are just outside the town of Polson, MT and will spend two nights here before heading for West Glacier and the National Park. Could not be more pleased with how things are going with the new coach.  The weather here is much cooler.  Had lots of rain on the way here and both the coach and the pickup are a mess so we will work on that problem tomorrow.

This is a map of the entire route as planned.  Click on the above to see a larger copy.

Coeur d'Alene

Blackwell Island RV Park......

.....on Lake Coeur d'Alene

On  Tuesday we made the drive from Ellensburg to Coeur d'Alene, just about 205 miles.  Pretty boring straight drive.  Arlyene even drove a spell to get the feel of Norv III.  Nice RV park here at Blackwell Island and lots of room.  Leaving here Thursday morning headed for Flathead Lake in Montana.  Should be about 230 miles but with lots of ups and downs between here and Missoula, where we get off I-90 and head north. 

So far my coach repairs have consisted of tightening two nuts and one screw.  Took me longer to find the right wrench then it did to do the jobs.  But the bugs still stick to the windshield and the front of the coach just as bad as ever.  Some things never change.

As we get closer to Glacier National Park we hope to start posting some more interesting pictures.

THE REAL TRIP BEGINS

Ellensburg, WA  KOA

So the first real day of travel towing the truck was from the Casino over Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascades and to Ellensburg a whole 132 miles.  Towing the truck and taking on a mountain pass was a good test on our shake down cruise.  Everything is still working great.  This campground is our first place with full hook ups so we don't need to use the generator or the tanks.  It was a bit of a squeeze getting in here.  This KOA was really not built for larger rigs like NORV but we got squeezed in and are settled and I now have the bugs cleaned off the front of the coach.  We will be here two nights, not because Ellensburg is all that scenic or exciting but we are still figuring out some of the systems and figuring out where we want to store things and who gets what drawer in the bedroom.  We have more space but space is still a valuable commodity on a motor home.  I got the satellite dish working at the casino and it works here too so we were able to sit outside in the shade of a tree and watch the Seahawks lose.  Tomorrw we will make a run thorugh downtown Ellensburg for one or two little hardware items and Arlyene wants to go to the big Fruit Market on the edge of town.  I don't know what the high temperature here was today but it was pretty darn warm.  that's OK, we have air conditioners if we need them.  That's about it for today.

FALL ROAD TRIP BEGINS

Pre Delivery.

Casino Lot

We started our Fall Road Trip after taking delivery of Norv III by sticking close to the dealers just in case there were any issues that needed immediate attention.  Since we are now exciles from Port Susan (because Norv III exeeds there coach size limit) we came to the free RV parking area at the Tulalip Casino in Marysville.  We spent Thursday night on the dealers lot moving, finished up Friday morning and headed for Marysville about 10:30.  There are no hook ups of any kind there so we spent Friday night, and all day Saturday and Saturday night "dry camping" which means we used the tanks onboard and ran our generator for electricty.  To our delight everything worked correctly.  The most serious issue I had to deal with was tightening up a loose door handle on the refrigerator - something right up my line of work!  Arlyene did some shopping and I worked on getting the towing equipment set up for towing my pick up truck and in the evening Mary and Nathan came by for a visit.  Lots of Canadians down and the lot was full both nights.  Nice folks but because of the heat they sat outside talking until the wee hours of the morning so poor Arlyene did not get much sleep.  Me?  I just "turn off" and nothing bothers me.