Home Again, Home Again jiggity jig...

We are currently south of Atlanta - so that run for home I referenced earlier is a real run.  We spent last night north of Atlanta in Calhoun, GA and the prior 2 nights off I-55 (recuperating) in MO at the Hawn State Park - 50 mi south of St, Louis near the historic town of St. Genevieve (oldest town in MO).  We saw our first real flood gates, you know, those big metal gates in the levees that towns use to keep out the mighty Mississippi when it floods -  but those pics are on Bruce's camera
so I will post as soon as we get home and I can retrieve them.Why, you ask, are they on Bruce's phone?  Well, I made the unfortunate mistake of going for a ride without my trusty digital camera - bad decision. But let's get to the rest of our trip to Kalispell, MT and Glacier National Park - where we made our decisions to come home, via the 2 week route and then the faster6 night route, culminating in our arrival home today (knock on wood and all goes as planned.)

Brig Museum

After leaving Grand Coulee, WA we drove to Couer D'Alene, ID where we left the interstate to drive north towards the Canadian border on US 95 to Athol, ID and Farragut State Park.  Now this is an interesting park.  Farragut is an old WWII Navy training base.  I know you are wondering why in the world we would have a training based in the middle of northern Idaho - right?  Well, it was built there to protect it from the Japanese in case of another attach like Pearl Harbor.  Farragut operated from 1942 to 1946 and had 293,381 men from across the nation train there. The Brig is still intact (all the other buildings were either sold off or destroyed) and houses an extensive collection of WWII memorabilia, most directly related to Farragut as a Naval Station.

Base layout

Bayview floating houses

The  base (and now the park) was extensive as this picture shows.  It was situated at the southern end of Lake Pend Oreille so the Navy had plenty of open water to use for training,  On the north side of the base/park along that same lake is a small community called Bayview.  We took a short sightseeing trip around and to our delight found it full of floating houses/businesses, etc.

After leaving Farragut, we followed US 2 north and then east through Idaho and into Montana, driving along the Kootenai River to Kalispell.  We spent the next 2 weeks at Spruce Park on the River, a private campground that lies Flathead River .  It was calm and well maintained- providing us the perfect place to center our activities in that area. With its close proximity to Canada, it was no surprise to find it full of Canadians vacationing where the parks all had electricity, water and many times sewer hook-ups and their dollar was stronger than ours.  We were in the park over the Canadian August Civic Holiday , commonly called the August Long Weekend and were one of just a few non-Canadian campers. 

While in Kalispell we had the pleasure to attend the event opening for the one week summer tours of the private Bibler Gardens. and home.  The whole outside is a display garden and the late spring allowed us to catch the flowers at their peak.  The house, which seemed like a a mixture of Frank Lloyd Wright and Craftsman, preserves all the original furnishings and displays additional beautiful artifacts.  Wonderful hors d'oeuvres catered by the local culinary school and freely poured local wines, along with a small attendee list (I had purchased these tickets months previously) made the occasion perfect.

Driving along Going to the Sun Road

 We drove to Glacie as soon as the sun decided to shine on both us and the park so we would have the best vistas.  It was worth it.  They are working on Going to the Sun Road, although I can't imagine what it must be like to only have a few short months - the road was not open completely this year until July 14th and will probably close again in October - to work with all of the tourist traffic both directions and the road being very narrow along the mountain sides.

The views are spectacular, with snow still on most of the mountain tops and the melt engorging lakes and streams so there are water falls everywhere. I will put all of the pictures on the web in a G lacier Album soon and will post here once all are uploaded.Just a few more for your enjoyment and then I am done with this part of the trip.









As we watched the weather get hotter in the mid and southwest (where we were going from here) we made the big decision to just take it on home.  It is too hard to air condition The Beast when the temperatures reach above 90 or so (as we found out yeasterday when we parked for the night.) Also- we have had a few bumps and brouses on the trip with The Beast and we now do not really trust the batteries and the high temps do not help that.  We are on I-75S, over the FL line and closing in on I-10.  We should reach home in the next few hours and we will have had a wonderful trip.  We are both already sick of the heat , as is the dog (she wants back in as soon as she gets out in it) and are talking about next summer's trip somewhere north - maybe Maine and Vermont- a change for us.

What is coming up in the near future - we will be heading to White Oak Campground in Eufaula, AL for a short trip in mid-September to visit with our friends and have already planned  our first real visit to the Keys for a few weeks in late November, early December.  After that, we will just have to wait and see.  Remember - we will be Grandparents and even more important - I will be a Grandmother and that changes everything I am told.

I will post again when all of the pictures are on the web.  Until then .......
Drive Safe and Retire Early!!