We spent our last evening in Glacier lightly packing up after our four nights here, looking at maps for the driving day ahead of us, relaxing by the campfire in the best camping spot we have ever had, and icing down Ann’s sore booty from the great biking adventure.
Packed, fed, relaxed, and buttocks iced, we hit the sack, ready (sorta) to hit the road in the morning!
As a process check, we’re about halfway through the trip, depending how you measure it. In total time on the road, we’re not quite to halfway. In total number of nights that will be spent in the airstream, we are at 24, with 24 to go. It is actually going really well!
The airstream is certainly cozy. Storage space is at a premium but we’ve managed to organize and reorganize throughout the trip to make things more streamlined. However, it’s amazing how things still get “lost.” Considering the Airstream is approximately less than 180 sq ft, it’s hard to imagine things can get lost but we’re still looking for an avocado we bought two days ago. Crazy! Soon we’ll smell where we lost it. 😩 Honestly, we have to get really creative to protect anything soft while we’re bouncing down the road. So things like bananas, whole cantaloupes, tomatoes, and avocados are hard to keep from bruising in cabinets or the refrigerator. After throwing away many bruised and battered produce items, we finally started experimenting with letting the produce ride in the middle of our bed, with surround made of bed pillows to keep them safe. Even then, super horrible, crappy roads can sneak up on us, and even those tricks don’t work. Bananas, by far, are the most thrown away, unused item for this trip.
All in all, we’ve really enjoyed this trip. We’ve only had maybe 2-3 instances where we were both in urgent need of the one and only potty onboard. Thus far, we’ve resolved those conflicts with a very quickly delivered, very well reasoned argument/plea from both parties about the relative severity of the urgency. Sometimes the argument/plea is delivered only with body language and facial expressions. Whoever wins “first dibs” gives a heartfelt promise to make it fast, and a sign of commitment by leaving the phone on the dining table , so as not to be distracted.
Or Ben just pees outside. There’s only been one time, a very early morning, where Ben had to make use of the campground potty house. As cold as it was that morning, there was no other possible scenario. Ben was the only one of us that would brave those temperatures. Bottom line is that the entire trip has been pretty incredible.
On that note, we have met a LOT of people on this trip that have sold their homes and gone full time, working a bit at campgrounds for free campsites and utilities. They describe six months in Arizona or Key West, or Texas during the winters, and places like Glacier, Yellowstone, etc in the summers. People have been doing this for years and years and seem to have really figured it out and have settled in to a groove. Ann and I talked about it and said, nope. Not going full time!
Back to the topic of the present day journey, we headed out toward today’s, destination, a one night stay for us, North Fork, ID, population 299. Not 300. Wanna bet everyone in town knows the name of the dude who didn’t respond to the census?
It was an awesome drive, this time skirting the eastern shoreline of Flathead Lake, a huge, natural lake formed by glacier movement through the area. For scale, Flathead Lake is about half the size of San Fransisco Bay, bigger surface area than Lake Tahoe (although not nearly as deep), and mostly surrounded by tall pine stands all around.
Along the way, there were a ton of really cool lake shore properties and you could just tell the place was built for summer activities, with boat docks, mostly still empty of boats, lake houses with small unassuming entrance and parking on our side, the road side, but you could see that these unassuming houses opened up to expansive, multi storied, all glass fronts facing the lake. And the place was just lousy with orchards and vineyards! We were surprised to see acres and acres of waterfront orchards, mostly cherry, with clean rows, perfectly maintained grass and branches, and 8’ hog wire fences around each property, likely to keep out the deer. It was just a gorgeous drive.
At the south end of Flathead Lake, we turned on to Montana 93, another twisty, curvy, climby state highway that took us up another 5000 feet to cross Chief Joseph Pass at 7,264 feet. Once again, God was watching over us as we had nobody pushing us while we navigated the tight hairpin turns with the airstream in tow behind us, following us closely through the curves. Pictures just do not do it justice, but we tried anyway!
We decided to stop in what we thought was good old sleepy Missoula, MT to restock on groceries ahead of 7 nights in Utah. Missoula has grown up a bit since Ann harassed this place nearly 30 years ago. It was jammed in that town! Beautiful scenery and the city has largely kept up with the population growth, but if Walmart on a Saturday afternoon (is it Saturday?) is any indication, they are still rapidly outgrowing their britches. We picked up what we needed, shoved the groceries and supplies in every nook and most cranny’s that we could find, and continued on the drive down to North Fork.
2.5 hrs after leaving Missoula, we pulled in to the Wagonhammer Campground, perfectly perched on the side of the Salmon River, with plenty of afternoon left for some downtime. We topped off the truck, cleaned up the airstream, had an relaxing dinner, and in the morning, we are headed further south to stay with a dear friend and his lovely bride in southern Idaho. Looking forward to meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones!
Oh, forgot to mention the weather! We are back to the heat! We started getting used to 70 degrees being hot during the day, which it was at 3000-8000 feet, but the nights were really chilly, getting down in to the mid 30’s.
That changes today, apparently.
We pulled in to North Fork with air temps in the upper 80’s. Hot dang, that meant someone had some leg hair to shear off and the shorts were coming back out. With not much else to do in North Fork, Idaho, a good chunk of Ann’s evening was spent with a razor in hand!
TaterTotTales 