DAY 14 : July 20/22 Silverwood to Lake 5 Resort, Glacier, Montana
Back on the road again today… 103462km on the odometer.
After breakfast and smoothies, emptied the rv at the site Sani, we were back onto the Hwy 95 N headed towards Sandpoint, ID to the co-op to fill up on diesel. 20.533 gallons @ USD$5.859/gal for a $120.30 fill. Saw a very cool old fashioned car, and Jonathan chatted with the old-timer who was filling it up.
By 11am we were onto the Hwy 200 east which took us into Montana beside the Pend Oreille Lake to Clark Fork, and after an hour we went north on Hwy 56 beside the Cabinet Mountains to get up to Hwy 2.
Around 2:30pm we were headed towards Libby “City of Eagles” which had lots of metal eagle sculptures displayed in the town. We passed through the Kootenai National Forest and saw some deer. After two hours more driving, we reached our goal of Kalispell where the kids had input “Kalispell Creamery” into the Garmin. Unfortunately, by the time we reached Kalispell, they had started fighting and so an ice cream stop was no longer in the cards.
I spent $88.68 at the local Albertsons with a grumpy Oliver in tow, and turns out Amelia and Jonathan had been skulking around the grocery store following us without us knowing! Back at the rig, they would remotely lock the doors each time I tried to open it. I knew they were up to no good but didn’t find them until I saw their cheeky faces peeking from behind a car in the parking lot. As we loaded the groceries, Jonathan chatted up an older gentleman and his son about Glacier National Park (the senior of the two was wearing a Glacier shirt). They had great intel about the park and the Going to the Sun Road. We decided that it was worth checking out and by 6pm we were in Columbia Falls at the closed Chamber of Commerce where we managed to get an awesome map of Montana from the outside boards. Upon reading our new awesome map, I noticed a little section that read “vehicles over 21ft or 8ft wide are prohibited on the Going to the Sun Road” because it’s so narrow and windy, and a sheer drop on one side. Well, that was decided then… no scenic tourist road for us… the Navi is 24ft + bikes/rack.
Kept driving on to the Glacier KOA resort, which was full, but had free wifi and a neat little outdoor dining/entertainment spot right at the entrance. We left the rig parked by the office and went to enjoy the live music (guitarist/singer) and have a snack of potato salad and beans, with a huckleberry & cornbread ice cream dessert while we took advantage of the wifi. Tried calling a couple places for a space to park for the night, but neither went through. We decided rather than risk driving further with no idea what was ahead, we turned back along Hwy 2 to check out some of the RV sites we passed by.
The first was a turn off quite quickly after leaving the KOA, called Lake 5 Resort. A short winding road took us to a beautiful lakeside campground. Looked like something out of the Dirty Dancing movie. We swallowed the $80/night fee for a sloped dirt patch in the woods jammed in with other campers and before we even went to site H, we hopped into our swimsuits and hit the lake for a refreshing evening swim. Here we chatted with a couple of friendly families from West Virginia and had great chats about our adventure. They had travelled from W.V. to Montana in only 4 days!! Walking up the beach, another mom who was sitting in a lawn chair watching her kid swim, had overheard our conversations and piped up with her enthusiasm and recommendations for places to visit in the Moab. Super friendly and lovely, we had more nice chats with “Scotty” before we drove the rig over to our site.
It was a funny little dirt site backed up a hill into the woods. We had to max out our levelling blocks at the front and still were not level. We managed though. Kids happily dove into making an elaborate fairy “cabana” in the tree roots on site. After veggie burgers, we had a walk around the campsite and everyone that glanced up at us was SUPER friendly and waved and said hi and chatted! In particular, an older couple with their Harley parked out front of their trailer… the guy was particularly chatty. They were from Syracuse NY and were on their way to Sturgess. Another particularly chatty and sweet little boy named Eston had walked by with his family and he was keen to be friends. We said we’d see him for a swim in the morning after he tried hard to convince both families that we should all sit around a fire and eat s’mores together. Super cute. They were from South Dakota (originally from N.Dakota, moved to Utah, then to S.D.) They had also done a huge RV trip with their kiddos when the kids were 2 & 4, like us!
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