Back to the mountains!

After we first caught a glimpse of the mountains it wasn't long until we were immersed in them, and for us that's a wonderful feeling.  It's a bit different here in Montana as the elevations aren't as high and neither are the mountains, but the relative difference is similar so they seem just as big.  

And it wasn't long until we saw our first fisherman

We tried to get a campsite on the east side of Glacier National Park but weren't able to, so after many, many calls we found a newer campground to the west of Kalispell near the town of Marion, MT, called McGregor Lakes.  It turned out to be very nice, very remote with paved roads, enormous sites and thankfully decent wifi as we had NO AT&T or Verizon service there at all.  Even though we had to go farther west than we wanted, it worked out well for another one of our quests.  We are fans of a reality TV show called Mountain Men that follows several different characters as they live out their lives in the country, and one of our favorites is Tom Oar, a former rodeo star that lives with his wife in the Yaak Valley in NW Montana, trapping and tanning hides.  We wanted to go and see if we could find or at least come close to where they live while we were in the area.  First of all we found out it is a long way from anywhere to the Yaak River and Valley, and there is very little there.  We tried to figure out approximately where they lived and that was as close as we came, but it was very beautiful area.  We poked around and had a picnic lunch near a small stream and called it a day.

Our picnic spot

A pretty waterfall along the way on the way back

We were there just a couple days and moved over to Lakeside, MT to Edgewater RV Resort.  We weren't expecting too much from the Google pictures, but were very pleasantly surprised to find one of the nicest campgrounds we have ever been to.  It is fairly small, large sites, all paved, each with a large concrete patio, clean, friendly, walking friendly and in a great location just across the road from Flathead Lake, and not far from Kalispell.  A great campground!  

We were only there a couple days as well, before we moved south to spend 2 weeks in Missoula.  We had been to Missoula several times in the past, all before we started fly fishing in earnest, and liked it for the most part, even though we only spent a short amount of time there.  This time we had an entirely different outlook as it is one of the best fly fishing centers in the west with hundreds of miles of fishable water.  We also wanted to look at the area and the town as well.  Missoula is the 2nd largest city in Montana at about 73,000 people in town and 113,000 in the metro area, and home to the University of Montana.  It has restaurants, shops, breweries, parks, and tons of activities, very vibrant.  We have been very impressed so far, everyone we have run into is very positive about the city and the area.

So our home in Missoula is the Jim and Mary's RV Park, a very nice, grassy, well kept park just west of town.  It is mostly pull throughs with large sites and paved roads, and nice to walk around with lots of shade.  A pleasant and well run park.

Our beautiful site in Missoula

So of course we had to find some restaurants and found a really good wood fired pizza place, Biga Pizza on our first day.

Yummy!
Yeah, we forgot the pic and started eating....

But we were here to fish.  We visited a couple different fly shops, and got some advice as to where to go to wade and booked a float trip for later in the week.  The Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and the Clark Fork all come together near town, and there are plenty of other waters available like Rock Creek and even the Missouri nearby.  We went to reconnoiter and fish the Bitterroot and decided to go way up river to the confluence of the East and West fork.  Now way upriver is south as the river flows north, so off we went to Darby about 65 miles south of Missoula.  What a beautiful drive, we stopped at many of the access points along the way and found a spot to give it a whirl.  

What scenery

The pretty Bitterroot

A couple deer

Even 2 elk feeding

We both had a lot of fun, Jan had a few bites and I caught one fish, not bad, but with the scenery all was great!

Jan working her way upriver

Me tying on a different fly

Now I should interject something here we stumbled over and had no idea what it was at first.  We have been watching a new TV show called Yellowstone starring Kevin Costner as a rancher in Montana near Bozeman, and really enjoying it.  As we were flying down the road, Jan mentioned she saw a sign on a ranch entrance that looked like brand "Y" that you see on the show.  We figured it was a coincidence and didn't give it a thought until we ran into another fisherman and got talking about the area, and he mentioned did we happen see the Yellowstone Dutton Ranch down the road where the series was being shot?  We never realized that show featuring Bozeman would be shot nearer to Missoula??  He said he had run into Costner in a small diner in town.  Anyway on the way back we tried to get a few pictures.

The entrance

So then came our float, an all day fishing trip.  We met our guide, Doug, at 0630am at the flyshop and he told us we would be heading for the Blackfoot.  They use inflatable drift boats here on some rivers as there are many rocks and they handle them better than a hard-sided drift boat.  Our other 2 floats were in hard boats, and we were looking forward to seeing how they differed, first of all we found out you stay seated the whole time compared to standing the whole time in a hard drift boat. Turned out for the fishermen there isn't much difference, perhaps the inflatable is a little more smooth.  We drove to the northeast to get to our access point and Doug got us and the boat all set up.

Doug getting things rigged while I get ready

We weren't on the river more than 15 minutes before Jan hooked up a nice fish.

Happy!

We had quite a day, Doug was a very personable and interesting guide that attended to our needs, gave us a lot of pointers and we both learned a lot.  It was fun, it was beautiful, and it was awesome!

Still early

A couple bucks along the river

Gorgeous!

We stopped a few times for a snack, pit stop, and lunch, and got to admire the scenery.

I have a problem evidently, that I don't really want to admit, but I can't seem to hold a fish.  I never had this problem before that I'm aware of, but of late, for some reason I just can't keep them in my hands.  Sad, huh?  Well after I dropped this fish several times, Doug just held it and I hammed it up for the pic:-)

Oh well

We were on the water all day long, catching lots of fish, we lost count after 30.  

See how clear the water is
Doug said it gets even clearer later in the season!

It was stunningly beautiful

Done for the day, and yes, we could feel it
Lots and lots of casting!

A good view of the boat

So, we have much more to do, we've only been here 5 days so far and we've done quite a bit.  Also we are looking forward to a visit from Karen and Tom in a couple days, should be fun.

Our westward dash is complete, and we learned some stuff

People often ask how far do we drive in a day, our normal response is never more than 500 miles, but only if we have to get somewhere, and we will exceed that once in awhile.  The truth is we have made several well over 500 mile days in the past, and we don't try to do it.  And as time's gone by, we prefer to not exceed 400, or even less, but there is a big difference in our drives getting somewhere versus moving around once we're there.  We just completed 2000 miles from Elkhart, IN to where we are now McGregor Lake, near Marion, MT, a little west of Kalispell.  We stopped for 2 nights twice, once for a meat market, and once to scout out fishing in a part of MT we had never been.  Our route west took us on HWY 2 across the top of MT, called the Hi-Line.  And I have to admit, not much up there including fishing, a lot of farming though, and very few people or towns.

So we did get to the meat market, Thielen Meats, and did stock the freezer pretty well.

Thielen Meats main counter

And steak, It's what's for dinner :-)

After leaving there we were making good time and looking for a place to stop for lunch.  We prefer the back or 2 lane roads over the interstates, but sometimes finding a place to pull over is a bit of a challenge.  Anyway we found a deserted weigh station just a bit up a crossing road, found on Google map by the way, and had slowed with our left turn signal on, about to turn in, when I see in my rear view mirror a semi tanker going about 100 mph coming up hard and swinging to pass us on the left.  We were already slightly into our left turn, when the guy must of just looked up and saw us standing still on the road ahead of him, I yelled to Jan we're going to get hit!  Smoke poured from his tires as he locked it up, I floored the gas, but in a diesel it reacts very slowly, and knew we were going to get creamed.  But the good Lord was watching evidently, and he just missed us and flew around to our left.  Well now since I couldn't really breathe, and it was sinking in to Jan just how close it was, we missed our turn with our evasive maneuver, and now had no where to turn around so we just drove north up this road trying to get our composure back.  About 7 miles later we came into a tiny town and saw a pretty church parking lot which we pulled into, got out, walked around a bit and had lunch.  Well as we were getting ready to go a pickup truck pulled in and the guy introduced himself.  He was the fire chief, and a retired after 35 years teacher, and now worked for the town.  A really nice guy.  The church was a small but gorgeous made of stone.  He explained that back in 1883 it was built with the stone the farmers had taken out of their fields.  We visited with him for 45 minutes or so and learned a lot.  He said the church was a challenge as the stone being different colors expanded and contracted at different rates with summers approaching 100 df and winters getting down as low as -40 df, it was hard to keep the grout intact.  Then we talked of modern day farming and its challenges.  How most of the small farms were gone, and how it takes fewer people to do the work.  We found it fascinating that when harvesting wheat with a combine, a drone wagon will come and align perfectly with the moving combine, so the arm can be swung out and the wheat unloaded without ever stopping, then the drone pulls away and goes over to the waiting semi and unloads the grain into the truck and this continues all without anyone in the drone!

As we drove we saw acres and acres of almost blindingly bright yellow-green fields.  We weren't sure what it was, so doing a bit of research we found they were Canola fields.  Now we thought Canola was a made up term developed by Canada called Canadian Oil, to disguise the actual oil which was rape seed.  Turns out the Canadians actually developed an entirely new plant called Canola and it is grown all over the northern tier of the US as well as in Canada.

This gives you an idea of its brightness,
but the picture just can't do it justice

Lots and lots of these small lakes created by the glaciers of the ice age
in North Dakota

We also noticed hundreds of beehives sitting off the road as we drove, clumps and clumps of them, so again consulting Google, we found out that believe it or not, ND produces more homey than any other state.  The catch is these beekeepers have to pick up all their bees in the fall and transport them, mostly to California for the winter, as they cannot survive the winter in ND.  A fountain of info, huh?

We got into Montana and spent a couple nights outside a small town of Havre, and it was the first the topography provided a little relief, it had been flat for some time.

The view from our site

We looked around the area for fishing and really couldn't find anything.  We're pretty sure we won't be coming back to this part of Montana:)  Jan drove us the next day, she jokes that it was the one day a year she gets to drive, and I have to admit I do hog it big time.  Proof.

Getting chauffeured 

Now I have to mention another, at least to us very unusual observation.  While we were at the campground in Havre, we had a small class B motorhome come in and park near us.  It was a younger couple camping with their pet.  Nowadays, most people have dogs, in fact most people have more than one dog, and we see a cat or two.  In fact in Vermont we watched one couple who traveled with 2 ferrets that they played with outside, but this couple beat the band.  They had a chicken!  They set up a pen for it, sat with it, fed it, talked to it, held it, petted it, and even had a carriage for it.  The campground had several animals themselves, burros, horses, ducks, geese, and a few chickens.  They loaded their chicken up and pushed it over so their chicken could visit with the campground's chickens.  I am not making any judgement here, I'm just saying we found it a bit different.

Talking with the chicken

Out for a walk

Bringing it back after introducing it to the other chickens

And putting it to sleep

So then yesterday after going through miles of construction that reminded us of places in Alaska we finally found the mountains, and now we are well into western Montana where we will spend the next 6 weeks or so exploring, fishing, and enjoying!

About 10 miles of dirt at 10mph

The mountains are in sight!!

Westward bound with a bit of a surprise

We left you in Buffalo where we had a great time and a lot of fun at a July 4th cookout at Joanne's parents' house and met and enjoyed some of her large family.  We tried to brave sitting outside but the record heat finally drove us inside to the AC.  

Jason took a couple of days off and took us to Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario, about an hour away.  It is located in a beautiful area of farmland, wineries, pretty homes, and is a picturesque walkaround town with tons of shops, restaurants, and parks.  Jason had been there before and was somewhat familiar with the wineries.  Jan and I honestly didn't have a lot of hope for Canadian wine.  Well it turns out some of the wine produced here is world class, and we can assure you, delicious:-)  So after tasting quite a bit and having a nice lunch we all three tried to keep the Canadian economy going, all the while enjoying the favorable exchange rate.  The car was definitely heavier on its return to the USA.

The Konzelmann Estate Winery

Jason heading into Big Head Winery

And our favorite, Ravine Vineyard

Then after one more get together the night before we left, off we dashed to Indiana for our body shop appointment.  We stopped in a campground nearby, and had asked for a pull-through site for a 45' motorhome towing when we made our reservation as we would be leaving by 6am the next morning.  We check in and head for our site and when we pull in our truck in still in the road behind us!  Jan runs back to the office, and they say, oh, and give us another site, but the problem is we can't just drive around to it, so we have to unhook, move the truck to the new site and then back and fill the coach to get pointed in the right direction and then pull in and reconnect the truck.  Not a big deal overall, but it is disappointing that in what looked to be a nice campground only half full, that they can't get a simple request correct.  Anyway we spent an uneventful evening and got off right at 6 am for our appointment.

Now just to review we had an appointment to fix, for the third time, the top of our left front wheel well, where the tire hit it during a tight left turn on a slant.  We had found out, too late unfortunately that the manufacturer for some reason built the left wheel well opening 2" lower than the right, no wonder we were having a problem.  If we had realized that we would have done a corrective repair the first time.  Anyway, we had talked to the body shop on the phone and sent pictures, and they had given us an estimate that they informed us had to be confirmed when they actually saw it, which we understood.  It was in the ball park of what we wanted to spend so we made the appointment.  They were also going to cut the lip back inside the wheel well to help mitigate the problem.  Also I should mention when we were having the new air bags installed in Florida, I had Josam's increase the ride height 1/2" in the front which we were assured wouldn't hurt anything and it appeared that the 1/2" made an incredible difference on its own.  The body shop man came out, looked everything over, moved the coach to the work site, and then, Surprise, came out with tan estimate which was WAY higher than we had talked about.  Jan and I talked and decided, especially with preliminary plans for Alaska and its bad roads next summer, to put off the repair til another time.  There were no hard feelings, but I am reluctant to name the shop as I don't want to take a chance that anyone would think they did anything wrong.  It is a quality shop that I would readily go back to.  We did have them cut the lip out and that looks like it will help a great deal as well.

It's pretty small and actually doesn't show very much

Here is a shot of the lip.  They ended up cutting about 1 inch off and
tapered it around the side so it looks like factory

You can see the taper they cut into the lip

We had planned up to 3 days in Elkhart so all of a sudden we gained the time.  We went off to breakfast to give them time to cut and we could figure out what to do.  We had wanted to go up north through Michigan and the U.P. anyway to avoid going anywhere near Chicago so now we had time!  We decided what we really wanted to do was spend the extra time in Montana.  We had wanted to go up through Michigan and the U.P. anyway to avoid going near Chicago, and now we would be able to and arrange to stop near Pierz, MN to revisit an incredible meat market, Thielen Meats of Pierz.  We used to watch a Food Network show called The Heartland Table featuring Amy Thielen that we enjoyed and when traveling through this area a few years ago visited the market and were very impressed.

Our first stop was 180 miles to a very nice resort campground in Stanwood, MI, River Ridge. The next day we go over the Mackinac Bridge and right into a detour adding over 40 miles to our already long day due to a closed road.  

The Mackinac Bridge

Under construction

We did get all the way to the west edge of Michigan and spent the night in a quiet nice campground in Iron Mountain, MI, Summer Breeze.  Then yesterday with another long day we arrived in Onamia, MN at the Rum River campground where we will stay 2 nights to get to the meat market, then another day into ND, and into Montana.  When you make these dashes from one side of the country to the other you learn it is a long way:-)

Happy 4th of July!

I know it's been quite awhile since my last post, why, well, we've been busy, busy:-)  We left you on our last night in New England on our way into New York.  First we stopped in the Adirondacks, a favorite of ours, but particularly a favorite of Jan's as she and her family spent a lot of time there while she was growing up.  We were pretty close to Lake Placid and Whiteface Mountain, while most of her time was spent farther south in Indian Lake.  The reason we stopped was twofold, one we needed a couple places to space out our drive from Vermont to Buffalo, and two, we wanted to scope out the fishing possibilities while there.  Our first stop was in a campground in Wilmington, NY, called North Pole.  It is actually 2 campgrounds in one, and even has a motel.  It is right on the Ausable River, a renowned trout water.  It was a bit tight for us, but all in all, pretty nice and very well kept.  

The Ausable right from the campground

We fought weather for our short time there, so were unable to go up Whiteface Mountain like we planned so instead took a ride way down to Indian Lake to see what had changed in all those years.  It was a beautiful ride, and we had a nice picnic, in the truck.  I know all of you that are sweltering with the heat, including us right now, will hate this, but it was too cold and windy to get out.  Indian Lake looks much the same although quite a bit quieter.

Lunch stop

Along the way

  

Even found a nice spot for coffee on the way back

And got a view of the ski jumps at Lake Placid

We only had 2 whole days and we spent one of them watching the rain fall outside and a movie inside, very relaxing.  Then went to check out the fishing spots.

Ausable River

A fisherman and his dog trying their luck

We scouted out numerous places along the river to fish for when we decide to go back to the area.  But now we needed to get back on the road and head farther west.

Our next spot was right on Lake Ontario in Adams, NY at the Willows on the Lake campground.  We had a beautiful ride through the mountains on a gorgeous day.

Even found a nice place to stop for lunch

It turned out okay, but we did have an inauspicious beginning.  First of all the turn into the campground was more than 90 degrees and had quite a drop, and came up too quickly to plan it better, so in we went and drug our rear end getting off the road.  Nothing was hurt other than the paved entrance luckily, then as we made our way into the campground, they had an incredibly tight turn to make which we were only able to negotiate by Jan getting out and moving a fence!  So with that entrance under our belt we checked in, and ended up being escorted to a very nice, huge site, surrounded by grass with a sort of view of the lake.  The entire "front" part of the campground is filled with permanent/seasonal people so it makes seeing the lake difficult.  

The campground dock on Lake Ontario

Our very nice site
and, yes, we are level even though it doesn't look like it:)

We spent yet another day in the pouring rain, but it did clear off, and we got a chance to wash our filthy motorhome and truck.  Then it was off to the Buffalo area to visit our son, Jason.

Here we are at the absolute largest "campground" we have ever been in since we started RVing over 20 years ago, Leisurewood Recreational Community.  It is enormous, over 900 sites, 3 pools, basketball, playgrounds, beach, ice cream stand, shuffleboard, well you get the idea, and hundreds of golf carts wizzing around.  I put quotes around campground because the RV's make up about 25% of the mix with park models, modified trailers, from nice to not so nice making up the rest.  It is very handy to our son, but, well, I don't know if we'd come back here.

But it's worth it for the visit.  We've enjoyed several dinners, lunches, visits, etc with Jason, his girlfriend Joanne, and her family.  We took a fantastic historical boat ride up the Buffalo River to learn about Buffalo, and had an opportunity to make a quick trip to Canada to visit our friends, Debbie and Harold.  We are having a great time here in Buffalo!

Jan, Jason, and Joanne
getting ready for our boat trip
It is over 90 degrees!

Out past the Naval and Military Park
This is the only guided missile cruiser on display in the US
the USS Little Rock

Past the oldest still operating fire boat in the world
built in 1900 the Edward M Cotter
still capable of pumping 15,000 gallons/minute!

This the Concrete Central, the largest grain elevator
in the world when built in 1915
It could hold 4.5 million bushels of grain!

So we had time for a quick jaunt into Canada to visit Debbie and Harold, part of our Florida crew.  It was about 3 hours to get to their place in Barrie, Ont, but first we met them on their boat on Lake Simcoe, a large, absolutely gorgeous lake in Ontario.  The heat has even reached up here as it was over 90 when we arrived.  They took us out for a wonderful boat ride which cooled things off nicely as we cruised around.  A fabulous time!

Harold taking us off the dock

Out on the lake with me, Debbie, Jan, and Harold

This is the beautiful view they have to put up with
right from their dock:)

We had a wonderful time, a delicious dinner, and a great visit, and the icing on the cake was the temp dropped after dinner and we enjoyed a pleasant time on their deck.  Heck, Jan and Harold even put on coats.  The next morning before it warmed up too much we did a enjoyable walk along the waterfront in Barrie.

Along the waterfront and beach

After we got back we had to bid them goodbye and head back, as we had dinner plans that evening.  Thank you guys so much!!

So later today we are going to a 4th of July get together, and enjoy a couple more days here before we shove off for Indiana and parts west.  We are having a wonderful time here in Buffalo, we are starting to understand why so many people love it here regardless of the little bit of snow they get.  Lots to do, friendly people, a small town feel in a big city, and beautiful countryside all around.

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!!