A nice rendezvous and a little biding time

I left you on the Missouri River after our disappointing day.  The next day we drove over to Lakeside, MT on Flathead Lake near Kalispell.  We stayed at Edgewater RV Park where we had stayed a few years ago.  It is a nice park, very busy with the lake across the street, but quiet and dark at night.  It looks a bit like a parking lot, but it is well done and actually quite roomy as long as you don't get a shared site at the last moment.  Jan's sister Karen and hubby Tom were having their family vacation nearby and we hoped to see Karen and Tom for lunch one day when things were quiet.  Unexpectedly, we got a text inviting us to drinks and dinner with the whole gang.  They were at a stunning lakefront property with an enormous yard where we could all stretch out and distance.  We were warmly welcomed by the "kids", Jordan and Meg, Walker and Mirasol, and Steve who also served up an awesome dinner.  Thanks so much everyone for having us.

Karen meeting us with booze!
What a view, huh?

Relaxing on the lawn with Karen and Tom

Not many campgrounds allow washing of your rig, so we try to take advantage of any opportunity that arises, and Edgewater does, so we gave the coach a bath.

Don't get the idea from this picture that I did the whole job,
Jan did her normal 75%  :-)

We had tried to get a reservation at one of our favorite parks, Jim and Mary's in Missoula, but were only able to get 2 days, then had to leave for 6, then back for a week.  Before we left Lakeside we gave them a call to see if a site had opened up.  Not expecting anything we were thrilled to be able to add 2 days to our first group making 4, and able to add 1 day to our week, but we would still have to leave for 4 days, better than nothing.  This park is almost always full, they have a big sign up saying "Full for the Night", virtually every night.  So we moved south to Missoula.  

Our site at Jim and Mary's

A beautiful sky

We got a takeout pizza from Biga, one of our absolute favorites.  We took it and ate down by the Bitterroot River.  We did get to fish one day on the Blackfoot, and this time I was the one to catch a fish:-)  

We had to figure out where to go for 4 days, so with a study of the map and the campground guide we decided to go south to Grangeville, ID to the Bear Den RV Resort, only 175 miles each way.  Famous last words.  We got a fairly late start at 11am as we were waiting for a package, and then got fuel and off we went, and went and went.  From Lolo south the road never straightened, I spent the next 5 hours turning the wheel, maybe got up to 45mph, tops, 4 times!  It was beautiful, but man it never let up.

This is our simple 175 mile route

I tried to zoom in a bit to show you how windy it was

Along the river

Closer to Grangeville after climbing a huge winding hill
Lots of farming

Once we arrived, the campground roads were incredibly dusty, it was 100df outside, then the site they assigned us to had low hanging limbs and after our paint work that wasn't going to happen, so they gave us another site and to their credit they sent out a couple kids to cut the limbs, and then cut even more at the new site.  I just do not understand why these campgrounds can't keep the limbs trimmed?  It's not that hard and it causes a lot of damage.  We settled in and then woke to rain the next morning, just enough to run the dust down the sides of our recently washed rig:-(  Before you get the wrong idea, the campground is pretty nice, they call themselves a resort with no amenities, but they are working hard keeping it nice, the pull throughs are longer than we have seen, sites are roomy, but lots of light at night.  If you could find anything to do in this part of Idaho or needed to be here for some reason, this would be a nice place to stay.

About 5 years ago, we were in White Bird, ID, a tiny town about 16 miles south of us to take an awesome jet boat trip on the Snake River in Hell's Canyon, so we decided to pack a lunch, take a ride duplicating the drive to the launch site which we remembered as breathtaking, and have lunch by the river.  Quite the drive, first you go down White Bird Hill.  The new highway was constructed in 1975 to replace the old road, which straightened it somewhat and made it a bit steeper, it drops 2700' in 7 miles at a 7% gradient, it seems to just go on and on, the view is amazing.

This is the view from the top of the pass, a little hazy with the heat, 90df

Came upon this old codger at the viewpoint

You can see part of the road in this picture

The road takes you down to White Bird which has an approximate elevation of 1550' on the Salmon River, then we took a gravel road 16 miles up and across a ridge that separates the Snake River canyon from the Salmon River canyon at about 4600', then back down to the Snake at about 1150'.  Quite the drive!  

Starting at the Salmon in White Bird

The view from the ridge with the Snake way, way down in front of us

Then the amazing Snake River

Our picnic wasn't quite what we hoped for, we couldn't see the river from where we ate in the little bit of shade we found, but since it was 99df, we felt the shade trumped the river:-)

It is pretty here in the high farmland with mountains in the distance, but we can't really figure out why you'd come here.  We must be missing something because the campground is essentially full.  We are going to kill one more day here and then it's back to Missoula for us.

The view from our walk this am

Very pretty

Now I will say that when we go back to Missoula tomorrow, we won't be taking RT 12.  We are actually going to head directly north and join the interstate a little east of Coeur d'Alene, it will be a bit longer, 319 vs 175, but I'll bet we get there faster:-)

Over to the Mighty Mo

Before we left Dewey, MT on the Big Hole we decided to take a drive over to Ennis, one of our favorite Montana spots, and where we will be for 3 weeks later in August.  It was a beautiful day, and the icing on the cake was stopping in at their fabulous meat market, Deemos.

Beautiful day!

I guess driving cattle down the roads is normal out here

We had to drive around town to see what was happening while we were there.

I'll bet they aren't like this in deer season:-)

Then we had to stop on the way back for coffee, tried to find a spot with a view, very hard to do in these parts:-)

Looking down on the Madison Valley above Ennis

The next morning we drove up to Cascade, MT, a tiny town on the Missouri River, went to the same campground as last year, Prewett Creek, a small but nice place to stay across the road from the river with stunning views in a small canyon.  We went to look over the river and even wet our lines a bit, stopped into a fly shop to inquire about a float trip.

Jan fishing the Mighty Mo

Now as I mentioned in the last post, we, read me more than Jan, was having a little trepidation about a float trip with the virus around.  We asked around and we observed that basically nothing unusual except for some extra cleaning was happening with the floats, and that was proven as we watched countless drift boats with guides going by looking exactly as they ever looked.  I went back and forth, and finally decided that 8+ hours with a guide 3 feet from each of us wasn't going to cut it right now.  So we decided to chew on it for a bit.

We drove up to Great Falls to get some groceries and a pizza for lunch which we ate overlooking the river in a park.  Then the next day we took a ride up north of Cascade to a cute little town called Augusta, and what a nice ride!

Incredible scenery

What a day!

You can see why they call it Big Sky country

And of course, our stop for coffee

We decided what we would do instead of a guided float was rent a drift boat for the day, and have our truck and trailer shuttled from our put-in spot to our take-out spot.  After all, how hard could it be, we've watched many guides do it effortlessly.  So we picked up the boat the evening before so we could get an early start.  We planned to float about 12 miles.  

Our boat

Thankfully I watched a YouTube video on the basics of rowing a drift boat.  We got in the river at 0630 am, and dug in the oars and off we went.  And found out almost immediately that rowing a boat in current you can't out row is much more difficult than you think and counterintuitive.  As I said thank you YouTube video.  So after awhile we got the gist of it.  We shared the rowing so the other one could fish.

Ooooh, this is harder than it looked

How pretty is this?

Here fishy, fishy, fishy

Now we were on the river until 330pm, and we also found out that the only time you aren't rowing is when you are anchored along the side having coffee, lunch, changing flies, etc.  Yeah, we felt it.  And we also found out the very sedate river that we drove along so many times actually had several areas of rapids that you couldn't see from the road.  Yes, we survived.  Let me explain just a little bit about this rowing deal, since you can't just veer away from trouble, a rock, an eddy, a rapid, etc, you have to intentionally put the bow right at the obstacle and then row hard at 45 degrees across the current away from it, sounds easy enough writing it, but I'll tell you it is very hard to intentionally turn the boat towards the problem first so as to avoid it.

It was beautiful though

I will mention another thing.  We fished hard for all that time.  We used all the suggested flies from the shop, we used everything we could think of, we dry fly fished, we nymphed, we tried a hopper and a dropper combo and how many fish did we catch?  NOT EVEN ONE!

Trying yet another fly

She had to work at it, but Jan is still smiling

I'm not saying we won't ever rent a drift boat again, but if our goal is solely fishing, one way or the other we will be with a guide with him rowing, managing our flies, and trying to find the fish:-)

A Very Rare Experience With a Happy Ending

We are now in the middle of somewhat of a challenge for Jan and I.  Many folks boondock all the time, but for us it is a rare, but welcome situation.  To truly boondock means no hook ups at all, you are self sufficient, no electric, no water, no sewer.  And for a few days it is no problem, and is welcome because it usually means we are in a pristine secluded spot.  And for us it is the waste that is the challenge.  We have plenty of electric power, lots of battery capacity, 900 amp hours with AGM batteries, and a very capable generator that can power everything on the coach.  100 gallons of water, plenty for at least a week or more. But that brings us to our weakness, we have 56 gallons of gray and 56 gallons of black capacity.  The black is no problem, it lasts more than a week when we are just living normally, it's the gray that gives us a challenge.  Even so we can get by for almost a week with navy showers and real care in using any water.  What we didn't realize until we were in the midst of it, we had somehow planned ourselves into 16 days with no sewer hook up!  Now I will admit we had dump stations available, and that's fine when you are planning to move anyway, but not so convenient when you have to move to one in the midst of your time somewhere.  We ended up with 8 days in a row in Picabo, ID, and I will admit since it is gray water we are talking about, sink water, shower water, etc, we may have had a small leak.  Then we dumped on the way out of there for our next 4 days in North Fork, ID, expecting to dump there on our way out and then 4 more days at Dewey, MT and then dump when we got to Cascade, MT at a full hook up campground.  So that was the plan.

We left Picabo after dumping our tanks thoroughly and headed north going through the Craters of the Moon National Monument, then Arco, Challis, Salmon to our next campground, Wagonhammer on a side channel of the Salmon River.  The scenery was awesome.  As we drove up the road we saw something way ahead of us we couldn't make out.  We were on one of those straight stretches out west that goes for miles and miles, as we drew closer, we saw cars and RV's stopped on the road for what, a cattle drive right down the road!

Quite a traffic jam in the middle of nowhere!

They didn't look very happy

The whole family was participating:-)

Mom and the dogs too

So after an interesting pause, we continued up the road.  The scenery was fantastic.

An interesting canyon along the way

We arrived at Wagonhammer and pulled in to check in.  Then we were escorted to our pull in site right on a section of the Salmon River, long sites, but a bit narrow, easily handled as it appeared except for one 5th who looked to be sharing a site with a motorhome, all were motorhomes so everyone's living side was on the same side.  Just water and electric but we already knew that.  Jan as she was walking around ran into a person who highly recommended that we explore a road that followed the Salmon River for 45 miles, half paved and half dirt.

The next morning we took off, the road began just a couple miles north of the campground.  Right off the bat we saw these two eagles.

Looking for breakfast?

The road by definition following along the river was windy, and got continually narrower.  Halfway in it turned to dirt and then really got narrow, in many places only one lane wide, thankfully there was little traffic.  The river hosts a lot of raft travel, recreational one day trips and also many day, overnight trips.  We also came upon many Big Horn Sheep, the canyon is made for them, high rocky sides, with lots of trees and grass, and of course the river.

They were everywhere

About halfway in, the Middle Fork of the Salmon River joined up.

And the road got narrower

We came upon, obviously a very popular take out point, first clue was about 30 vehicles, mostly with trailers parked on both sides of the road.  Then up around a corner and we could see why.

No, we didn't see any sign of social distancing either

We finally found the end of the road, 45 miles from the junction, both of us wondering why the road was even built, a question we never got an answer to.  We had a nice picnic lunch on a table in the campground there and were visited by a bunch of sheep, patrolling through for food, didn't care too much about us being there.

This scraggly guy came right up to us
We had a short conversation and he left

So after a great day sightseeing we drove back to the campground and as we drove up to our site, they were backing a huge 5th in right next to us on our living side, the passenger side.  Like I said pull in sites are usually set aside for motorhomes only, because now we are door to door with this 5th, with his living side on the other side of him, it's like he has two sites, ours and his.  Also the way the electric and water hook ups are, he has to run his cord and hose under and across to the other side to attach.  Wow!  We figured we'd put up with it for another 3 nights, how bad could it be?  But when they pulled out their 3 acre dog park and set it up right in front of our door for their 3 dogs, I had had enough, and off to the office I went.  

You can see what was a very nice site, with the dog fence
and the back of the 5th next door, or should I say at our door

I want to interject one other thing here first.  As I mentioned earlier, every campground we have ever been to, and that is a lot, offer dump stations to guests of the park, and some even charge for outsiders to come in and use their dump station.  Now when Jan and I drove out of the park in the morning to sightsee we saw a sign at their dump station saying $10/dump?

So with all this in mind I went to the office, asked why they put a 5th in backwards in a pull in site, cutting off what little room we already had, and they said they do it all the time.  Then I mentioned the 3 acre dog park right outside my door and they said, oh well, happens sometimes.  I start to boil, then I ask about the $10 fee for a dump, that's for outsiders, right?  Oh no that is for anyone, and you already knew that when you came.  I said what!  How would I know about that?  Your confirming email said so.  I said I don't think so.  Yes it did, they said!  Now also I should mention, there is NO cell service at this park, so I can't pull up the email on my phone, but I tell them I am going back to my coach and going to get it.  Okay, fine.  So I get it and bring it back and it of course has no info on the dump fee, understand this is not about the money, it is about the principle of hiding this info.  I said the email doesn't mention it, the sheet of rules you gave us doesn't mention it, and when my wife checked in no-one mentioned it.  It is misleading at best, they just said oh well, if it is that important to you then we'll waive the fee, and by the way there is a free dump station 2 miles up the road.  Then I asked again, are you going to do anything about the dog park directly out my door?  Nope, you live with it.  Those of you who know me realize I am burning by now, I say this is what we are going to do, it is too late to leave tonight, but we are leaving in the morning, cutting this visit by 2 days, you should refund me the money, but regardless we are leaving.  They then said you do know we have a no refund policy for June, July, and August.  I said how would I know that?  It's on our website.  Interesting I say if I had ever looked at your website, I looked you up in Trailer Life, called you and made a reservation, and never was I told you charged for a dump, or that you had a no refund policy.  Too bad, was their response.  She did say at the end she would refund our 2 nights, which she did do.  We will never go back to this park.  They are running a sham on people and don't care.

So after negotiating the dog park for the evening we left in the morning, and drove up the road the stated 2 miles to find the free dump station, and what do you know, we couldn't find it!  We were still disconnected thankfully, so Jan took off in the truck to see if she could find it.  Instead of the 2 miles we were told she went on up the road another 4 miles, no dice.  She came back and then since we didn't know what else to do she took a look on an intersecting road, and sure enough another 2 miles up that road she found it.  Just one more misleading statement from the campground.  So we got dumped and thought, so where are we going to go?  Well, we crossed our fingers and headed towards our next stop along the Big Hole River in Montana, and hoped there would be an open site in this awesome boon dock fishing access location we had stayed in last year, Fishtrap.  Well, hooray, things do work out for the best, we drove down in and found the ideal spot, directly on the river, and only 2 other people there, far away from us.  Fantastic!!!

Is this awesome or what?

A view from up the hill!

So we spent a glorious 3 nights here, fished every day, Jan caught a few more, not me though, are you starting to see the trend here:-)

Misty morning

Sun just cutting through

Jan fishing down river

One of her catches

So in the end everything worked out for the best.  We experienced 3 days at a fantastic spot, private, quiet, dark, lovely.  We got through our challenge of 16 days without sewer, in fact as we sit here at the next campground, Hyde Park, we still have one day to go, but all is well.  So even with the terrible time we had in North Fork, it all worked out beautifully.

Cocktails beside the Big Hole

Two very happy campers!

Tomorrow, we leave the Big Hole and go up to Cascade, MT on the Missouri River.  We are still trying to decide with the Covid whether or not to take a float trip.  Last year when we did it, we both vowed to come back and try again for the massive trout in the Mighty Mo, but now.....?  We'll see.

Cheers from Dewey, Montana
Boy, sure looks like we drink a lot:-)