Friday/Saturday....10/21&22 Horsethief Campground and Moab Area

We've rather accidentally stumbled on a great campground here southwest of Moab, on the road to Canyonlands NP. We will be here for three nights - a night longer than anywhere else we've stopped on this trip. No services to speak of (there are restrooms for those that want them) but, again, we are independent and don't really need them. Our campsite, #15, is just across the small campground road to a great trail for Molly, where she can run freely off leash. The sun sets on the port side of toutou and rises on the starboard. Terrific spot!

Thursday was spent in Canyonlands, with a couple of cool hikes to amazing viewpoints. Today (Friday) we are going to visit Dead Horse State Park, adjacent to Canyonlands NP, but run by the state of Utah. Dogs can hike with you there. Then we'll drive into town to provision one last time, dump our dirty water and take on fresh, and hike a hike all three of us enjoyed two falls ago just outside Moab. I suspect there might be an unscheduled stop at the wonderful Moab Brewery as well...

A side note: I'm reading a biography of Wes Powell, as I mentioned a few blogs ago (a great read if you enjoyed his famous journal from 1867). Interestingly, I am at the part of the book where Powell's group is navigating the Green River as it approaches the confluence with the Colorado - exactly our location today!


Later Friday: we did indeed have a great hike at Dead Horse Point....great view of the meandering Colorado from the point. It is a dark green at the moment, rather than the chocolate brown I'm used to - unsure why. Looks more like the Green River.....

Lunch consisted of great hamburgers at the brewery, with a more-than-pleasing pilsner. Back in camp now, reading, and watching the sun set. Tomorrow, Saturday - our final day before driving home - will be spent hiking in the morning at Arches National Park, and, after lunch, a repeat of the Slickrock hike we so enjoyed with Molly the first afternoon we arrived here.....

Saturday Afternoon: nice hiking this AM in Arches, at Windows. Lunch at Devil's Garden, deep into the park. Siesta after lunch for Molly and me, while Amy went on a hike....will head back into Moab and go to Slickrock for a family hike before heading back to Horsethief for our last night on the road - four weeks, exactly......it's been fantastic! We've enjoyed it so much that we're thinking of coming down to southeast Utah and Lake Powell in November for a week....

Sunday: home safe and sound. Almost 5,000 miles covered and 140 hours of drivng over four weeks. And an incalculable amount of fun!!!!

Thursday, 10/20....Moab, UT

We spent a night at Jordanelle State Park out side of SLC, which sits aside a very pretty resevoir...

....then  drove onto Moab for the final leg of our trip...sunny and 65, it feels really good! As anyone who has been through this part of Utah can attest, this is a great spot. When we arrived, we went directly to Slickrock for a healthy hike with Molly - dogs can run free!

Had dinner in town at Desert Bistro, which was excellent. Halfway through our meal, who walks in but a couple who used to live in Mountain Star, Kim and Alison Knapp! Small world....they are doing fine and send regards to everyone back there.

We are camping for three nights at Horse Thief Campground, between the town of Moab and Canyonlands NP. Spent the morning at Canyonlands hiking, and had lunch outside overlooking the Green and Colorado Rivers.

For you river lovers, the Green empties into the Colorado nearby - the confluence is not able to be seen without some significant hiking....it was the Green River that John Wesley Powell put into north of here in the late nineteenth century, and then he travelled down the Colorado, mapping the Colorado River Basin for the first time. The pic directly below is of the gorge the Colorado runs within....the second pic is of the Green - the two rivers at this point are just a couple of miles from meeting....

Sunday, 10/16....Craters of the Moon

Awoke in Salmon, ID, not fifty yards from the swift-flowing Salmon River (in Lewis and Clark's day, were there salmon in this river???? Something to ask Siri later)....broke camp thinking we'd stop at the Saveway (yes, with a "v") grocery store on our way south, but it was closed (Sunday - some traditions die hard).....had lunch in a lovely little park in Arco where Molly could run herself ragged...sunny weather, so our plan to try to avoid the strong Pacific storm has succeeded, so far....

Pulled into Crater of the Moon National Monument - we'd driven past this desolate place in 1978 when we were out west for a winter visiting various ski resorts...but it is a wonderful spot to stop, and learn about volcanic activity here in the west (some as recent as two thousand years ago).....took a couple of nice but short interpretive hikes (Molly violating both the leash rule and and the one banning her hiking with us)....there is no grass here, only lava and eroded lava (cinder-like), but she eventually figured out it was ok to use that type of natural surface for her business....

Dinner was Osso Buco, potato gratin and green beans - really delicious! Dinner is a great time here on toutou, with jazz, candlelight (ok, electric candlelight for safety), good food and wine, and lively discussion about the day's events - both from here on the road, as well as events of more import like elections.....Amy does the clean-up while Molly and I relax, then we all go for a nightly walk, taking the garbage out along the way....before turning out the lights for the night (around 9:30 or 10), there is a little internet surfing (if we have service), or bedtime reading (which I did tonight, as we have no service here in the park)....reading a biography of John Wesley Powell. The 30 mph winds (associated with the storm, I guess) gently rocked our home, and us, to sleep....

Speaking of reading, since we drive a few hours each day, Amy has developed a liking, and a real skill, of reading a book out loud. The Big Sky is the book of the trip, and the action takes place in Wyoming, and, largely, Montana. It's a wonderful story of the days when trappers and explorers and mountain men and native Americans criss-crossed this great part of our country...it's always fun to come across a passage in the book that takes place where we are at the moment, or perhaps have been recently....

On to Salt Lake City in the morning - and civilization! Amy needs to replace her iPhone, we need provisions, and to do laundry...hope to visit the Temple and Tabernacle, as well, which I remember as being majestic....oh, and we have a rezzy at a nice Italian restaurant Monday night! After that, we plan to head to Canyonlands and Arches NPs, then, eventually, home next Sunday....

Saturday, 10/15......Bigfork MT to Salmon ID.....

Really a nice couple of days....Bigfork and Flathead Lake were a real treat....largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi....Bigfork's a cute little town....and the lake is stunningly beautiful.

Ate at ShowThyme, a restaurant owned and run by Blu, who, until 27 years ago(!), owned Blu's in Vail....a really nice man and good chef to boot! Had a wonderful dinner at his cute spot in Bigfork....

It's been cloudy but no rain to speak of, as we are trying to avoid it...four hour drive to Salmon, Idaho, where we are spending the night. Nice little town on the Salmon River - at a spot Lewis and Clarke explored in 1805.... the Bitterroot Mountains rise above the town, providing the border between Idaho and Montana, as well as representing the Continental Divide....

Tomorrow we will continue south to Crater of the Moon National Monument and Reserve, where we'll camp for the night. It will begin our fourth week on the road...other than starting to run low on food and wine, I think we could continue for another few weeks! We'll be in the vicinity of Salt Lake City on Monday and Tuesday, so maybe we can re-provision a bit....Amy's phone is dying, so we may stop at an Apple store in SLC to get her a new one....

Thursday, 10/13.....Glacier National Park, East Glacier

Wonderful campsite last night....nice restful sleep, and awoke to some clouds - an advance effect of an approaching  storm, I'm afraid....given the decent weather, we drove to the east side of the park, and what an incredible day we had! The storm that is approaching threw high winds, low cloud cover, and some intermittent showers at us, but we still had a wonderful day. Lunch was at Many Glacier, and Swiftcurrent Lake, where we had winds gusting to 50mph. Vid attached to email. Pic below.

After lunch we drove to St Mary's Lake, and had a lovely hike to St. Mary's Falls. Vid attached to email. Pics below. An illegal hike, to be sure, as Molly came with us, off leash - two violations! Beautiful vistas of peaks shrouded in clouds. Snow as well, on the ground from a prior storm. Temps were in the high 40s. Great hike.

Then back to camp here in Apgar, on the west side of the park. Meatloaf for dinner, yummy. Off to Whitefish in the morning, and to Bigfork on Flathead Lake that evening - having dinner at ShowThyme, whose owner owned Blu's in Vail. The restaurant has a reputation for great food and wine. Looking forward to it! Then we are going to re-evaluate the rest of our trip based on the storm. We were planning a visit with dear friends in Bozeman - they needed to cancel based on poor flying conditions for his plane on Sunday, which makes TOTAL sense. And we were planning a visit to the north part of Yellowstone NP after that, which we missed earlier in the trip, but the forecast is for snow and sub-freezing temps - we'll come back another time, thank you! Once again, it's great to be able to be flexible in the RV....

Wednesday, 10/12....onto Glacier National Park

We were lucky yesterday to find a great woman at her laundromat in Nelson, willing to do our laundry! Left us free to further explore the town, and still have all fresh clothes for the final leg of our trip. Travel day today from Nelson - which we really enjoyed and would love to get back to again - to Whitefish, MT and onto Glacier National Park around sundown

We drove through Whitefish, as it was getting late, as we wanted to be sure to get to the campsite at Glacier NP (Agpar Campground, at the West Entrance) before sundown. Arrived in plenty of time. Most of the park's services are closed down for the winter, but this campground is open, with "primitive"services. We don't really need any services, as we are independent when we want to be!!! There are a few people in tents, an RV or two, but basically it feels deserted - which is really a wonderfully feeling. Right on McDonald Lake, one of the park's treasures. I did take a short video burst that I'll send along with the email link....we parked at the closed McDonald Lodge, and saw the sunset there - glorious! Then back to the campground for the night.

The campground has cell service which is really wonderful to have. Love keeping up on all of the political dramas!

Life this time of night in toutou is great - Molly has had her dinner and is napping, and Amy and I are in different parts of the RV on our iPads. Jazz via Pandora is on, the wine is flowing, it's toasty in here despite it being around 40 degrees outside. Dinner is heating up. Having chicken tonight, and a great Turley Zin '08.

Before we began this month-long trip, I thought we'd need to get off toutou mid-way, rent a nice big condo and spread out a bit. But, I haven't felt that urge to at all. It's really a terrific feeling to be self-contained, and I haven't noticed a need for "more space" at all.

We have one more dry day before the next storm comes through....we'll get out and hike a hit tomorrow.....

Monday, 10/10....Nelson, British Columbia

Another cloudy, cool and drizzly morning, so it was good to get moving on our way to Canada. Have been looking to visit Nelson since the movie "Roxanne" was out decades ago (it was shot there)....passing over the border was a non-event....the setting for Nelson is truly remarkable: mountains on all sides, surrounding the gorgeous Lake Kootenay, as well as the town, which sits at the lake's edge. It will be a wonderful place to which to move if Trump gets elected.....

Thought you might like a look at one of this morning's  activities, as it is most days - taking on fresh water:

The campsite we had was terrific, and the Idaho state park named Farragut is really well-mantained and beautiful. Named after an admiral in the Civil War....the drive from there to Nelson was a couple of hours.

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, and we are going out to Bibo, one of the town's renowned restaurants. I know they have some specials planned - not sure if turkey is one of them or not!