Day Nine of Western Adventures

This morning at Whitefish, MT was clear and crisp.  Bob and I were up early to walk about 20 minutes before breakfast.  No frost, but it felt like it.  We all enjoyed a very nice gourmet breakfast with fruit, juices, pastries and then a choice of hot entrée.  We hated to leave as we felt so comfortable in the Good Medicine Lodge.

This is the patio area where we enjoyed

                                                                                       snacks last evening.

  Our trip today took us south through Kalispell and on to the western side of Flathead Lake.  The lake is beautiful with the sun shining on it.                     

We continued south toward Missoula, following the Clark Fork River for a distance, then the Flathead River.  Along this river, we saw a majestic bald eagle fly right in front of us. No one was quick enough with a camera to capture his regal flight. 

 

We encountered haze from fires while we traveled Montana, but nothing like we found in Idaho and Washington State.  The smoke was so bad it irritated our eyes, nose and throat.  The fire in Wenatchee, WA is only  10 % contained and they have spent $3.4M fighting it already. We are several hours from this fire, but still can smell the smoke.

 

  Lydia and I have started to collect signs on or near a restroom door.  We dissolve into giggles over some that we have seen. We haven’t decided who the wizard is in our group.

 

We were surprised to find two Kiwanians from the Cheney, WA club operating a cookie shop in the rest stop area.  The cookies were free and then they ask for a donation to support their projects. We have never turned away any cookies.

 

 

Once we finally found our hotel in Kennewick, WA, we went down to the Columbia River for dinner.  Hard to imagine Lewis and Clark coming down this very river over 205 years ago.  The GPS drove us nuts on this hotel hunt as it would not take the address. Even though we have a few problems once in awhile, the GPS is a true technological marvel.  We actually have the GPS built in the Flex car as well as Bob’s portable one.  Sometimes they don’t agree.  We have shut the voice off of both of them. Four women in the car is way too many!! Tonight as we were about 40 miles from running out of gas, she told us where the closest gas station was.  Now, we have used her to find the closest station, but some of us had never heard her offer this bit of information without a prompt. This thing is way too smart.