goodbye to Donnelly!

Well, we are pretty sure today or tomorrow will be our last in Donnelly! We are looking forward to being in town again. Near to the store and walking distance to the library, lake, and groceries!

Gavin has put a hole in another bike tire, which mainly speaks to how much use the tires are getting! So, walking it will be, until we replace the tire! The condo is clearly a rental and in need of some love, or new decor. I am not too worried about that thou, just looking forward to the full size fridge & stove, even if they are jammed into a galley of a kitchen! Alexa is already planning the meals, and baking!

We wandered about a bit this morning, taking some pictures of Donnelly and historic Roseberry, just down the road. There are lovely farms and old broken buildings that just call to me! I will share them here. But, we had a small campfire last eve to enjoy some s'mores. And even thou the words I hear most from my kids is "no pictures" if my camera is handy, well, I took some anyway!

we kept the water handy, definitely did not want to start a wildfire!

old farms in historic Roseberry

pictures from the Trail that runs along the side of the campground

and at the end of the trail 

and lastly, my most favorite 

"household upgrades"

Well, even though we are thinking, hoping to get into a little condo this week; I thought I would share some of the "household" upgrades that have happened to make our little camper a wee bit roomier! We are all familiar with Cliff, right? His need to "deco-range"? Alexa came up with that word when she was, maybe 3? And it is the perfect term for her daddy's need to move all furnishings, entire rooms at times! Well, he has been challenged in this little camper, but he has managed to do a bit, here and there!

he added a cross bar over the tub, to hang the scrubs! And you can barely see the shoe holder on the "outside" of the curtain? That has been a life saver that was found on a web site. The bathroom has a little tub and toilet, that is it! So, his cross bar is half over the tub and over the toilet. Aside from insta-closet, I hang the mostly dry face cloth or whatever over the toilet to finish drying. very handy!

He added a shelf in this cupboard to double the space, and the one above it as well. In fact I think he has added 4 shelves to quadruple food/ dinnerware storage. It is not easy when everything balances on the first thing you put in there! This was a life saver!

Two of those are side shelves, for the little food things that can get lost at the bottom!

He also changed the orientation of the legs on the table, so it fits sideways. We rarely all sit at the table, when there is a bigger one just outside, under the awning, but this little change has added a "passing lane" in the single file hallway! True brilliance, and I never would have thought of it!

This may have been his best idea! But, he had to enlist some help to make this one happen! Gramma came to the rescue! Shortening and sewing 2 shower curtains to provide each of the kids with a privacy curtain. It is not needed often, but they both know that a closed curtain means leave me alone! And really, it is a nice touch, because those bunks can end up as a catch all for a lot of stuff! And I can hide it!

We are trying to find a rhythm that works for us. It was great to have so much time together as a family, but now Cliff is working 4 nights in a row. That is hard for him and for us! The kids and I spent several hours in McCall to stay out of the camper and allow him to sleep. We walked around downtown (5 minutes!); had a little treat, went back to the truck for our swim stuff, and hung out at the lake for several hours with a picnic lunch. But the lake is still kind of cold, and even with boogie boards, Alexa was bored pretty quickly, and the sun was hot! It has been surprisingly warm here from mid am until 10pm-ish, then blissfully cool at night!

So, I am having a bit of difficulty adapting to the much smaller living space! The tiny fridge, lack of air movement, and noisiness of the A/C! So, we are doing a search for a rental in McCall, get back into town, where we can bike anywhere, literally, and have options like playgrounds etc for the kids. We do have biking and the tennis courts here, but it is too hot to really enjoy those for most of the day!

So, hopefully we can look at a rental on monday- there is one that will be available as of tuesday, and even though almost anything is bigger than the camper, we don't want to jump without checking it out!

views from the lake today!

Glacier National Park!

WoW!!!
So, Glacier is vey different from Yellowstone! There are much fewer roads, and to me, that makes it more animal friendly, but you have a smaller chance of viewing the animals as well!
Logan Pass, which crosses the Continental Divide, still has a lot of snow, like folks are still alpine skiing here! The parking lot was full, so we drove further down and stopped at the Mount Oberlin Pass; with a short boardwalk that gave us a view of the Going to the Sun Road, which is the only east/west road in the park, very impressive!

photo by Alexa ~ St Mary Lake

We spent our first night at Two Medicine campground, and saw 1 lone mountain goat at Goat Lick Pass. While there we heard a Ranger Campfire talk, led by a Blackfeet Indian, who told stories and showed us some Indian sign language, she is a young college girl who attends Columbia University in NYC; Mariah.

fishing at Two Medicine Creek

no, the kayaks are not ours!

view from Two Medicine Campground

Then we traveled on to Many Glacier campground. There was a Ranger with a spotting scope, but sadly there was nothing to view. We did a strenuous 1 mile hike that climbed 700 feet to Apkuni Falls. It was an amazing view and we all were exhausted and dirty!

After crossing the park today, we learned that severe weather watches were in place until 9pm, and we had a family decision to make. Even Gav stated, I don't want a shower, but I know I need one! So, a hotel it is for tonight! Even though I slept very well on the air mattress, Cliff did not. So, a goodnight sleep for the driver is a good idea as well!

moose~ as we were leaving Many Glacier this morning

views from the Going To The Sun Road, so many waterfalls!

the Weeping Wall

Mountain Goat at Mount Oberlin Pass, can you see him just beyond Gavin in the picture below? He is lying down and his head is just above the branch. He was that close!

a farewell shot of Glacier National Park!

I am sharing a LOT of photos! I cannot chose, so I am going to post many! Alexa took the photos of the mountain goats!

The kids completed the Jr Ranger program, again! What a great trip!

Whitefish Mountain Resort

Hi from Montana!

Well, Whitefish Mountain is pretty great! We arrived at 4 in the afternoon, as soon as we could check in! There is a pool, the usual Alexa requirement! But it is chilly, even if it is indoors! But they still enjoyed a swim last eve. It is nearly a full moon, and the view from the balcony is lovely!

We were told today that there is a wildfire burning in eastern Washington, just outside of Spokane, but we had not noticed that yesterday morning when we drove away!

Today we started with the 7 zip line tour, which was awesome! On 2 of the lines they put stones in Gav & Alexa's harnesses to help them get to the end, 300 feet away! They were both as cool as a cucumber! Loved every minute!

She's just relaxing, and can you see the  view, and no sign of a landing platform, nope she was not in the least concerned!

Gavin made it the end every time, but Alexa needed to be pulled in once, and she did a great job following the instructions for that as well!

Then we rode the lift chair to the top of Big Mountain to check out the overall view and have a bite to eat in the restaurant.

We recommend this type of adventure, if you get the chance!

On to Glacier tomorrow!

Hi All,
We are staying in Spokane tonight, we will head to Whitefish Mountain, Montana tomorrow.

We got both the kids climbing harnesses today and added another state to their list!

I was amazed at the farm country and rolling hills in eastern Washington!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!

We are doing crafts with new friends and playing badminton today. We put the badminton net up this morning, and plan for that to stay up for the duration! 

We were lucky enough to score 2 nice tennis racquets yesterday at the thrift store too! There are tennis courts about 50 feet from the entrance to the RV park,yeah!

Cliff & I biked the path behind our site this morning, it was not an easy bike, but it will be nice to work up to it!

Well, the internet would not allow me to post this yesterday! So, even though it is late, still hoping everyone had a great day yesterday!

It looks like today will be another beautiful day in the mountains!

Chalet Park, Donnelly Idaho

Hi from Donnelly!
This is a very different campground, much less expensive and it shows in every nook and cranny! Especially, no pool! 
We did go out to find a swimming spot yesterday for that very reason, and it is in the 80's and 90's, with no rain predicted for a week! I believe summer has finally found the mountain!
I took some pictures of the new home site ::

Even though the sites are tight,  it has been much quieter here than at McCall!

We do have a little postage stamp of yard in the back and our neighbors that you can see here are a bit of a corner spot that backs up to a creek. There actually is a lovely view in the back ::

Beyond the fence is an over grown section, then a walking trail, but we have to cross rt 55 to get to an access point, then a cow pasture, we can smell when they spend any time nearby, maybe daily, but I enjoy hearing them!

And those neighbors I pointed out, we have not yet seen in the 2 days we have been here, I might nominate them for best neighbors ever! The owner says they are "2 young men here until the end of July performing a raptor study." Based on the age and condition of the camper & truck, I am thinking they are on a shoestring budget and working hard!

This is the swimming spot, the water is cold!!!

You know you're in the mountains when the kids are swimming but you can look up and see snow capped mountains! And it was not crowded, yeah!!

Have a happy and safe fourth! Thank you so much for the comments! It makes me feel great that folks are staying in touch!