Days 15 and 16

Thursday July 1

Today was a laid back one. We slept in (or at least we tried to-we were all awake by 8:30). After a breakfast of mangled instant pancakes and tea, we drove to a picnic area on Lake McDonald, set up chairs, and read for 45 minutes or so. Then we headed out to see how the other half lived. We drove to the private KOA campground just outside the park to avail ourselves of the $5 showers. We also inspected their pool and hot tub. The campers there are not exactly roughing it. The National Park Service has got to figure out how to squeeze some of those into the national parks.

We had lunch in the same restaurant in which we had our Amish encounter on Tuesday. In keeping with my pledge, we left the camera in the car so as to avoid temptation.

We then drove to Whitefish to go zip lining. Zip lining involves attaching oneself to a cable using a pulley and then sliding on the cable down a mountain. It was fun. I think we went about 40-50mph. One of the lines was suspended over 100 feet from the ground. However, you’re going so fast that you don’t realize how high you are (at least I didn’t). The “tour” involved four different lines and took the better part of the later afternoon. The girls especially seemed to enjoy it. However, I think they’ve cottoned on to the fact that any moment spent doing anything other than hiking is one in which hiking is not an option and thus, is inherently a good one.

After zip lining, we had dinner at the lodge in Glacier Park. It was too late to cook for ourselves so we decided to have a nice relaxed dinner for our last night in the park.

Friday July 2

Today was a big travel day. We drove 550 miles from Glacier National Park to Seattle.


It started with me waking up in our tent at 6AM. I remember lying there and thinking about the day ahead and about how much of a pain breaking up camp was going to be with two half awake, grumpy daughters helping. I distinctly remember thinking that at least the weather seemed to be holding. Then it started to rain. I’m not kidding. The one thing I didn’t want to have to deal with was breaking up camp in the rain. Oh well, such is life. Actually, our weather has been pretty good. We did have the high winds in Teddy Roosevelt National Park and a few cold days in Yellowstone National Park but aside from that it has been good. Luckily, since our tent is so big, much of the work (putting the sleeping bags and air mattresses into their sacks, folding up clothes, gathering the books, lanterns, and games, etc.) could comfortably be done inside the tent. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the rest of it. All in all, it was a pretty grim affair.

The rain spoiled my plan of having breakfast at the campsite so we stopped to eat about a half hour after leaving. In a moment of collective weakness, we stopped at an IHOP. Generally, I like IHOPs but this one did NOT hit the spot. In addition to the food being disappointing, we had broken our code and stopped at a chain.

Following breakfast we drove, and drove, and drove. And drove. We drove through the rain. We drove through some sun. Mostly it was gloomy. We drove through Montana, then Idaho, then Washington. We listened to Harry Potter. Disc, after disc, after disc. Oh yeah, we also listened to Glee. We saw a black bear sitting right by the road in Montana. It was weird. I thought it might be a joke, some type of carving or something but we did a U turn (we were on a secondary road) and came back and he was still there. Just as we got the camera out a semi roared by and scared him off.

In keeping with our habit of trying to stop at roadside stands, we bought some beef jerky, cherries, blueberries, and a huckleberry milkshake. The culinary highlight of our day though was getting French fries in Idaho. Carson had decided (not unreasonably) that we should have potatoes while in Idaho. Since we’re eating healthily, we decided to get some French fries. I thought that Coeur D’Alene might be the best place to stop since it was the biggest town we’d be going through. So we get off in Coeur D’Alene hoping that in addition to its abundance of white supremacists, doomsdayers, and survivalists, it might also have some quality French fries (again not an unreasonable assumption). We hit a lot of traffic heading downtown (or perhaps we hit a little bit of traffic that seemed like an awful lot since I was in crucial need of a bathroom). We stopped at the visitor’s center and asked where we could get some great fries. The guy behind the desk seemed bewildered by our quest. (His nametag identified him as a volunteer, which I think is unfair. It’s like watching little league baseball. You really can’t boo. How can one berate a volunteer under these circumstances? But he deserved a berating. Oh he deserved one.) He recommended McDonald’s. When I told him we were dead set against chains (at least after the IHOP incident), he recommended Zips (which we had passed on the way in). I told him that Zips looked a bit chainey to me. He then said “oh yeah, well it’s a chain.” I told him that we didn’t want a chain. Then he recommended Hudson’s Hamburgers. After reviewing the chain concept again with him and receiving assurances that it most definitely was not a chain, the girls and I set off with visions of Idaho French fried potatoes in our mind’s eye. Upon our arrival, we discovered that Hudson’s serves only burgers. It doesn’t serve any other type of food, including fries. By now I was apoplectic (and I had to go the bathroom again). I also had to decide whether to drive back to the visitor’s center to berate the old codger, volunteer or not. Seeing my day draining away and with over 300 miles left to drive, I decided to leave him be. Luckily, on the way back to the freeway we passed Rogers Ice Cream and Burgers, which served us up some very satisfactory French fries.

We rolled into Washington not long after with the sweet and satisfied gushing of French fries in our bellies. By now, the landscape had altered dramatically. Gone were the mountains and hills of Montana and Idaho. In their place was a flat deserty vista of pale yellow grass, scrub brush and sage. It’s quite a dramatic shift heading into Eastern Washington. Between the flora and the badlands-esque rock formations, we thought we were back in North Dakota. This landscape held until we crossed the Columbia River and reached the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. I was very excited about crossing the Columbia. It’s a quintessentially western river. You don’t mess around with it. Next we humped over the Cascade Mountains, which were wrapped in clouds. The land changed again as we sped down their western slope. By now green was the operative color. It was green grass and trees (and high tides) all the way to Seattle.

While in Seattle, we’re staying in someone’s home. It’s kind of like a bed and breakfast. I found the place through airbnb.com. The people whose house it is seemed really nice. It’s inexpensive and is in a great neighborhood just across Elliot Bay from downtown. So after tracking down the house, quieting the dog, and meeting the owner, we unpacked. The owner seems super nice. After a few minutes of chit chat, the kids and I went to a local restaurant right on the water, watched the sunset, and went to bed.