Day 24 - Woods Bay and Kalispell

Woods Bay, 82 miles total and 28.5 mpg. Totals for the trip, 3864 miles, 26.4* mpg. Those are the stats.


While Doug was sleeping in, Sally-Heath took pen in hand to describe Tuesday.

Today was different! We awoke to clouds … we have had bright blue big skies up to now. Flathead Lake was choppy and grey and we couldn’t see to the south end – I’ve been fixing coffee in French Press cups every morning. What a treat, great strong coffee to start the day. We alternate days to get the dogs fed and out for their morning constitutional: early, early. go back to bed, then coffee when we wake up. I checked at the Islander Inn office about breakfast places. “You want a greasy spoon or otherwise?” she said, then immediately gave me directions to the otherwise… The Echo Lake Café…a ten mile drive. It is north of the Swan River. We got there and Wray had one huge plate-filling blueberry pancake with a freshly made blueberry/raspberry sauce. I had (hummm, of course) a form of Benedict – a sausage patty on English muffin with a great homemade hollandaise, and very good coffee. The ten mile drive will be done again!

The other part of this, near the café, is the road we need to get to Jewel Basin for one of our hikes here.

Back to the Islander in Woods Bay where Doug is consulting with two Serbian Work Exchange students who are attempting to fix the problem we have with the wireless internet. I work on maps and trail descriptions to choose our hikes. A couple of hours pass, and it is determined that more equipment needs to be installed to get the connection done. Doug, after wandering around our cabin to get the one spot that is at least working sometime, places the computer on the bedside table. It is closest to the office where the wireless connection equipment is setup. I decide I can live with that. I’ll share the couch with Jake and Woody for starting to sleep. This is the time that Doug does his blogging.

Off to Big Fork and Kalispell - We’ve decided to explore doing a loop through Big Fork then the 30 minute drive to Kalispell at the north end of Flathead Lake. Grey still, but clouds beginning to lighten – some blue. Once in Kalispell – the search for CostCo – It is up a hill and beyond – fill gas tank – get Doug’s dark glasses replaced, mine tightened (they said to get replaced when home). A bite to eat, then walk dogs at a park (which was filled with a low weed with thorns – all of us picked our way around the weeds after ‘ouching’ a bit). Back to town center, walked with Jake and Woody, located the restaurants I’d looked up, and a blues place (Red’s Wine and Blues), then a derelict looking saloon front (looked sort of closed) – we walked around back where there were about 20 people streaming across the parking lot into Buffalos Saloon – a dark, sawdust covered absolutely packed with patrons – sometime we’ll try it.

Continuing our walk – buy more sunscreen – drive back to Woods Bay.


For dinner we cross the street to the Raven (again). It’s windy and the waves are pounding spray high up into the lower deck (last night filled with people eating and drinking). We sit on the upperdeck, have some wine and some dinner, watching the sunset! And two swallows taking care of their babies. Then back at the cabin – a spa (in our room) by candle, wine – Nice Day!