Sharon’s Perspective on Our Stay at Coeur d'Alene, ID…

After 5 years of travel we find ourselves  beginning to return to places we have already visited.  This happened not only at Glacier NP but most recently at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.  Returning to places offers options for exploration to areas we didn't have time for the first visit.  As we have learned it is often difficult to do everything there is to do in an area in just a week or even in a month long stay. .

As we usually do before traveling we google for free things to do in the area.  The last time we visited we parked in town to do the Tubbs Hill Hike, a town walk and of course a walk on the world's largest floating dock.  This time we wanted to rewalk the town area and dock but not redo the Tubbs Hill Hike.  These we did on our first half day after arrival.  Our plan for the next day was two scenic drives.  One was a long loop completely around the lake and the other was a St Joe River drive.

After breakfast we packed a picnic lunch and our last package of Wisconsin cheese curds.  Our friend Penny told us that if you place the curd package in the front window, the sun would heat the cheese making for a delectable treat.  We tried this once before at Glacier and agreed with Penny that this was a wonderful way to enjoy our cheese curds.  The plan was to do the lake loop and part of the river drive. This would be a bit more than a 100 mile trip.

Not long after embarking on the lake loop drive we came to the Mineral Ridge Trailhead.  We donned our hiking boots along with a small backpack with water and set out to conquer Mineral Ridge, a 3.2 mile loop trail.  The first part of the trail was an upward switch-backed trek through a wooded area marked with numbers that correspond to an interactive brochure.  Sadly there were no brochures left at the trailhead but it was entertaining to challenge my spouse's plant ecology knowledge challenging him to provide a narrative for what he thought these stops were meant to point out.  He identified many different plants and trees as well as several birds along the way. 

At the top we were promised "spectacular views" but we were a little disappointed as our view were marred by road views more than lake views.  We should have been a little more patient as those promised views were around the corner on the way back down the trail.  We paused at one of the benches to take in views of not only the large blue lake but the mountains surrounding it (without any highways spoiling it).

We returned to the car to continue on the planned route.  We passed many large homes along the lake and many more being built.  The farther we got from town the smaller the houses became giving us the conclusion that these smaller ones were probably summer retreats.  Mostly every home large or small had a dock, water rafts and/or boats of all sizes.  It was fun to imagine the enjoyment the owners receive at these homes. 

Once we came to the town of  St Marie's we side tripped down the St Joe River.  There were more RV parks concentrated there than anywhere we have seen before.  We travelled about 10 miles down the road thinking we would make our way out of the urban area onto the gravel portion of the 75 mile road.  It didn't happen and since we did not have enough time to go the 75 miles we turned around to retake our lake loop . 

WE chose to eat lunch at one of the lake turn outs and to save the cheese curds for a mid afternoon snack.  They were fantastic and I felt they were almost as good as the fried cheese curds.  John said he wouldn't go that far... We ended our day at the Trickster Brewery and enjoyed a nice craft beer! It was a very enjoyable day at Coeur d' Alene and after the drive we now feel we've thoroughly toured NW Idaho making us glad we did return.  It's great to return and rediscover places which is yet another reason why we love this lifestyle.  Our next stop will be a night boondocking stay at North Quest Casino in Spokane, another place we will rediscover...

NOTE: We are now in Umatilla, Washington at the COE Plymouth Park until the 22nd when we start heading towards Portland Oregon as we trek down the Columbia Rover Gorge.

Kootenai Falls, Swinging Bridge and Ross Creek Cedars!

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to Kalispell and we pulled out of our park driving a short distance west to the town of Libby Montana. We originally planned to stay at the Fireman’s Park in town which offers boondocking sites for $10 per night. After we walked around the park it was obvious to us that we would not fit into any of the sites without having several small branches kiss the outside of our motorhome.

 

We lingered to search the internet and found a somewhat unknown park north of Libby called Libby Dam RV Park. There was ONE good review but the park had no website so we had trouble finding a phone number to call.  We decided the best thing to do would be to unhook the car and drive over to check it out. What a neat little park it turned out to be as it is positioned along the Kootenai River and the friendly elderly owners mentioned we could have a site for just $20 per night with full hookups!  This park had some great views of the river and surrounding mountains so we were really happy to find it. Right after we set up our phones alerted us that the area was predicted to have near freezing temperatures that night so we were doubly happy to have this full hookup site!

It was a partly cloudy afternoon with no rain forecasted so we decided to drive over to the Kootenai Falls and Swinging Bridge about 15 minutes west of the park. We walked the 1/2 mile or so over to the swinging bridge first. It was a long swinging bridge suspended across the river, It was so cool to have a panoramic view of the cascading blue waters in the gorge below while navigating across the bridge.

We retraced our steps to make our way back to the spur trail to the falls. We did however stop several river access points to see the river and in one calm cove we actually saw salmon spawning.  Sharon had never seen wild salmon so she found this to be a real treat!  The falls were pretty amazing as well and we loved seeing the size of this waterfall. However we couldn’t linger too long because I also wanted to drive over to the Ross Creek Cedar Trail about 30 more minutes away. We made the short drive over and drove on a mostly one lane width road until we arrived at the trailhead.

The Ross Creek Cedar trail was only a one mile loop but the walk through these magnificent giants was well worth the drive. The blurb on the sign says it all “California has its redwoods and Montana has its famous Ross Creek Cedars” and these are some huge cedars!

Well we only spent one night in Libby and then we moved over to Bonners Ferry Idaho finally saying goodbye to Montana. We pulled into the Kootenai River Inn Casino for one night of boondocking. We kind of got a late start so we decided to check out the nearby Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge. 

Here took a short but nice hike to Myrtle Falls, still flowing a nice rate even though the area was much dryer than any we have been in for some time. Although it is primarily a refuge for waterfowl other critters can be seen so we elected to take the loop drive in the park. Although we didn’t see much on the loop we still enjoyed our short afternoon at the refuge.

That evening we walked over to the casino to use up our $10 each in free play and after exhausting our free play money we won enough to walk over to the Kootenai River Brewing Company which had some very nice beers with a great view of the river. We enjoyed our beer and watched the geese flying down the river at sunset, a great way to end the day.

NOTE: We are currently in Couer d’Alene, Idaho and then will move over to Spokane to boondock at yet another casino.

Goodbye Montana… Hello Coeur D’Alene ID…

All good things must come to an end and so did our stay in Montana… We did enjoy one more day of huckleberry picking  and one last visit with our new friends Liz, Auggie and Bear. The next day we said our goodbyes to Liz and pulled out of her place (see her blog for photos of our departure) and began our westward trek. Several hours later and some 175 or so miles we pulled into our site in Idaho at Kahnderosa River Campground.

Kahnderosa River Campground is on the Coeur D’Alene River and our site facing the river provided a very scenic viewpoint. The biggest drawback to this park is its proximity to the highway but you can’t have everything now can you? We also had a power issue at our site twice was resolved by plugging our power into the unoccupied site next to us. The next morning our power was restored and all was as it should be.

Being adjacent to the Centennial Trail was one of the big draws to stropping here but with the daytime temperatures hitting the 90’s we didn’t plan to bike on the trail. We did do a drive around the area and took a nice dirt road into the mountains along a scenic creek. We had hoped to spot a moose but didn't.  However the drive was pleasant and the scenic creek made up for it. We found the Mission Restaurant known for Huckleberry Milkshakes but when we found out it had a bar inside we opted to sample a few cold beers instead. We chatted with a couple of jovial guys just off work from the sawmill in town. Apparently the sawmill has been their family owned business since 1918...nice, interesting fellows.

Our last day in Cataldo, Idaho we decided to head into the town of Coeur D’Alene. We ad found a hike near “The Resort” that took us alongside the bank of Lake Coeur D’Alene and then to the top of Tubbs Hill. One thing we noticed was how much drier this area is as compared to where we were staying in Montana… the fire danger here is extremely high!

The hike was a nice one that is also popular with young kids out of school who like to dive from the rocks into the clear waters of the lake below. Once the trail started heading up to Tubbs Hill the people thinned out until we were the only ones. It appeared the heat had everyone else nearer the water .  As we pushed on we were beginning to think we should have stayed near the water as well. Once we summited we hoped to have some nice views of the lake but we actually had better views down lower where there were fewer trees in the way. A nice enjoyable hike nonetheless…

After the hike we strolled the "World's Largest Floating Boardwalk" surrounding the resort and enjoyed watching the sailboats, jet skiers and sea planes landing. We also enjoyed looking at several yachts for sale parked along the boardwalk. Afterward we strolled into town noticing most of the tourists were in swimsuits since there are also two large beaches and a couple of city parks along the lake.  It was a happy bustling town full of vacationers.

The next morning we packed up and left and drove the short distance of 50 miles to our next spot at Liberty Lake Campground, a park I choice for its location despite not finding any reviews on it. Hopefully a decision we wouldn’t regret…

Thompson RV Park, Rexburg, Idaho, Review or Rant?

Well it was time to leave Rexburg and Thompson RV Park. I must rant a bit about the camp hosts at this park. When we first pulled into Thompson RV Park we had second thoughts about the place since it was right behind a warehouse area. But we booked here to have a place for the July 4th Weekend. The place reminded me of no frills camping in the backyard of, say grandpa's house, and as it turned out this was indeed a campground behind someone's home. We found it peculiar that when we checked in the park we were asked, “Are you sure you want to stay a week because often when people arrive here they change their minds”?  This was our first hint of what was to come.

The camp host then issued us only a cash receipt…..no other information.  This was unfortunate because the park has several rules of which we inadvertently broke resulting in a not-so friendly knock on the door encounter  by the camp host. I apparently drove faster than 5 mph to my campsite. I told the host it would be no problem I would watch my speed from now on.

The next morning Sharon decided to wash the cash and as she was about to do so the husband host who was mowing admonished her for thinking she could wash the car and became somewhat confrontational telling he would give us our money back if we would just leave… and to send out her husband to get the refund. I went outside and waited for him to finish mowing when I walked over to chat with him I too found him quite confrontational and told him to go ahead and refund us our money for our remaining unused days and we would gladly leave.

We pointed out that it would be much easier to follow their rules if they like all the other campgrounds we have visited simply presented us with a list upon arrival.  Their answer was that this was too much trouble. I requested that he get me the owners name and phone number as I would like to talk with them. He said he couldn’t give me that information but the owner lived on premises and he would go get her.

 

Instead he got his wife to come over and knock on our door again and Sharon really didn’t want to get into it with her again so she asked her to take her over to the owners house. Sharon spoke with the owner about what is good customer service and the lady apologized for the actions of the hosts but said she stood by her hosts. We were satisfied the owner had understood our concerns and hoped that she would in the future take heed of our advice. We opted to stay our last few days and never saw the hosts again. Even more alarming about these hosts was what the lady host said when she and Sharon walked over to the owners house… She said the two of them didn’t really like people since they all break the rules!!!

She even pointed out to Sharon that other campers (there were only ten here during our stay) had to be scolded for breaking the “unwritten” rules.. Sounds like to me these two folks should not be in the people business and if I were you I would avoid this otherwise peaceful park until these two hosts are gone! I would have rated this park a 6 or a 7 without these hosts but with them I give it a 2…

Yellowstone and Teton NP Loop Drive…

With a few days left here in Rexburg, Idaho we decided that we should make a trip over to Yellowstone National Park or Teton National Park. When I looked at the mileage it looked like the thing to do was to go see both parks. This would be our largest one day loop trip ever but  the allure of seeing two spectacular National Parks in the same day convinced us to think, why not?

I woke Sharon way earlier than she would prefer and we hit the road going north to West Yellowstone. We entered Yellowstone and the visual extravaganza began with one scenic vista after another. We have visited both of these parks in the past prior to buying our motorhome so we were delighted to have the opportunity to revisit such grand places.

Needless to say we didn’t do any extensive hiking and we mostly stopped to see things we missed the last time we visited these parks. Therefore we completely avoided Old Faithful and enjoyed mostly the outer reaches of the parks. As a result we were treated with eye dropping Mammoth Hot Springs as well as gorgeous valleys and a splendid array of wildlife. We even saw what appeared to be a young adolescent black bear wandering and munching his way through a flower filled meadow. It appeared to us that he/she was eating the flower heads off all the plants that were blooming. Indeed fun to watch…

With over 300 miles of a long and extended loop we saw a lot of National Parkland and it was interesting to see how the landscape was responding to the over 700,000 acres burned back in 1988. The park looked pretty good and it appears as if the vegetation is filling in rather nicely.We also saw deer, elk and buffalo as well as one lone Bald Eagle and lots of Geese and Swans. After our lengthy drive through Yellowstone and through the eastern part of the Tetons we decided it best to visit Jackson Hole where we stopped at the Q Roadhouse & Brewing Co.  We sat at the bar enjoying their complimentary roasted peanuts and we could hear live music drifting in from the patio.

As we still had over 100 miles to get back home we had one beer with our tasty peanuts. We met a really nice couple from Florida and really wanted to stay to chat with them some more but it was time to head west… As we made it over Teton Pass we stopped at a turnout to enjoy the view of the Jackson Valley below. We pulled out our chairs to  pause and enjoy the  magnificent vista .

As we were driving through Victor, Idaho I saw a sign for the Grand Teton Brewery so I figured we could grab dinner there… We pulled into the place and noticed all the patrons lounging in Adirondack chairs near a food truck vendor. After all the driving we did we decided to have one more tasty beverage and ordered up some really good tacos with quinoa salad as a side. We relaxed in our chairs outside on he grassy lawn for about an hour enjoying the views of the mountains and watching the locals enjoy the day…

We made the drive back without any issues and after our 13 hour day we slept like babies that night. We left Rexburg this morning and are heading to a park near Dillon, Montana where we will only spend one night…