Moving west again...

***Miles travelled today: 199

***Total miles travelled: 7134

***States travelled through today: Montana into Idaho, across the Pacific timeline

Thank goodness there wasn’t any bear outside our door today, not that there would be but there is always the possibility (Jay smiles at this). We have passed numerous campgrounds (Jay says they’re primitive) on our journeying through the park, all of which are full... we laugh when we see little canvas tents near signs that say, ‘Be Bear aware’ and dustbins which have been ‘bear-proofed’. I reckon it would be safer to sleep in the car than envisaging that the only thing keeping us from a bear - is a nylon tent.

We did a final drive up to Lake McDonald today hoping for some reflections today on the water but the conditions were not right. We left West Glacier and made our way further westwards into Northern Idaho. After debating the route with Jay, we are following a different route from the proposed one as Jay remains concerned about the mountain snow that is still about, so we have opted to do a route that is slightly more south as once again, we are only about twenty miles from the Canadian border.

Due to the fact that we needed to stop for a loo break (Jay says neither one of us are into ‘bushwees’), we found a saloon (yes, it was called a saloon) called the ‘Kicking Horse’... I have this ‘thing’ that we cannot just go and use the restroom but we have to buy a drink – which Jay says defeats the purpose as it generally goes without saying that I generally need another restroom an hour later. Jay took some brilliant pictures of the Kicking Horse saloon which was in the middle of nowhere or as the address read, ”Kicking Horse Saloon, Route 2, midway between Kalispell and Libby”.

Along our route we stopped at Kootenai Falls Park and took a walk down to the falls and their swinging bridge which Jay just had to run across (no hands).

We have once again gained another hour, we are now eight hours behind England, nine behind South Africa (we have not worked out Madeira and Japan yet). Once again we found ourselves on an Indian Reservation, the Kootenai Reservation and we have read some interesting information about their heritage. The hotel is really lovely and our room overlooks the Kootenai River. We took some time out down at the pool this afternoon before spending some time catching up with our blog and diary tonight.

Suzi - you need to look for a place called BONNERS FERRY...

We are almost on the west coast!!! We cannot quite believe that three weeks today we will be arriving home!!! There is still so much to do!!!