Day 112 Glacier National Park to Coeur d’Alene, ID

Sun., Sept. 8

Glacier National Park to Coeur d’Alene, ID

The light rain was dancing on the RV.  Quickly we packed up and headed out, we timed that well.  Just a short distance down the road is Columbia Falls and Kalispell with lots of room for big rigs to fill up and lots of campsites.  Kalispell had some old buildings built in 1904 and an interesting old diner.  Salish referred to this area as “land between the mountains” until 1891 when the railroad moved in.

Just south is Flathead Lake, it is 28 miles long by 15 miles wide, huge lake.  This area reminded us of the Okanagan especially the brown rolling hills.  No wonder this area is such an attraction; lakes, mountains which leads to all kinds of recreation.  We did a quick stop to stretch our legs and the truck starting dinging!  It wants another oil and filter change plus the exhaust particulate filter was telling us it was dirty.  At least solving that was to drive for 20 minutes at 30 mph or 50 km/h and it would go away.  Thank goodness it did but Ross will have to take it in.  After all we’ve put over 23,000 km on this trip already.  At St. Regis we turned onto the I90, it feels like going over train tracks!! 

We drove into Coeur d’Alene to find a campsite and drove past two.  I didn’t like either one; Riverside RV in a parking lot @ $40, and Tamarack everyone cramped in, so we drove back to Wolf Lodge Campground.  We’ve stayed at so many Good Sam’s we should have bought our membership a long time ago.  So I got one now because we will stay in another Good Sam in Vancouver for sure. 

Coeur d'Alene Lake @ east end

Haven’t seen a Dutch Bros since 2010 trip

We drove back into Coeur d’Alene to find the bike path along the lake and found the downtown and visitors centre. Yay, we found a Bank of America!  Only had $20 left and started with $100 US 12 days ago.  We followed the path back to see where to get on the interstate.   I remembered Yellowhead Trail exit.  Well that took us around the north side of the lake through a park and houses with a view, nice drive but the road here isn’t well maintained.  This laundry room has a book exchange, Ross read everything, and got two Clive Custler’s.



Moose in marsh between I90 & road to campsite 

Daily Stats: 
Today's distance:  481Km Start:  73,793 Finish:  97,460 
Weather:  Overcast & light rain to sun/clouds; High: 22 degrees; Lo: 12 degrees
Wildlife: Squirrel, moose
Campsite:  Wolf Lodge Campground $30 full service (got Good Sam Membership)
Walking: 1 km

Idaho Stats:
Nickname:  The Gem State
Bird:  Mountain Bluebird
Flower:  Syringa