Stevens County

We headed down the west side of the park into much greener climate to a glorious calm lake. We were really tempted to throw our overnight gear together and kayak over for a moonlight night on the far beach, but bizarrely there was a storm forecast. (I say bizarrely as we have grown accustomed to zero weather, other than the sun and maybe a few afternoon mountain clouds!)

We restocked food, booze, gas(oline) & gas (propane), but frustratingly Elvis's part hadn't turned up. We headed down to Flathead Lake and grabbed a beautiful spot in the state park. Our inflatable kayak made a rare appearance and we whiled away a unusually lazy afternoon.

From there we drove through the National Buffalo reserve and saw longhorn sheep, elk, antelope, buffalo (obviously!) with only the resident black bear avoiding us. As we were driving to a little camp spot by the river I was lucky enough to watch a bald eagle hunting overhead - he probably had more luck than I did fishing later on!

The following day we headed northwest and spent a few hours in Sandpoint - doing the things we hadn't been able to over the past few weeks (fancy coffee, ice cream and afternoon beers in sun). We found a gorgeous camp site run by Corp of Engineers as it was by a hydroelectric damn. We whiled away the afternoon on our new floaty inner tubes - why didn't we buy these months ago?! In the morning the trail around the camp site island made a perfect running track so a few loops of that followed by a dip, a (25c!) shower and bacon & egg muffins (a special treat as we rarely cook breakfast).

We finally got the part we needed in Spokane, and I took the door apart in the car park just to make sure! We then lucked out again by getting a cancelation spot in the state park and headed straight out to watch a free Shakespeare in a nearby park. I wasn't that familiar with Comedy of Errors but I'm pretty sure Benny Hill wasn't in the original. The Montanan students put on a hugely entertaining show, and even Richard 3rd (which was the other show on the tour) made an appearance! It was meltingly hot even in the early evening (98F), but I guess that's due to coming down from 9,000 feet to a few thousand.

The next day it was so nice to have some decent signal and catch up with the family back home. Then we cycled the Centennial Trail along the river and across town to a brewery. It was tough work and the little 1960s mom & pop ice cream kept us fueled. We were pretty beat 3 hours later when we finally arrived but a couple of cold ones sorted us out. We headed back the easy way stopping at The Flying Goat, which is probably the best pizza we have ever had (gorgonzola, pear & bacon with a balsamic drizzle) and promptly collapsed in a heap when we got back to camp.

We finally tackled our huge pile of laundry the next morning - it's actually a problem when everything is clean as it doesn't fit in the cupboards. Then we drove back towards the Canadian border and found great little $6 National Forest camp site with piles of free firewood, so dug out a load of old tunes from the laptop and had a little 2 man party.

Its been a very different lazy few days back in the real world, but we've really enjoyed it after weeks in the woods.Read more