Adios, Sandpoint!

We left Sandpoint, ID, with sadness this morning.  This is one of the prettiest areas we've ever seen, and we hope to make it back someday.  Activities are practically endless, with bicycling and water sports heading the list.  I think the only thing one couldn't do is surf, but the lake is large enough that even that sport may be possible on a windy day!

The extent of road construction north of Sandpoint on Hwy 2 encouraged us to take the Kootenai Cut Off east toward Montana. This meant that we couldn't do a bit of our own personal "mother road", but sitting in traffic for hours on end isn't very attractive either, so off we went along the north shore of Lake Pend Oreille.

After we left the water, the terrain turned rural and the roads stayed straight and fairly flat.  Our first taste of Montana was in a town just over the state line named Trout Creek.  It's a lovely little town along (what else?) Trout Creek.  Must be a connection there...

The road meanders through a number of small towns before it gets to Plains, MT.  In one of these 'burgs there is a motel called the "Dew Duck Inn".  Gotta be a special place, huh?

When we got to Plains, we turned north on Hwy 28 toward Flathead Lake, which is another of those monster lakes they seem to "grow" up here.

We navigated north of the lake into Kalispell, MT, and then hooked up with our old friend, Hwy 2. Kalispell is a large city sprawled over a large area, and we may come back for some much needed shopping, but for now we're a north of "the K" in the little town of Columbia Falls.  The Columbia Falls RV Park is one of the nicest in the area and is close to West Glacier, one of the entrances to Glacier Park.  This is the busiest time of the year for businesses in the area and for the Park, so finding an rv spot was a stroke of luck, even though we have to move to another spot in the park in a couple of days. NP, though, because it's a pretty town.