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Friday, August 17, 2012

2012 Puget Puller 2 Dakotas Long Trip - Day 2


Day 2

The first ones in our household to get up in the morning are the dogs, and today was no exception. Even though we were on vacation, they still got us up at 6:30 AM.  Actually they got me up at 3:45 AM by letting me know that they needed to go outside and use natures restroom.  Even though we arise early we were still the last of our group to leave for our next destination.  Our departure time was 10:00 AM, at least two hours after the rest of our group had gone.  There were two routs we could take to our next campground, Jim and Mary’s RV Park in Missoula, MT.  The scenic route was 253 miles while following I-90 was just 197 miles; we opted for the shorter and faster route, a no brainer.

Leaving Cour dAlene, the road follows the shores of Lake Cour dAlene for many miles. Nestled in between hills of white pine, the crystal blue waters made this part of the route made it feel as if this route was the scenic route.  There were miles and miles of heavily wooded lush green pine trees.

Many  years ago we had taken this route on a trip to Missoula and I have vivid recollections of passing through Wallace, ID,  Wallace was a silver mining town and at the time and we passed through the sky was grey with smoke from the smelting stacks.  I was looking for the dirty town I remembered from our earlier trip, but it never appeared.  Instead was a clean, picturesque town that oozed of the kind of inviting charm that makes you want to stop in and stay a while, which is exactly what we are going to do on our return route at the end of the trip.

We had to climb over a few mountain passes on this route, the 4th of July Pass, and Lookout Pass.  The 4th of July pass had no fireworks and Lookout Pass was too wooded to give us much of a panoramic view of the area.  Despite the disappointment the names gave us, it was a beautiful scenic drive over both passes, even with the additional elevation climb we had to make.   Well  they say that what goes up must come down. Wheeeee! 

As we started the descent of lookout Pass I noticed a sign alongside the road which read “White markers represent Highway fatalities”.  Excuse me for a while now while I pay attention to the road.

We pulled into the Jim and Mary RV Park and parked our rig right alongside the rest of our group. 
That is the benefit of making all reservations far in advance.  One more benefit was that as I entered into the office to pay for our stay, I noticed a sign on the door that said “Sorry Park Full”.










 Jim and Mary's was one of the nicest parks we have stayed in; a flower garden had been planted at every corner and there were  flower beds along with some kind of artwork displayed at most every RV site. 
The park had arranged for an Evening of Music with LeGrande Harvey and Rod Brod, a great guitar/banjo group.  They looked familiar and after talking with them for a while, I realized that we had seen them both perform at this very RV Park on a Lewis and Clark RV trip we had made with our RV group back in 2004. Their performance was great, and they played one of my favorites, which they played back on our 2004 trip, “Pocket Change”.





We had a great night’s sleep with the crisp Montana air keeping us snuggled up in our nice warm blankets.  

Goodnight for now, talk to you tomorrow.

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