Roaming Western Montana

Our computer is in being fixed -- or it may have to be replaced. I am using a computer at an internet cafe at a campground in Kalispell, Montana. I can't download any of the great pictures we have taken so far. We have been to Gem Mountain near Phillipsburg, Mt. $20 gets you a bucket of gravel that you wash and then poke through and find sapphires. We found over two dozen and two of them were at least a carat and gem quality so I figure for $50 each I'm getting jewelry made out of them and they will be worth twice that much.

We have been to Yellowstone and saw most of the sights worth seeing. Old Faithful isn't as faithful as it used to be -- something changed a few years ago and now it isn't as predictable. There are at least two other sites that we thought were great. The Giant Prismatic Spring and Mammoth Hot Springs. So many colors in the rocks make the mist off the hot water look pink and blue and orange. Old Faithful has a web cam on it now so you can go online and watch it blow. We stayed in West Yellowstone at a campground with a beautiful view of mountains.

We also drove through some of Grand Tetons National Park -- pretty but went by some lakes that were still frozen. We then went up to Glacier National Park. The Going to the Sun road is closed about 15 miles in on the west side. They are trying to clear a 50 foot drift up by the pass and the going is very slow. The road may not be open for 4th of July this year. We did get to see Lake MacDonald -- what a beautiful blue! We will be in the Kalispell area until after the 4th of July.

We may head to Banff up in Alberta next -- not sure yet.

Sooooo Disappointed

Memorial weekend pretty much did us in as camphosts at Coulee City campground. It's too bad because walleye fishing was just starting to get good. I took a picture of this kid's walleye --35" long and almost 13 pounds -- he was very excited. We will also miss all of the great scenery we were getting to see. This is a picture of Lake Chelan about 80 miles northwest of Coulee City. A beautiful lake surrounded by mountains -- with snow still on the tops.

The holiday weekend brought us a campground full of rv'ers and tenters. It was finally warm enough to tent it. Unfortunately, we soon discovered that at least one fourth of our tenters only wanted to party all night and race through the park all day. After over three dozen visits, patrols, etc from the local police, county sheriffs and any other law enforcement we could get we decided enough was enough and gave our notice. The last straw was taking shifts with our other host couple to stay up all night in order to keep an eye on our stuff.

Most of our campers appreciated our efforts to keep the campground safe for their families although at least two families left because of the thievery, drunkedness and unsafe driving that went on in the park -- don't blame them and told them to demand refunds from the city. All we heard was to expect worse come fourth of July -- no thanks we are out of there.

We are now in Montana and are planning to tour Glacier National Park maybe go up into Banff and then down to Yellowstone before heading south again for the winter.