To The Smokies
The day started out well. It was cool and clear this morning. After breakfast and sorely needed showers, we were off to Montana.
We had originally planned to take a scenic highway north from Potlatch to a paved forest service back road that went over the Continental Divide at Thompson Pass into Montana, then loop south on scenic Route 200 then north to Flathead Lake and Kalispell before continuing to Glacier National Park. A quick check online showed that there were fires on both sides of the pass and the one in Montana had closed that section of 200.
It was time for alternate route. This one took us straight up north on US 95 to Coeur d'Alene, then Sandpoint before bearing east towards Kalispell.
The rolling wheat fields gave way to the hills as we went north and we were seeing forests again along with fields and cattle and farms. We passed through Coeur d'Alene without stopping and stopped in Sandpoint for some groceries as we didn't know if we'd get to Glacier today. We also stopped at a turnout along a marsh on the edge of Pend Oreille Lake for lunch and to scout out the ducks and geese in the marsh.
At Sandpont we detoured south on scenic 200 into Montana then a beautiful back road, Montana 56, through the Cabinet Mountains to US 2 and Libby, MT where we had our first smoke encounter. It cleared after that until we got to Kalispell where it got very smoky again. We thought it due to the Glacier fires, but it became much less until we could see the outskirts of West Glacier. There we could actually see the smoke rising from hidden valleys in the forest, but it was no more smoky at Apgar than on a summer night with lots of campfires.
A long drive and almost dark when we finally got settled. We also lost an hour with the time zone change.
No comments:
Post a Comment