A Day Trip to Bruce and Nena’s on the Clark Fork River

Today we took a drive in the truck from our campground in St Regis, MT to visit our friends Bruce and Nena who bought some property along the Clark Fork River between Plains and Thompson Falls, MT last year.  Here are a few pictures I took along the way.

Once we got to their property, Bruce and Nena gave us a tour.  They have set up this firepit along the river in the area where they eventually want to be able to park their RV.  Nena has been busy placing a rock patio surrounding the firepit and it looks very nice.

There was a nice breeze and we sat outside the RV overlooking the river and visited throughout the afternoon.  Here’s Nena, Ken, and Bruce.

The following photo shows Ken with a few of his injuries from our ATV mishap on Monday.

And here’s a view of Bruce and Nena’s RV.  They backed into this spot from the driveway in front of it and that’s where we parked when we got there.  The area where they want to park is about 850-900 feet further behind where they are now.  There is an old road that follows the river on their property and they don’t really want to use it much since there has been a lot of erosion to the bank caused by high water.

Bruce and Nena had two other couples from the neighborhood join us for dinner of sirloin kabobs, rice, and salad.  It was Nena’s 60th birthday so we enjoyed cake for dessert.

On the way back to St Regis, we had some wonderful views of the full moon.

There were a few Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep across the river.

We saw numerous deer and elk in the fields along the River Road West before getting back into Plains.

This next photo is a bit dark, but it is a wild turkey dragging itself up a hillside.  It’s legs appeared to have been injured so we’re assuming it may have been hit by a car.

After leaving Hwy 200, we continued south on Hwy 135 toward St Regis.  Ken had to avoid a deer that tried to run out in front of us reminding us why we don’t like to drive in this area after dark.

So far, the plans for tomorrow are to get back on the ATV that bucked us off and go for a ride of a longer duration than than Monday’s ride.

A Day of Rest and Recovery

When we got up this morning, we were both pretty stiff and sore from getting bucked off the ATV yesterday.  My left wrist had the least amount of cuts and I didn’t think it caught so much of the fall, but it was hurting quite a bit by the end of the day yesterday and had a lot of swelling in it today.  I had ice packs on it for much of the day and there seems to be some improvement tonight.  Other than a couple of things we had to pick up in town, we just hung out at the RV today getting some rest.

This evening Lee and Barb joined us for happy hour and we barbecued some salmon and had some potato salad to go along with it.  It turned out pretty good.  After dinner, we just sat out in the adjoining camp sight with our after dinner drinks and talking about our past travels and future plans.

Before going back to our RV’s for the remainder of the evening, the full moon made it’s appearance.

Tomorrow we’ll be driving to visit our friends Bruce and Nena who purchased some property near Plains, MT last summer.  They’ve been busy having a septic system installed and doing other work on their property and we’re looking forward to seeing them.

A Very Short ATV Ride in Montana

After breakfast this morning, I got busy and packed the lunch for our ATV ride with Lee and Barb.  After Ken got going, he was outside getting the ATV ready to unload from the truck and preparing it for our ride.  We finally hit the road around 11am and headed west through the town of St Regis on the route Barb had planned for the day.  After a few miles, we turned on the dirt road following alongside the St Regis River.  Lee and Barb were leading the way and we stayed back some due to the dust.  We got about 3 miles down the road when Ken had been looking at the hillside and apparently hit a rock with the right side of the ATV that threw us off it.  Ken has a scraped up head, arm, and knee and I landed pretty much on my hands and right hip and have some badly scraped up knuckles.  Lee and Barb came back to check on us and after a brief rest and putting some water on our bloody parts, we were able to ride back to the campground where we rested for the remainder of the day.  My right hand looks the worst, but my left hand has been getting progressively worse during the day.  We’ll see how things are looking in the morning to determine whether we need medical follow up or not.  So much for the ATV ride photos.

That’s it until my next update.

Spokane, WA to St Regis, MT

Over the last few days, we’ve been finishing things up in Spokane and getting ready to do some traveling again.  That included trips back to Costco to have some adjustments made to Ken’s hearing aids and to Walmart to stock up on items not available in smaller towns.  We invited our daughter Laura and our son-in-law Bob to the Elks for a visit and to attend their Saturday night $5 dinner and had a good time with them.

He headed east around 10:30am on Sunday morning and had two mountain passes to drive over…the first one is the 4th of July Pass.  In my working years, I drove this pass daily from our home in Cataldo, Idaho to work in Coeur d’Alene.  This next photo brings back some sad memories as it was the location of a tragic event for the Groene family in 2005.

We’re at the summit of the 4th of July Pass and driving down into the Silver Valley.

Our second mountain pass of the day was Lookout at the border of Montana and Idaho.

There is a rest area about 4 miles east of the pass in Montana where we thought we would have a lunch break.  That did not happen as there were several oversize trucks parked there blocking the RV/truck parking entrance.  We continued on for another 29 miles or so to our exit at St Regis and this is our site in the Nugget Campground in St Regis.

We later spent the evening with our friends Lee and Barb in their site at the other end of the park for happy hour and dinner.  We made plans for an ATV ride on Monday, and returned to the RV for the remainder of the evening.

Our ATV ride for Monday will begin around 11am and we plan to pack our lunch and camera and hopefully I’ll be getting some better photos for the blog updates.  Until then…

Not Much Going On Today

Once again…no pictures today.  We took some 2x4’s to Ken’s brother’s house that we didn’t need anymore.  We had used them for moving the refrigerator out to work on it earlier in our stay in Spokane.  After dropping off the 2x4’s, we all went to lunch at Laguna Café near Ron and Mary Ann’s house.

Ken still wasn’t happy with the way the new hearing aids were working, so we drove back to Costco to have the technician make some adjustments.  We had placed another ad on Craigslist for the chainsaw winch that we picked up at our hunting partner’s home the other day, and Ken received a call on that tonight.  The caller seemed very interested and we may receive another call from them tomorrow to make arrangements to meet…so we’ll see what happens there.

Tomorrow we’ll be packing things up and hoping to be on the road to MT in the next couple of days to meet friends for some ATV riding.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Ken received a call from Costco on Tuesday morning that they would be able to work him into an earlier appointment for picking up his new hearing aids.  We arrived a little before the 11:30am appointment and we ended up spending about an hour and a half there getting everything set up.  We have a favorite Chinese restaurant just a few block west of Costco, so that was our next stop.  One of the hearing aids didn’t seem to be working properly so after lunch, we headed back to Costco to look into a solution.  It was an easy fix and we were out of there.

Ken’s first project of the day on Wednesday was to work on the light post again.  He made some changes to the wiring, and when it got dark tonight, we’re happy to say the light is now working!

After the light project was completed and after lunch, we headed to Walmart so I could take advantage of a discount coupon for a haircut and we also picked up a few items at the store. 

We had an early dinner so Ken could attend the Elks lodge meeting this evening.

We’re planning on getting a few loose ends tied up around here so that we’ll be able to travel in the next few days.  We’re getting tired of sitting in one spot and the Elks has a big car show scheduled for the 5th of August.  The car show would probably be fun to see, but we’ve been told that visitors park in RV sites and take over the place, so we want to be out of here for that event.

More later…

Some Work, A Walk on the Centennial Trail, and New Glasses

Being a cooler day, we decided to complete the light post project at the Elks lodge.  Prior to this Ken and Gene had replaced the wiring inside of the pole, but when they went to put the globe back on over the light, something was broken and the globe wouldn’t stay in place.

The globe has now been secured, the light is working, and the pole is ready to be raised back into place.

The light pole has been raised and secured.

Ken is finishing up wiring in the electric eye for the light.  As I’m preparing this blog, it is now dark, and the light has not come on, so either the wiring needs to be changed or the electric eye is bad.

After lunch, we drove down to a parking area in the Maribeau area and took a walk on the Centennial Trail.  As we approached the railroad bridge, a train crossed it.

It’s a little small to see in this photo, but there’s a raft in the river under the bridge.

As we were returning to the truck, we received a call that Ken’s new glasses had arrived.  So after the walk, we drove to Costco to get the glasses.

When we were at Chuck and Phyllis’ house the other day, she gave me several starts for hen and chicks cactus to take to the house in Arizona City.  I don’t have a green thumb, so time will tell as to whether they will survive until we get there.  But, so far they look okay.

So far, the only thing planned for tomorrow is volunteering at taco Tuesday at the Elks lodge.  So until my next update…