August 4, 2006

After leaving Billings, MT, we headed west to Livingston and the northwest entrance to Yellowstone National Park. We drove the north loop, as we had not made that loop on previous visits to the park. It was hot and not much wildlife was visible on the drive.

After visiting Yellowstone we headed north toward Glacier National Park.  We spent three days at Glacier and traveled t on the going to the sun road from the West entrance as far as we were allowed because of fire had close the last 20 miles of the road towards the east entrance. The road Logan pass had awesome scenery has we increased to in elevation of 6600 feet. While at Logan Pass we saw bighorn sheep and mountain goats.  
 
 
Logan Pass visitors center was very crowded with up to 30 min waits for a parking spot. We continued on East to as far as they would allow travel and at the roadblock we could see the smoke as the fire still burned on to the East.

 
During the night, temperatures dropped and were in the low 40s by morning but warmed up to the mid-‘70s during the day.

We left Glacier Park and headed west to Idaho and the Hawkseye campground to boondock for several days.  We took the back roads and came into Idaho over the Thompson pass.  Descending from the silent was a nine percent grade and very curvy road.  The campground is not as large as the one to read lodge and a stream is across the road so it is a very quiet setting. There is no telephone service so we are truly isolated during our stay.

We stayed in Cheney, Washington and spent time seeing the sites of Spokane and went to the Seattle Seahawks training camp to watch a practice.

Then it was on to Newport for a week. We took several day trips, one of which was the international Selkirk loop that took into Idaho, Canada and back into Washington. Part of the trip was a 45-minute ferry ride at the northern edge of the loop. We were able to visit with Dick and Jackie Hawkins who have a summer home in Sandpoint, Idaho. Dick was a teacher with me at Mt View in Mesa, Arizona and a golfing buddy during my years in Arizona.

We leave Newport on the 18^th to head toward the coast with stops at Crescent Bay and Leavenworth before arriving in Fall City.