THURSDAY, 16 JULY 2020; KALISPELL, MT TO WHITEFISH, ID

Another lovely morning. I took Bella out for a walk and then we sat outside enjoying one last morning of coffee here in Whitefish. I’m going to miss this place, but I am also ready to move on. I always get torn like this.  Is tart getting restless and like the adventure of a new place, but since I really like it here I know I’ll miss it once we are gone.

It is only goi g to be a three hour drive to Sandpoint  and We can’t check in until 1:00 normally, so we were not in a hurry to get on the road. 

We did hit the road at about 10 am. Craig and I walked Rob out in the new truck pulling the RV with the new hitch. He was doing a hairpin turn and we wanted to see how tight he could go before  the hitch would hit the side rails on the truck.  Not quite 90 degrees.  Now we know!  He move on and Craig and I fell in behind for the caravan.  

I told Rob I needed fuel so he said we’d pull over in Kalispell (Rob and I have Waldie talkies). I noticed the doggie door flapping on the RV.  Oops, we didn’t quite complete the check list, so we had to pull over for that so I ran back and told Craig we were going to stop right away for fuel.

The trip isn’t to far and it is still a pretty drive.  When Rob and I drove the scenic route Last week we drove part of it, from Libby down.  So Craig and Pam get to see at least that part of it.

We arrived at the campground without problems.  We are actually on the Hope Peninsula of Lake Pend Oreille.  And we back up to David Thompson State Wildlife Preserve.

Craig and Pam totally scored as they are parked right down by the lake.  They have a view of the lake and are only about 100 feet away.

We, on the other hand are way up in the woods, a bit of a hike away from them and the lake.      

When got into our spot, up in the woods, Steve (the owner) led us in between the trees pretty precisely. Unfortunately, from the pad it sort of dropped off in the front.  We have three slides on the driver’s side and we had to back up in order to place the electrical boxes.  In doing so, the tilt of the truck caused the back rails to dig into the underside of the RV (under the overhang).  It scraped the new rails on the truck and pictures a small hole on one side of the rig.  It also caused it to tweak so we had a difficult time un-hitching the rig from the truck.  It’s always something.  I hate to say “I told you so” , but I asked back at Whitefish that we raise the hitch when we were talking about it scraping the rails.  But what do I know, I’m just a “girl”.

So, once we got the rig off the truck we dug out the manual and read up on how to raise the hitch.  Craig walked up right about then, thank God, and so the three of us together were able to raise it up.  Before tightening it all back down we made sure the bedcover could still close over the hitch with it at its new height .  Yippee it does.

So, here is our spot in the woods!

It actually appears roomier than it is, because there is another RV right at the edge of the picture, but that’s ok.

We decided that since Craig and Pam are so close to the lake we would probably spend more time down there than up here in the woods so we took our fencing and lawn chairs down there and set it up around them.

Bella is pretty good about staying inside when told, or staying near us when we are out and she is off leash.  Their dogs, on the other hand, have to be on leash at all times.  So with the fencing down there they will have a bit more freedom and there will be less tripping hazard from leashes and cables. And this is their site!

The lake is enormous.  We all walked down to check it out. Rob and I decided we wanted to go paddle boarding to we went back and got them. 

Our boards are inflatable and Rob got an attachment for the air compressor so we don’t have to hand pump them anymore. Yippee!  Only problem, there is no gauge on it so we just sort of had to guess how full they were.

We offered for Craig to check them out, but he’s afraid of the cold water so passed.

We started to take Bella. She was on my board and Rob kept saying, “Ya want me to take her?” Im like, ok fine, take her, to we paddled up next to each other and she got on his board. Almost immediately he was saying “ya want Craig to take her.”  What ever, ok, fine.  We he paddled up to shore and she jumped off and went to Craig.  She was probably relieved.

I started out on my knees and finally got brave enough to stand up. I was was wobbly at first but just starting to feel comfortable when Rob came up behind me and bumped into my board. Jeeeees. It knocked me off and into the water. Thanks Rob!!  The water wasn’t freezing.  It was actually quite pleasant.  I scrambled back on my board and tried to stand up again, but I fell off again pretty much immediately.  I paddled on my butt the rest of the time.

We went along the shore and then around the corner.  They were building the enormity house on the point. We went across to an island that’s about 200 yards off shore.  It was all posted “private property, keep out”. 

We returned to shore then back to our place where we change into dry clothes.  I made a salad and we grabbed our steaks and headed back down to Craig and Pam’s.

We had a nice dinner. There is a really big fire ring with 3 large benches between Them and the Lake. We sat out there drinking a beer and they came and lit the fire.  It was nice. The smoke was blowing away from us and it was nice  and warm, but then this man with three kids and a girlfriend started having a noodle fight right behind us.  They were screaming and carrying on and Bella and I were getting very annoyed, so she and I went back to our rig.  It was 9:30 anyway, so we read and went to bed.