Date: 27 July 2001 (Friday)

Start: Edgewater Beach Resort (Best Western), Sandpoint ID

End: KOA West Glacier, (206 miles)

The temperature was 68f in the morning at Sandpoint, and rose to 86f in the afternoon at West Glacier. There were a few (very few) clouds, but the outlook is for cooler and showers tomorrow.

Our night was filled with trains. None of them were terribly loud, and none of them shook the earth overmuch, but each of them woke us briefly as they thundered past. We went back to sleep quickly, but each did its small share in making us both slightly quiet today.

We got up and ate (only one train went through during this period), and scurried out of Sandpoint. The route was US-2 all the way.

The drive was nice up the road to Bonner’s Ferry, within rock-throwing distance of Canada. It was easy until Kalispell, when we got into the heavy traffic, poor traffic control, and lots of cars entering/exiting the road in front of us. This continued through the towns that line the road from there to West Glacier. This is typical tourist town stuff, each town hoping to siphon off business from the others. We won’t go back through that mess again.

We checked in at the local KOA, using our promotional certificate for one free night of the two we’ll spend here. It’s a nice place with pool, spa, and all the amenities. It’s all gravel, thus there is some dust, but the buildings are clean and neat. The trees are lodgepole pine, and there are lots of them.

We went to West Glacier, and then into the park to the Visitor’s Center and the little community that surrounds it. We ran into Pat Rielly, a Forest Ranger and retired submariner with a million stories, at the center.

Pat was a QM2(SS) on USS Greenling (SSN615) in the late 80’s and early 90’s. He was in the torpedo room while the ship was loading torpedos and it went wrong. A shackle broke, the torpedo descended into the torpedo room out of control and crushed people. Two died, another is a quadriplegic, and Pat walks on aluminum-rod-braced legs and aluminum forearm crutches. He keeps up an active interest in submarines via the web and e-mail.

Pat’s a New York Irisher, sounds like it, and has the manic energy sometimes seen in New Yorkers. He has an infectious laugh and he makes you laugh.

I can’t say we swapped stories, because Pat worked in three to my one. But we kept each other (and Dolores) smiling for a long time. I forced us to leave or we’d have been there the rest of the day. We’ll return tomorrow for a few more laughs.

We took pictures of Lake McDonald with the impressive mountains in the background. The mountains are nice, but they don’t compare with McKinley. On the other hand, you can drive up into them more closely than McKinley. We’ll do that tomorrow.

The truck needed refueling, so we drove out of the park and back to Coram to get that. Then back to the campground.

We did dinner – chicken tenders, noodles, salad, with Columbia Crest chardonnay – and then did our hike around the campground ending with ice cream at the stand. While sitting at a bench at the stand, a cat came out of the hedge and hopped onto the adjacent table and fell off when the person there recoiled. The cat came back when encouraged and wound up on the table licking ice cream from spoons. Talented cat trains people.

Then back to the trailer for a game of cribbage, then I started these notes and Dolores snuggled in for the night. It’s cooling down nicely now.