4 June ’06,
After leaving Lake Chelan, we traveled the secondary roads following the Columbia River around to Grand Coulee Dam. After stopping for a few photo ops at the dam, we headed up Lake Roosevelt (the lake dammed up behind Grand Coulee) for a lake side lunch. The weather was with us, so taking our time from Chelan to Coeur d’Alene is what makes traveling great. Two days later we left CDA for Bonners Ferry, turned right and headed towards Libby Montana. We hit some rain just after we passed Libby and found it stayed with us throughout the night. About 17 miles east of Libby we came to the Kootenai River and Libby Dam. We found out the lake behind Libby Dam is named Koocanusa and was named by a lady here in Montana for the Kootenai River, USA, and Canada. About 5 miles up the lake we found our next campground…The Koocanusa Resort Marina, and RV Campground. It was just off the water and completely in the tall timber. The roadway through the campground was pretty narrow, tree trunks right at our mirrors, and the corners we had to go around with our little “toad” trailing behind made it a “very interesting” route to our pitch. On the second day we drove down to the dam for a tour. We found out that the idea for the dam was ratified with Canada by President Eisenhower, Nixon poured concrete into it, and President Ford hit the switch to turn it on. Seriously, it is a good looking dam and the lake behind it is 94 miles of incredible. Hell, I didn’t even know that it even existed. It is supposed to have the “Best” fishing of anywhere in Montana or possibly the country. We did meet a family that was up for the weekend from St. Maries Idaho and their little girl caught 23 Blue-black in less than 3 hours. I guess we will just have to take a minute and get our fishing license so that we can “enjoy”… Sunday we pulled out heading toward Glacier National Park, stopped in Whitefish and made our way to Coram and our new campground. We plan to stay here for a week or more because there is a lot to see and do with the park just 4 miles away and all the other things to do and see all around this area. Today we took our first drive up into Glacier Park. Unfortunately, Logan Pass is still closed, so one of the biggest sights and drives “The Going To The Sun Road” is not available for us now…I guess we will have to make another trip back here… For now we will just have to spend some time exploring the lower areas Glacier. On our drive this morning we had the opportunity to purchase our “Golden Age Pass”……$10 LIFE-TIME !!!! What a deal. Now we will have to make sure that we hit every National Park there is in this country to get our monies worth.
After leaving Lake Chelan, we traveled the secondary roads following the Columbia River around to Grand Coulee Dam. After stopping for a few photo ops at the dam, we headed up Lake Roosevelt (the lake dammed up behind Grand Coulee) for a lake side lunch. The weather was with us, so taking our time from Chelan to Coeur d’Alene is what makes traveling great. Two days later we left CDA for Bonners Ferry, turned right and headed towards Libby Montana. We hit some rain just after we passed Libby and found it stayed with us throughout the night. About 17 miles east of Libby we came to the Kootenai River and Libby Dam. We found out the lake behind Libby Dam is named Koocanusa and was named by a lady here in Montana for the Kootenai River, USA, and Canada. About 5 miles up the lake we found our next campground…The Koocanusa Resort Marina, and RV Campground. It was just off the water and completely in the tall timber. The roadway through the campground was pretty narrow, tree trunks right at our mirrors, and the corners we had to go around with our little “toad” trailing behind made it a “very interesting” route to our pitch. On the second day we drove down to the dam for a tour. We found out that the idea for the dam was ratified with Canada by President Eisenhower, Nixon poured concrete into it, and President Ford hit the switch to turn it on. Seriously, it is a good looking dam and the lake behind it is 94 miles of incredible. Hell, I didn’t even know that it even existed. It is supposed to have the “Best” fishing of anywhere in Montana or possibly the country. We did meet a family that was up for the weekend from St. Maries Idaho and their little girl caught 23 Blue-black in less than 3 hours. I guess we will just have to take a minute and get our fishing license so that we can “enjoy”… Sunday we pulled out heading toward Glacier National Park, stopped in Whitefish and made our way to Coram and our new campground. We plan to stay here for a week or more because there is a lot to see and do with the park just 4 miles away and all the other things to do and see all around this area. Today we took our first drive up into Glacier Park. Unfortunately, Logan Pass is still closed, so one of the biggest sights and drives “The Going To The Sun Road” is not available for us now…I guess we will have to make another trip back here… For now we will just have to spend some time exploring the lower areas Glacier. On our drive this morning we had the opportunity to purchase our “Golden Age Pass”……$10 LIFE-TIME !!!! What a deal. Now we will have to make sure that we hit every National Park there is in this country to get our monies worth.