MONTANA AND IDAHO

Well, it's been awhile since we sent out a report, the last announcing our broken truck. The truck went to the dealer in Great Falls, Mt on a Monday with a promise that it would be ready on Thursday. Tuesday afternoon, they called and said it was ready. A new turbo and intercooler, on warranty plus a free car wash and we were back on the road.

We stayed at Cathie's brothers until Sunday the 30th and then headed west to Seeley Lake in northwest Montana. Did some hiking and just general looking about some real beautiful country. Stayed at Seeley Lake until Thrusday the 3rd and headed towards Idaho. We found a really nice National Forest campground on the Selway River. We got the last campsite available and decided to stay awhile. We have an inflatable kayak and gave it a try on the river. The water down river from camp was pretty shallow, but we managed to go about 3 miles. In order to get the raft back to camp, I drove the truck down three miles and rode my bycicle back to camp. After getting back the camp in the afternoon, we met John and Janet Smith, a retired couple from Spokane who had a couple of kayaks. They offered to help shuttle our kayak up river the next day. John, having floated this river before told us the water was deeper up steam. John and Janet it turns out has had lots of experience rafting the rivers of the west, including organizaing trips down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon and the Snake and Salmon rivers in Idaho. We figured with that kind of experance, we should probably follow them down the river through the rapids.

We floated down a little over six miles and the only person to fall out of their kayak was John. He informed us that there are two kind of river runners. Those who have been thrown into the water and those who will be. We had such a great time, that we repeated the trip the next day, only going up river a little further. We haven't been in the water yet, but as John pointed out after Janet had a spill, that we will be.

After exchanging addresses and phone number, we said goodby to the Smiths and we are now in McCall, Idaho. We are in a very expensive RV park, but it has all the amenities including wireless internet. This is the first time we have been on line since leaving Great Falls. We are here for two nights then we are going into the back country again near here for a couple of days to a campground recommended to us by the Smiths. On Saturday we start heading to Yellowstone.

Fell free to post your comments on the blog, or just drop us a line.

Till next report......