We're b-a-a-a-a-back!

Where has the time gone!? Gee, it’s been almost two-weeks since I last reported in here, and it seems like only a few days ago. Guess that happens when you are having fun.
We returned from the North Fork intact, and we have been busy taking care of some of our errands and seeing old friends and family here in the Kalispell/Flathead Lake area.

We took a leisurely drive around the lake (Flathead) one day.  Started out at Bigfork, then on down the east side of the lake where we saw the many Flathead cherry orchards loaded with prime fruit (or course we had to stop and get some too!).  We continued on down to Polson, and then started our return up the west side of the lake.  There are a number of changes and some growth, but the beauty still remains and it is still a very nice and scenic drive.

Our good friends, and fellow Discovery Club members, Harry and Susan Salit joined us last Friday, on their travels back down from Canada, and it was very enjoyable seeing them again and having the pleasure of their company. They were parked next door to us, so “happy-hour” was always just a whistle away. They had a lot of interesting stories to share with us about their travels through British Columbia and Alberta, including the Lake Louise, Banff, Jasper areas, as well as the Calgary Stampede and seeing the world’s largest shopping mall (well, so they still say anyhow) located in Edmonton, Alberta.

They had the opportunity to tour Glacier National Park, and we made some brief tours of the Flathead Lake area as well as Bigfork.

(And of course, we all have to make our ‘necessary’ Costco runs!)

Harry and Susan departed yesterday morning for a rally in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. We expect to see them again in Redmond, Oregon at the FMCA rally next week.

Our big “task” over this past week has been the replacement of our main TV in our coach. It seems that the power supply gave out on our original set, and so I figured that I could make the replacement of it, and while at it, I figured that I would move us up from our current (non-working) 32” set to a 37”. In fact, I even toyed with the idea of going with a 40” set, but in the end, sensible reasoning set in and I opted for the 37”. Good thing too, as it was indeed quite a project for me. But, in the end, I got it in and up and running, along with the correct connections to the satellite box, the DVD/VCR and surround-sound system as well. I am only left with some fairly minor finishing wood work which I intend to have our local (as in Visalia in this case) carpenter friend take care of upon our return to Visalia. The new set is certainly nice, and should serve our needs very well in the years ahead.
Our weather has been …err, well ‘weird’ I guess would be an ample description here. We have had some of the typical, beautiful Montana weather until the last week or ten-days or so, and it is a mixture of cooler (warm days in the low 80’s; nights in the low to mid-50’s) days with more clouds, off and on thunderstorms, high cloudiness off and on, and of course with the numerous (over 350 at last count) forest fires just up north of us in B.C., Canada, the air has been more ‘murky’ and ‘smoky’ instead of the crystal clear views normally experienced. The prevailing winds (albeit slight) are from the north-northwest, and this continues to bring in a lot of the smoke at this time from these forest fires unfortunately.

Last Sunday, we went to what was billed as the nation’s largest equestrian event. It was a championship tournament of several various equestrian competitions held out at Rebecca Farms, northwest of Kalispell. It was a beautiful day for the event, and it was very well attended, and included entries from several states and a couple of other countries. The horses were majestic and were obviously well trained for their competitive tasks. Marilyn and I enjoyed it. An interesting side-note here as well, is that there was no admission fee, no parking fee, free bottled water and fountain sodas, as well as crackers and ‘finger-foods’. There were a number of food vendors also who were doing a brisk business though.
In our local news, (and other observations) there has been a couple of grizzly bear attacks of note (this seems to be an annual happening up this way though. And of course, since some tourists do not use good sense and logic in their camping and/or hiking mode, they only invite danger upon themselves.); A Model T club is present and made their pilgrimage up the ‘Going to the Sun Road’ and Logan Pass (they have a car-show in Whitefish); Tourism appears to be up from last year, based on preliminary numbers from Glacier; Nickel Charlie’s (an old-time eatery in Kalispell) still serves up a ton of great grub and coffee, and all the gals serving have the usual big smiles and cheerful attitude; the US-93 By-pass is well underway (finally) and should be complete by the end of 2011 (with the first half opening in November 2010). This will help greatly with the summer tourist traffic that currently goes right through the center of town (Kalispell); and of course, it appears that every other license plate is from Alberta (I come to the conclusion that Alberta, Canada is to Montana, as New York is to South Florida in the winter!). And then too, those folks from Washington State seem to have a good number of vehicles here also. Over the course of a month and a half or so, virtually all states are noted along with most of the Canadian provinces as well.

We had dinner last night with some longtime, local friends (who were childhood school mates with Marilyn back in Westby during her early years) where we met to break some bread at the new Montana Club in Kalispell.  Earl and Elaine Strand are dear people and we throughly enjoyed the pleasure of their company as well.

Then tomorrow is a “get-ready-to-roll” day, as we will be leaving the Flathead on Friday morning as we make our trek southwest toward Redmond, Oregon. We expect to be in Redmond late on Saturday afternoon and then the FMCA International Convention which begins next Wednesday and runs for five-days, with us out on Sunday morning. Hopefully, I will not be quite as long in getting our next blog posted. Hopefully, anyhow. We’ll see. . . . .