Canada vacation: on the way to Canada
Jul. 24th, 2015 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaWe headed out of town, finally, on Sunday afternoon July 19th. The fastest route north actually started with a westward leg toward Moab, Utah, so we made for the campsite at the Canyon Rims Recreation Area we'd been to on a previous trip to Utah, and enjoyed our first evening of vacation with some adult beverages and a beautiful sunset.
Then it was north through Utah and into Idaho. In Idaho Falls we talked to a tourist desk guy who recommended we take the slight detour on the scenic route to Mesa Falls, and we did, and it was fantastic. Two enormous waterfalls!
We camped in Idaho and in southern Montana, where we saw the Lewis and Clark Caves State Park (not actually ever visited by Lewis and Clark, but still quite spectacular) and then went on to Butte, where we visited the mining museum and the (in)famous toxic lake created by the flooding of the big open-pit mine.
Butte has some very cool historic old buildings, and one of them, the Copper King Mansion once owned by the industrialist William A Clarke, is not only open for tours but operates as a bed and breakfast. On a whim we decided to stay there, and splurged on the Master Suite, a lavishly decorated sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. Our bathroom only had a bathtub, not a shower, but the shared bathroom (for the non-suite guest rooms) had an astonishing contraption that the owner referred to as the "plumber's nightmare" but which Britt and I immediately dubbed the Steampunk Shower. Water pours not just from the overhead fixture but from holes in all the circular pipes, as everything clanks and hisses loudly. Not the most comfortable shower, but it certainly gets one wet!
After our splurge in Butte, we went back to camping, spending a night on National Forest land east of Flathead Lake. While we'd had good phone service I'd checked the net for information on a good place to hike along our route, and came up with the Jewel Basin near Kalispell, west of Glacier National Park. We had a glorious day climbing Mount Aeneas and hiking around the various lakes and ridges. (Along with what seemed to be the entire population of Montana, despite it being a Friday. I can't imagine what it's like on weekends!)
We saw some wildlife on the summit of Mt. Aeneas:
And we enjoyed the wildflowers, many of which were the same as we see in our Colorado mountains, but a few of which were distinctly different. The pale green one in the next picture is one we'd not seen before. We dubbed it the "Cousin Itt" flower after the Addams Family character, and referred to it that way all through Canada, where we saw it frequently. (We finally learned that its actual name is Western Anemone.)
After our hike, we camped along the Forest Service access road. The next day, Saturday July 25th, we crossed into to Canada!
Then it was north through Utah and into Idaho. In Idaho Falls we talked to a tourist desk guy who recommended we take the slight detour on the scenic route to Mesa Falls, and we did, and it was fantastic. Two enormous waterfalls!
We camped in Idaho and in southern Montana, where we saw the Lewis and Clark Caves State Park (not actually ever visited by Lewis and Clark, but still quite spectacular) and then went on to Butte, where we visited the mining museum and the (in)famous toxic lake created by the flooding of the big open-pit mine.
Butte has some very cool historic old buildings, and one of them, the Copper King Mansion once owned by the industrialist William A Clarke, is not only open for tours but operates as a bed and breakfast. On a whim we decided to stay there, and splurged on the Master Suite, a lavishly decorated sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom. Our bathroom only had a bathtub, not a shower, but the shared bathroom (for the non-suite guest rooms) had an astonishing contraption that the owner referred to as the "plumber's nightmare" but which Britt and I immediately dubbed the Steampunk Shower. Water pours not just from the overhead fixture but from holes in all the circular pipes, as everything clanks and hisses loudly. Not the most comfortable shower, but it certainly gets one wet!
After our splurge in Butte, we went back to camping, spending a night on National Forest land east of Flathead Lake. While we'd had good phone service I'd checked the net for information on a good place to hike along our route, and came up with the Jewel Basin near Kalispell, west of Glacier National Park. We had a glorious day climbing Mount Aeneas and hiking around the various lakes and ridges. (Along with what seemed to be the entire population of Montana, despite it being a Friday. I can't imagine what it's like on weekends!)
We saw some wildlife on the summit of Mt. Aeneas:
And we enjoyed the wildflowers, many of which were the same as we see in our Colorado mountains, but a few of which were distinctly different. The pale green one in the next picture is one we'd not seen before. We dubbed it the "Cousin Itt" flower after the Addams Family character, and referred to it that way all through Canada, where we saw it frequently. (We finally learned that its actual name is Western Anemone.)
After our hike, we camped along the Forest Service access road. The next day, Saturday July 25th, we crossed into to Canada!
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Date: 2015-12-14 02:26 pm (UTC)-J
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Date: 2015-12-14 03:30 pm (UTC)Sportsmobiles range from quite pricy to ludicrously expensive depending on how many options they have. We bought ours used from a guy in Cheyenne. The website is http://www.sportsmobile.com/ but you should really just page through the for-sale ones at http://www.sportsmobile.com/preowned-sportsmobile-west-inc/ to get an idea of what they look like inside (and how much they cost, to either convince or discourage you!)