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Old 09-11-2014, 12:05 AM   #1
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Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Our trips have been a lot shorter and mellower the last couple months since we added a 4th (6th if you count the dogs) traveler to our crew.



But he was totally ready for our annual trip to camp with friends from Denver.
Labor Day Sunday, we hit the road east from Seattle. Unfortunately, man-to-man defense is a lot less conducive to picture taking than zone defense, so I don't have a ton of pictures from this trip.
We stopped at Moses Lake for some park play and NoLi Brewhouse in Spokane for dinner. We camped just east of Coeur D'Alene, ID in 4th Of July Pass Rec area.

In the morning, my older son and I built a sweet jump and had some breakfast.



We hit the road on I90E. On the way through Wallace, I noticed a park or something with a bunch of mining stuff and noted it for the way home.

We stopped in St. Regis for lunch and while Mama fed younger son, older son and I walked over to watch some kind of rodeo game / practice.
There were 10 calves, each with a number tag on them. Teams of 3 riders would enter the arena and the timekeeper would call a number. The team would separate that number calf from the heard then progress through the numbers from there until "time" was up. I never quite picked up the rules...

After lunch, we headed up to Big Arm State Park at Flathead Lake.


TBC...

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Old 09-11-2014, 06:18 AM   #2
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Man, my hat's off to you. If I had 4 I think we would just watch TV.

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Old 09-11-2014, 07:52 AM   #3
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

I think he means four total: two kids, two parents :-)
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Old 09-11-2014, 08:41 AM   #4
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianW
I think he means four total: two kids, two parents :-)
hmmm.....oh....hold on, I'm going to get another cup of coffee.

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Old 09-11-2014, 09:29 AM   #5
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Quote:
Originally Posted by 86Scotty
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianW
I think he means four total: two kids, two parents :-)
hmmm.....oh....hold on, I'm going to get another cup of coffee.

Correct- 4 humans (total) and 2 dogs.

I can't even imagine what it would be like with kids outnumbering adults
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Old 09-11-2014, 11:42 PM   #6
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

We were barely out of the van before the boy was in the water.



We cooked some kabobs then settled in with some beers.



Next morning, my buddy Carl showed the kids how to saw logs while I cooked some bacon, eggs, and gravy on my new Cook Partner. Since we'd be at the site for a while, I brought my dutch oven used it for some biscuits.



While our beach was in the sun, we got in the water. It was cold. Nachita (the dog) didn't care and wore herself out chasing sticks and swimmers.





Craig's daughter was itchin' to shred.



The Big Arm SP campground, (particularly loop A) is really awesome for just sitting around relaxing on the beach so we did a lot of that.





As soon as breakfast was cleaned up, I put 5 lbs of Boston Butt in the dutch oven for an all-day cook. Around lunchtime, it started to smell really good and only got better. At dinner time, some slaw and mac & cheese rounded out the meal. Maybe one of the best camping meals I've ever cooked.

The evening proceeded with more beers and a bigger fire. Craig and Carl brought an awesome assortment of barrel aged big beers from CO to balance the tongue burning NW IPAs I brought.

The temp around the lake was perfect for sleeping with the PH screens up and listening to the water. The few days after Labor Day was very calm as far as lake use goes.
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Old 09-12-2014, 12:03 AM   #7
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Wednesday morning was more of the same. For lunch we loaded up and headed into Lakeside to try out Tamarack Brewery. Both the food and beer was very tasty. My family started back toward WA for some weekend appointments.

We took an awesome byway along the Clark Fork up to Thompson Falls, took MT 471 and dropped into Wallace, ID.
It was a little rainy, but I still wanted to check out the mining park at the North-West end of town.
Lots of cool stuff here, a bunch of rock drills:


An exhibit about blasting patterns for effective tunnel propagation, some winches and compressors:


A stamp mill and headframe:


And a little pneumatic powered tunnel train that the boy really dug:



At the end of the loop, there were some locked cages with chunks of ore inside with descriptions of how much lead and silver each one likely contained. It was more than I expected per lb, (and probably why they're locked up...).

After the park, we headed back up to our favorite spot east of Coeur D'alene and hit the sack.
Next morning, we put the hammer down for Seattle.

Great, relaxing trip. I had zero van issues the whole trip. We averaged 14 MPG but had a headwind almost the entire Westbound day. My manual fan clutch switch was highly effective on a few of the passes and climbing out of the Columbia gorge.
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Old 09-12-2014, 08:50 AM   #8
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Great report, keep 'em coming!
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Old 09-13-2014, 09:30 PM   #9
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Re: Seattle, WA to Flathead Lake, MT

Looks like you a great time...

Buck
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