#24 We left Bend/Sunriver TTN on Sept 11 with plans to stop north of Goldendale, WA at a commercial campground. Unfortunately when we got to our destination we found that they had closed of the year. We did a quick look in our Woodall's Campground Directory & found another campground 50 miles further up the road at Toppenish, WA. This was at the Yakama Nation RV Park. They have a very nice park & cultural center. We will stay there again if we go that direction in the future.
The next day we continued our travels to Soap Lake RV Park. This is an RPI park on the shore of Soap Lake, WA. This lake has been used as medicinal spa since the Indians first came here thousands of years ago. We stayed from Sept 12 - Sept 15. The sky was very smoking from wildfires in Oregon & Washington.
When we left Soap Lake we stopped at Dry Falls State Park & marvelled at the cliffs where water from Ice Age melt produced a series of water falls much larger than Niagara Falls.
We continued our trip to Little Diamond TTN near Newport, WA where we stayed until Sept 21. The last time we were at this park 5 or 6 years ago, Barbara saw a mountain lion cross the road from one area of the park going to another area. About the only wildlife we saw this time were deer & a very determined ground squirrel whose job starting about 6:30 AM was to get up in the fir trees that lined our site & begin dropping small very hard fir cones on our 5th wheel roof that resulted in a loud BANG over our bed.
On Sept 21, we drove to Libby, MT where we stayed at the Two Bit Outfit RV Park. This is a nice park in a level open grassy field. We will stay here again if ever coming through.
We left the next day & drove to West Glacier, MT & found a site in the campground in Glacier National Park. The campground is near the shore of Lake McDonald. Lake McDonald is very senic, unfortunately the smoke was very heavy from the Wildfires behind us & there were also some big fires near Flathead Lake that were also contributing to the smoke in the air. We arrtived at West Glacier on Sept 22 and on the 23 looked around as best we could. The Going to the Sun Road that connects West Glacier & East Glacier was closed not far past the Lake McDonald Lodge to Logan Pass.
On Sept 24 we drove to the St. Mary entrance on the east side of Glacier National Park &camped in their campground. The next day we visited the the nearby Visitor Center then drove up to Logan Pass Visitor Center. Along the way we saw a group of cars pulled off the road with people looking out into the field next to the road. Of course we had to stop & see what was going on. Not far from the road was a large male grizzly bear. As we watched he walked awsay from the road down toward St Mary Lake. A man told us that a little farther up the road a female grizzly & 2 cubs had spent most of the day eating berries on an open hillside not far from the road. We proceeded to that location & were able to observe these bears as well.
