Day 23 - Great Falls to White Sulfur Springs, Montana - 99 Miles

Today was very nearly a perfect day on the road except for one aspect: I wanted to commit homicide on our GPS, who, it would seem, is intent on driving me over the edge. Once you tell her (the voice is female) that you intend to head in a certain direction, or take a certain route, she is like a boot-camp drill sergeant who intends for you to make it through THAT program come Hell or high water. No amount of pleading or cajoling -- or changing the directions you've given her -- seems to make any difference to her whatsoever. She just will not change her mind. You are simply going where you originally instructed her and you're going to like it.

When we wanted to leave Great Falls today and head south toward Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, we fed her the address of our camp last night, which we knew lay quite close to Route 89 that we hoped to take south out of town. So far so good. Ms. GPS took over, seemed to be on her game, and quite soon she successfully navigated us onto Route 89.

Only problem was, it was Route 89 in the opposite direction we wanted to go. I instructed Concetta to turn off Ms. GPS until I could reverse direction, which she did. In the meantime I stopped to fill up the gas tank in a station that just happened to be handy. That accomplished, we re-entered Route 89 going south instead of north, and I told Concetta to feed in a fictitious address of some town up ahead so that Ms. GPS could take over and guide us the rest of the way.

Well, that's when all Hell broke loose. Ms. GPS was having none of a change in plans, no sir! Immediately she began protesting that we were going in the wrong direction. Then, after a few seconds, when she sensed we were paying no attention, she began DEMANDING, "Make a U-turn....Make a U-turn.....Make a U-turn -- over and and over and over like it was some sort of countdown to Armageddon.

Had the b***h been a real woman I would have pulled over and strangled her to death without a single bit of remorse. Then I would have driven away, leaving her lifeless body on the sidewalk. As it was, Concetta kept trying to reason with her and feed in a new address, but Ms. GPS stubbornly held her ground. There would be no negotiation on this point. We were going back to Great Falls or ELSE!!! "Make a U-turn....Make a U-turn.....Make a U-turn."

Finally we just had to turn the darn woman off and fly by the seat of our pants. Thankfully, Route 89 signs seemed to be fairly plentiful and they all used the word "south" which sort of made us confident that we were actually traveling the direction we wanted to go. Once we arrived on the edge of town, and could see no more Great Falls on the horizon, we felt pretty confident that our solo flying had accomplished the job.

At this point in time I should tell you that it was past noon when we finally reached the outskirts of Great Falls. We had spent our morning navigating by map through the city and into the canyon location of the Falls of the Missouri that explorer Meriwether Lewis had discovered way back in 1805. We thought we knew where the falls could be found since the folks at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on yesterday's visit drew us a map that seemed pretty foolproof.

Still, we were a bit uncertain at times, thought we were lost for awhile, but eventually we made it to the point on the map that corresponded to a tiny, narrow, undulating bit of tarmac that we thought should be the dam road -- no pun. I say "no pun" for the name of the road was in fact, the Marony Dam Road.

As we sat at the road entrance pondering whether it would be insane to try and squeeze our very large rig down this hopelessly slender bit of asphalt, a car drove up beside us, and the driver rolled down his window. Concetta rolled hers down as well. "You looking for the road to the dam?" the driver asked.

"Yes," we chorused together.

"Well this is it," the driver said. "You just go down here about 4 miles until you get to a turnoff beside a farm on the left. Take the right-hand fork at the turnoff and go down to the Ryan Dam. It's a couple of miles, but don't drive all the way to the dam parking lot. You'll have an easier time turning around if you stay up above where the white clubhouse is. Park it there, then walk down to the park and the falls overview. Watch for my car," he said. "The club house is just past my house."

We had recently being listening to a book on tape where the author related how he had spent some time in Montana. He said, "Montanans were famous for going out of their way to help someone." Now we had seen it for ourselves.

"Thanks so much helping us," Concetta told the driver out her window.

Happy to do it," the man said. We all waved and then off he went.

Now we were certain that we were on the right track. But when we started up the road I immediately began to have second thoughts on the trip to the dam. Not only was the road narrow and had almost no shoulders, but each side was obviously extremely soggy from the rain. Any false step, and we'd be up to our axles in mud. To make matters worse, at 50 miles per hour the rig swayed so violently with the undulations of the road, that it began to make me seasick.

"Okay," I told Concetta, "we're going to be making this trip at 40 miles an hour and I'm going to drive down the middle of this crazy road so as to stay as far as possible away from each shoulder." And that's what we did. The ride was a little longer, but we only had to move into our lane to let traffic by. Soon, we had arrived on the canyon bottom, found the heretofore mentioned club house, and parked the rig on a nice level spot.

Then Concetta and I got in our steps for the day by walking down the road to the normal parking lot, just a hundred yards or so, and took the suspension bridge over to the spit of land the brochures called "the Island." Foot traffic on the bridge emerges in a lovely park filled with pines, ash trees, and other greenery. From there you cross the park, climb up the sandstone steps, and eventually emerge onto a viewing platform that lies directly downstream from the dam and falls.

Once there, it's easy to see why so many people travel the skinny, bumpy road out to see the falls. To say the spectacle is magnificent is decidedly an understatement. You can't take your eyes off the flood of water as it sweeps powerfully over the top of the dam, cascades over the original "Great Falls" of Meriwether Lewis' time, then goes thundering away down the canyon toward the confluence of two of America's great rivers, the Missouri and the Mississippi. From there it's on it's way to the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans.

There was a lot of spray in the air, and the camera isn't fond of spray, so we didn't stay too long on the overlook. But the whole experience of getting help from a stranger, navigating the tiny road, finding a great place to maneuver the rig, enjoying the beautiful park, and enjoying the awesomeness of one of nature's great gifts left a smile on our faces for the rest of the day. At this point we'd go back again in a heartbeat.

Now I've already related that we used Ms. GPS to navigate us through the city toward our intended exit route. When we pulled the plug on her we traveled down Route 89 until we reached the edge of town where, conveniently, we found not only a great side road on which to park and have lunch, but an adjacent Walmart where we hoped to pick up a prescription and do some shopping.

With these tasks out of the way, it was approaching 2:00 p.m. and we still had a long way to go before we hoped to find a camp. It was time to turn on Ms. GPS and ask her to find us a camp in the vicinity of any one of several towns through which we intended to travel.

As you might guess, she refused to find any camps no matter which town we entered. I think she was pouting and hoping to teach us a lesson. Never mind, we turned her off again and navigated solo through one of the most beautiful stretches of territory we'd seen since leaving Canada. For miles and miles we followed Belt Creek through Belt Canyon on Route 89, and just enjoyed every single mile of it. We did begin to realize that perhaps Ms. GPS had been right as the only camps we saw were for people staying in tents.

Finally, as it neared 4:00 p.m. -- long past the usual stopping time -- we found a camp in White Sulfur Springs that not only boasted room for RVs, but had full hookups, immaculate grounds, and a far off view of the mountains and coming sunset to die for. So far there has been a minimum of bugs and no noise from the neighbors. The place is a dream come true and one we'd recommend for anyone coming this way.

So there you are. Ms. GPS is still alive, though definitely in the dog house. Tomorrow we'll be headed south again, potentially into Wyoming where we hope to visit Yellowstone for the first time since Concetta was pregnant with Robbie, and that's a long, long time ago.

So when you hit the road and are crazy enough to trust your GPS, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 22 - All day in Great Falls, Montana - 20 Miles (estimate)

The Lewis and Clark Expedition discovered the Great Falls of the Missouri on June 13, 1805, and Meriwether Lewis was the first white person to see this magnificent wonder of nature.

Today Concetta and I set out to "discover" the Great Falls of the Missouri for ourselves, and at one point we actually thought we had done so. As it turned out, we had only arrived at Black Eagle Falls, and our quarry was still more miles downriver. If the rain that has been hampering our movements off and on for the past two days lets up, we're going to make another attempt. We have a map, so perhaps we'll be able to locate it the second time around.

Here's a little more Wiki information on the Lewis and Clark Expedition:

The United States purchased the area around the Great Falls of the Missouri from France (which claimed the area despite Native American habitation) in 1803, as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States, had long desired to send an expedition into the area. Jefferson sought and won permission and funding for an expedition from Congress in January 1803.

On May 14, 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition departed St. Louis, Missouri to map the course of the Missouri River; establish whether a river route to the Pacific Ocean existed; study the Indian tribes, botany, geology, terrain and wildlife in the region; and evaluate whether British and French Canadian hunters and trappers in the area posed a challenge to American control over the region.

Expedition leaders Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first learned of the "great falls" from the Mandan Indians while wintering at Fort Mandan from November 2, 1804 until April 7, 1805. When Lewis saw the falls, he wrote in his expedition diary:

"...my ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water and advancing a little further I saw the spray arrise above the plain like a collumn of smoke which would frequently dispear again in an instant caused I presume by the wind which blew pretty hard from the S. W. I did not however loose my direction to this point which soon began to make a roaring too tremendious to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri. ... I hurryed down the hill which was about 200 feet high and difficult of access, to gaze on this sublimely grand specticle. ... immediately at the cascade the river is about 300 yds. wide; about ninety or a hundred yards of this next the Lard. bluff is a smoth even sheet of water falling over a precipice of at least

eighty feet, the remaining part of about 200 yards on my right formes the grandest sight I ever beheld, the hight of the fall is the same of the other but the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below receives the water in it's passage down and brakes it into a perfect white foam which assumes a thousand forms in a moment sometimes flying up in jets of sparkling foam to the hight of fifteen or twenty feet and are scarcely formed before large roling bodies of the same beaten and foaming water is thrown over and conceals them. in short the rocks seem to be most happily fixed to present a sheet of the whitest beaten froath for 200 yards in length and about 80 feet perpendicular. the water after descending strikes against the butment before mentioned or that on which I stand and seems to reverberate and being met by the more impetuous courant they role and swell into half formed billows of great hight which rise and again disappear in an instant. this butment of rock defends a handsom little bottom of about three acres which is deversified and agreeably shaded with some cottonwood trees; in the lower extremity of the bottom there is a very thick grove of the same kind of trees which are small, in this wood there are several Indian lodges formed of sticks. ... from the reflection of the sun on the spray or mist which arrises from these falls there is a beatifull rainbow produced which adds not a little to the beauty of this majestically grand senery. after wrighting this imperfect discription I again

viewed the falls and was so much disgusted with the imperfect idea which it conveyed of the scene that I determined to draw my pen across it and begin agin, but then reflected that I could not perhaps succeed better than pening the first impressions of the mind; I wished for the pencil of Salvator Rosa or the pen of Thompson, that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnifficent and sublimely grand object, which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man; but this was fruitless and vain. I most sincerely regreted that I had not brought a crimee [camera] obscura with me by the assistance of which even I could have hoped to have done better but alas this was also out of my reach; I therefore with the assistance of my pen only indeavoured to traces some of the stronger features of this seen by the assistance of which and my recollection aided by some able pencil I hope still to give to the world some faint idea of an object which at this moment fills me with such pleasure and astonishment, and which of its kind I will venture to ascert is second to but one in the known world. ..."

The falls which Lewis had seen were the lowest of the five falls, the Great Falls. Exploring the following day, Lewis discovered Crooked Falls, Rainbow Falls, Coulter Falls, and Black Eagle Falls. At the final waterfalls, Lewis saw an amazing sight:

"I arrived at another cataract of 26 feet. ... below this fall at a little distance a beatifull little Island well timbered is situated about the middle of the river. in this Island on a Cottonwood tree an Eagle has placed her nest; a more inaccessible spot I believe she could not have found; for neither man nor beast dare pass those gulphs which separate her little domain from the shores. the water is also broken in such manner as it descends over this pitch that the mist or sprey rises to a considerable hight. this fall is certainly much the greatest I ever behald except those two which I have mentioned below. it is incomparably a greater cataract and a more noble interesting object than the celibrated falls of Potomac or Soolkiln &c."

While Lewis quite possibly is, along with his co-commander, William Clark, the most successful explorer in history, we can tell by reading his account that expertise in spelling wasn't one of his strongest talents. Still, the things that Meriwether's Corp of Discovery, known popularly as the "Lewis and Clark Expedition," accomplished in their 8,000 mile, two-year and four month journey are indeed phenomenal. Realizing that fact is what brought Concetta and me to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center at the Great Falls of the Missouri today.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we learned about the Corp's time at the Falls is the fact that Lewis estimated the time it would take to bypass all five cataracts at about a half day for some reason. In reality, the 31 explorers who had to portage overland each and every piece of gear and the canoes in which the gear had been stowed, spent around a month at the Falls and were very hard pressed to accomplish the feat even that quickly.

Another fascinating fact that we learned in the Center is that, as you might expect, Lewis and Clark couldn't communicate with most of the Native Americans with whom they encountered. I had always just assumed that they used sign language to get their ideas across. While this was true for some simplistic requests or ideas, Lewis and Clark would not have been able to depend on the tentative nature of sign language to convey to non-English speakers more complex subjects.

What we learned was that it often took three other Corp members between Lewis or Clark and the Native American with whom they wanted to converse. Sacagawea spoke Shoshone, her native language, and Hitdatsa, the language of her Indian captors. Sacagowea's husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, spoke French because he was born in Montreal, and Hidatsa because he had lived with that tribe for eight years. One of the boat crew spoke French and several other Native American languages.

A session might start with Meriwether Lewis asking the boat crewman in English a question that he wanted a Native American to eventually receive. The crewman would translate from English into French for Toussaint Charbonneau. Toussaint would translate from French to Hidatsa for his wife, Sacagawea. Sacagawea would then translate into Shoshone if they were speaking to a Native American who understood Shoshone or a related language. Thus, though it might take hours to convey any complicated idea, some communication among so many non-English speakers was possible.

A question that I've long had was just exactly what a "Bullboat" was? When you read about the fur trappers of the early part of the 19th century, you find them often making such a craft to get their furs safely across a river or flooded area, or perhaps even moving the furs downriver if the occasion required it. I always envisioned something not very big, and perhaps not very stable.

Today I finally got to see just such a craft at the Interpretive Center. My photo of the explanatory card didn't turn out well, but in essence a Bullboat is constructed with a sapling wood lattice framework, then the frame is covered with a bull buffalo hide

(hence the boat's name). The example in the photograph here is about four feet in diameter, however real Bullboats were around seven feet in diameter, and about 16 inches in depth.

One very, very nice thing about the Interpretive Center today is what I had wished for at the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning: freedom to photograph anything and EVERYTHING that we saw. We could shoot display cases, dioramas, mockup settings of boatmen, Indian encampments, artwork on the walls, even the employees if we asked nicely. This last photo is of a painting that I especially liked. It is of the moment of contact when Sacagawea is reunited with her Shoshone people. Here she recognizes, not only the woman who the Hidatsa tried to kidnap along with her, but her brother who had become a chief in her absence. It portrays one of those incredible lucky moments in history when luck seems to overrule fate. Were it not for Sacagawea, her brother, and the Shoshone people, the Corp of Discovery might never have made it back to civilization. Who knows?

And when you set off into the vast wild lands of America to find and follow some of the momentous events in history, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 21 - Browning to Great Falls, Montana - 121 Miles

Yesterday we enjoyed one of the sunniest days since we left home. Today, just to show us that we shouldn't count on such gifts, water fell from the sky from the earliest hours of the morning. In fact, it was still raining enthusiastically when we had finished breakfast and were looking to leave camp. It rained so much, that I put off pumping the tanks at the dump station, and just drove away from our lovely camp spot in Browning, Montana hoping that drier weather lay just down the road.

Our chosen two-lane highway today was Route 89, which wanders a little east and a little west as it heads in a southeasterly direction on its way to Great Falls. More importantly, our route promised to take us back in time to the heyday of the dinosaurs and a totally different Montana. Yes, on Route 89 you will find not one, but two dinosaur museums amidst the plowed farm fields, and dusty commerce centers on this eastern side of the Rockies.

Our first stop was the "Two Medicine Dinosaur Center" in Bynum. We were a bit put off at first as the "town" of Bynum seemed to contain no more than a dozen buildings, none of which looked like they keep the rain and snow out, much less host a museum. But as we proceeded further into town, we caught sight of a huge Tyrannosaur, occupying the edge of the parking lot for a sort of nondescript warehouse on the south side of town.

"This must be it," Concetta said as we drew near the huge beast.

And indeed it was. Once we had parked the rig in front of the warehouse, whose front wall also proclaimed that we had found the Two Medicine Dinosaur Center, and walked through the door, one of our most unforgettable museum experiences EVER was about to unfold.

"Hello and welcome," a woman standing behind the museum ticketing counter boomed, a huge smile lighting up her face. "Where are you from?"

I don't think we've ever received such an enthusiastic welcome anywhere in all our travels. It turned out that this particular museum staffer, whose name was Dana, and who hailed from the far off city of Tampa, Florida, just absolutely lived and breathed this particular dinosaur experience. She had started out working on a dig in the nearby hills two years before, and showed so much promise and dedication, that she was later approached to be the field coordinator for the next season. So now, when she needs to escape the muggy heat of Florida's summers, she returns every year to the Montana outback. Winters she goes home to Florida, but anxiously awaits her chance to return for the spring "dig."

When archeological digs are not under way, Dana volunteers to operate the Two Medicine facility. She told us that she was retired, and just needed something exciting to occupy her time. But as we would soon discover, Dana doesn't just occupy her time holding down a chair at the museum gift shop selling tickets and souvenirs. No, the dear lady insisted on conducting us on a personalized tour of the museum, and along with her summer intern, Anthony, related the history of each and every exhibit, artifact display, and diorama in a most animated fashion. By the time we had spent an hour with these two, we felt like we'd known them for years.

The most notable feature of the Two Medicines museum, is that they possess a plaster copy of the largest dinosaur for which a collection of actual fossilized bones have ever been found (photo below). Known as a "Seismosaurus (earth shaker), it was 137 feet long and 23 feet tall at the hip, which as you can see, just towers above Concetta.

The actual incomplete set of fossils were found by a couple of hikers in New Mexico. To quote Wikipedia, "Seismosaurus was named by paleontologist Gillette in 1991. The incomplete set of fossils includes many gastroliths (gizzard stones), vertebrae (parts of the backbone), chevrons from the spine, some ribs, partial pelvis (hip), and some other assorted bones."

This means, of course, that paleontologists built a whole dinosaur using the found fossils to suggest the size of other of the giant creature's components. The comparisons are based on like dinosaurs with known, full-skeleton examples. Very scientific.

While I wasn't overly impressed with the plaster representation of Seismosaurus that towered over everything in the room, I WAS impressed with the real skeletal components that the museum had displayed everywhere else in the room. The museum is so small, that you can often come face-to-face with creatures that existed tens of millions of years ago.

In addition to full skeletons of dinosaurs, there are in situ bone collections that have been allowed to remain in their surrounding concretions just as they were found in the field. Only enough of the original surrounding material has been removed to allow the viewer to see how the bones were arranged in the earth. Very cool!

Once the guided tour had ended, Concetta and I continued to wander the museum not wanting to miss a single diorama, time-line, or explanatory display card. We even took photos of the lab where the Paleo geeks hang out and work on old fossils with things like dental picks. While we were doing this, we got to know the intern, Anthony, a little better. He was a native of Dallas, Texas. After his hitch in the Navy where he spent time at Widby Island near Seattle, Washington, he came to work on his degree at the university in Missoula, Montana. When classes are not in session, he works an internship at the Two Medicines Museum in Bynum, is provided with modest quarters locally, and succeeds in learning much about paleontology. His major is actually geology, so we're not quite sure how he ended up at Two Medicines. But hey, he looked happy and maybe dinosaurs will turn out to be his real interest somewhere down the road.

Once we said adios to Dana and Anthony, Concetta and I headed down Route 89 toward the town of Choteau where we planned to have lunch in some convenient parking lot, then visit our second dinosaur museum of the day. Truth be told, the museum in Choteau turned out to be a sort of historical smorgasbord of different subjects. On display were everything from dinosaurs tens of millions of years old, to the works of western writer, A. B. Gutherie, who is most famous perhaps for crafting the screenplay for the movie, Shane, with Alan Ladd playing the lead. Still, even with all the bewildering variety, the displays were top notch, well thought out, and certainly worth the $2.00 a head admission.

Perhaps the most impressive display, at least for me, was the 620 pound grizzly bear that they had on display in a museum outbuilding. This "big daddy" of the forest was killed in 1991 and, at the time, was determined to be the oldest male wild Grizzly in north America. He was also one of the last grizzlies legally hunted in Montana. I tried to picture this old fellow coming up against Leonardo diCaprio's character in the Revanant, Hugh Glass, and decided that Hugh probably should have been shredded into hamburger bits.

As an aside, it is reported that David Letterman bought a ranch somewhere outside of Choteau and can sometimes be seen in town.

Once we left the museum in Choteau, we made our way down the last 52 miles of Route 89, and finished up at Dick's RV Park in Great Falls. Dick's is a very large camp with ample space between each rig, easy to use utilities, a fairly large laundry facility, and a camp manager who is just as friendly and helpful as you ever see. I didn't get her name, but when I told her we wanted to visit the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center tomorrow, she took the time to draw a map for me so I could get there reasonably easily and avoid the freeway.

The first thing we did when we arrived at Dick's was to gather up the balance of the laundry that we hadn't done two days ago, and make a speedy walk to the laundry center. Once the machine was running we determined that we should get a few more steps on our pedometers, and so took off walking around the camp.

As we walked down one of the rows near our rig, a woman approached us and told us that she had left a present for us of several different kinds of vegetables on our picnic table. We were not sure how she chose us, but we guessed that her rig must lie somewhere near ours. Anyway, we had a nice chat with the lady whose name was Louise, and she told us that she was leaving for England tomorrow and would not need the produce. We thanked her very much and went back to the rig to see that we had potatoes, celery, and carrots to enjoy in the future. Rather ironic, we thought, that the American border patrol had confiscated our veggies, and then comes Louise, a complete stranger, to repatriate some of that loss. Isn't life amazing?

About this time, as we were preparing to go retrieve our finished laundry, the skies opened up again and a veritable Niagara Falls of water descended upon us. It looked to be raining so hard, that we put on rain coats, got out our umbrellas, and shifted into our worst shoes to make the fifty or sixty-yard dash to the laundry room. Even so, our levis got so damp that we had to change into other clothes when we arrived back at the rig.

Still, all things considered, rain or no rain, dinosaurs big or small, vegetables here or there, we had a terrific time today prowling the lesser-used roads in America. As we are constantly saying, just SEEING it all is payment enough for our time. May it ever be so. And when you hit the road to discover whatever is waiting for you down that road less traveled, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 20 - Kalispell to Browning, Montana - 100 Miles

I was about to begin the blog this evening when I happened to look up just in time to see a horse and rider galloping past my window some thirty yards away. The picture the rider presented, forming as she did a late afternoon silhouette against the peaks of the snow-capped continental divide several dozen miles off to the west, was so startling, that I pushed the laptop away, grabbed my camera, and headed for the door.

By the time I reached the nearby field where the rider had so recently passed, she and two friends on foot had stopped to chat south of where I stood. But as I waited patiently in hopes that the young rider would resume her ride, I saw she and her girlfriends look my way and perhaps remark that I was standing there.

Soon, the horsewoman nudged her mount into action, and once more galloped in my direction. I knew I couldn't shoot into the sun without turning the horse and rider into a silhouette, so I decided to work with the conditions I had. I focused on infinity, then froze the exposure settings while pointing the lens at the sun. That way I'd be sure to get a silhouette that was dark.

Having had minimum experience in creating silhouettes on the fly, I ended up ruining more than I shot correctly. But I did manage to capture a couple that I like. After I had asked the rider to gallop past two or three times, I told her thanks and she and the horse trotted over to see what I was about.

When she approached, I could see that she was probably about 14 years old, and Native American. "What's your name," I asked her when she had reined up in front of me.

"Roxie," she said.

"Pretty name," I said. "The movie Roxanne is one of my favorites. Is your full name Roxanne?"

She shook her head and smiled. "Just Roxie," she said. Then she asked, "Do you print your pictures?"

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't bring a printer with me. But if you have an email I can mail a photo to you."

Further discussion revealed Roxie doesn't have a computer and didn't seem to know about email. But she was just the most soft-spoken, polite, and happy young girl I've met in quite a long time."

Our main goal today was to see the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning, Montana, the town where we've parked the RV tonight. The town has a small RV park on the western edge of town which has turned out to be one of the nicest, most peaceful parks we've happened upon since we left Nevada. There aren't many spaces, only about 10, but the view of the mountains to the west is completely unobstructed, except by miles and miles of rolling prairie.

Our visit to the Museum was a little bit of a letdown since we allowed ourselves to expect something spectacular. In truth, the part of the museum devoted to the plains Indian artistry WAS very nice. Everything from bead work to leather work, and from weaponry to basketry was outstanding. Some of the best Indian handiwork I have EVER seen in my life could be found at the Museum of the Plains Indian. However, there were no photographs allowed, which makes it very hard for your humble scrivener to acquaint you with all that we have seen.

There were a million descriptive cards to read, covering each and every artifact. You cannot absorb all the material, and even if you concentrate on the aspect of the collection that you especially like, it still is impossible to memorize all the data. A notebook might have been helpful, but without accompanying photos, the recorded data would have been largely useless.

So, not to be permanently deterred, after leaving the museum we stopped by the nearby Indian trading post, and I picked up a copy of "The Book of Indian Crafts and Indian Lore." Not sure if it will answer all my questions -- or yours -- but I hope to learn a bit more about what I saw today.

The Museum was our only "field trip" today, as most of Route 2 between Kalispell and Browning is made up of the ubiquitous dense forest, rampaging rivers, and lonely two-lane highway. We really didn't see much to coax us off the road to shoot photos. And when we did see something like an abandoned, rusty automobile, or a tumbled down dwelling, there was no room on the shoulder to pull over.

But the high point of the drive for me today was our lunch stop. At noon we parked the rig on a V-shaped plateau of land that fronts on the confluence of Bear Creek, and the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, a convenient patch of land that just happened to present itself when I was looking for a place to stop for lunch.

I found our location to be especially picturesque for the white-capped ferocity of the two rivers as they plunged headlong into each other, and for the subtle beauty of the great quantity of river rocks that could be found all along the banks in an incredible diversity of colors, textures, and complexities.

Since, in addition to photographs, I'm always interested in river rocks, I took the opportunity while Concetta got started on lunch, to roam throughout our rest-stop reserve, gathering up favorite rocks when I found ones that took my eye. There were so many to appreciate, I probably could have spent the rest of the day right there searching for one-of-a-kind rocks to add to my collection.

I'm not altogether certain, but I think a portion of the riverbank rocks had been hauled in from some other location to stabilize the banks. Those rocks were obviously sedimentary in nature, and looked to me like shale or sandstone. Others along the riverbank were obviously (at least to me) igneous and had once upon a time come from the mouth of some lava-spewing volcano. The whole place looked to me like a geologist's favorite playground. I would have loved to have such a geologic expert around to tell me what all the rock examples were that I had picked up.

Anyway, so that's it for now. Tomorrow perhaps we'll be off to explore the Lewis and Clark Trail which heads east from here. Or, perhaps, some other idea will present itself. So until then, We wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 19 - Ponderay, Idaho to Kalispell, Montana - 171 Miles

Well, thanks to Christopher who fixed our pump problem yesterday afternoon, this morning, bright and early, it was time to break camp and get out on the highway. We might have been languishing in the RV center for half the day, but instead we set our goal for making Kalispell, Montana by cocktail hour, and make it we did. Thank you once again, Christopher my friend.

Our only stop of any note today was at the great falls of the Kootenai, which lie perhaps an hour's drive east of Bonner's Ferry on Route 2 in Montana. There, we decided to pull over, stretch our legs, and maybe take a "quick" look at the falls. Well, after parking the rig on their ample parking lot, and wandering over to the trailhead, we soon discovered that one does not take a "quick" look at the falls. We could tell immediately, since the sounds of the falls were quite faint, that we'd be walking a bit to see them.

After reading all the available information boards at the trailhead, which detailed both the geologic history and the exploration history of the area, we started off down the well-marked path toward the falls. When we had walked a few minutes, we came across a senior lady sitting on a bench at the edge of the canyon. We asked her if she had been to see the falls, and her response was, "Oh, I've been forbidden to make the rugged descent down this trail." She didn't elaborate at the time about whom had asked her to remain behind. We would later find out it had been her daughter, who then proceeded down the trail with other family members.

At this point Concetta decided to stay and chat with the lady, and I would make the "rugged descent" and come back and show her photographs. Little did I know that the rugged descent was but half of the story. After scrambling down the trail for a couple of hundred feet, I came to a bridge that spanned a railroad grade far below. Crossing the railroad bridge, I arrived at a set of stairs that furnished access to the forest floor about fifty feet below. The stairs were broad and sturdy, but had been designed for traction in snowy as well as dry conditions. I had to watch my footing and proceed carefully.

Once on the far side of the bridge, I looked back to see if Concetta had changed her mind and had followed me down to the bridge, but I couldn't see any sign of her. So, I forged ahead on the trail that began at the bottom of the stairs. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I finally arrived at the Kootenai River where a few other intrepid hikers had gathered. All around the canyon edge people had cut extra trails, I suppose to reach good spots for photography, but the existence of these extra trails did at times get confusing.

So, it turned out to be a long walk to get to the falls, but the grandeur of the setting made it well worth the effort. The thunderous sound of the falls dominated everything, and the ferocity of the rapids, as the water exploded between the rocky banks on each side, was just mesmerizing. I tried shooting from as many positions as possible, but the sun's location, behind and just to the south of the falls, made really good shots extra difficult.

Truly, I would have been quite happy to bring a picnic lunch, find a shady spot, and just experience the falls for the rest of the day had I my way. But I had been gone so long already, I was worried that Concetta might start to wonder if I'd fallen into the river or something. Tell you what, if you DID fall into the river it would be last thing you ever did. In fact, over the years seven people have lost their lives by getting too close and falling into the raging rapids.

I set quite a brisk pace going back. By the time I had wandered around looking for the trail back, jogged down the path when I finally found it, climbed the fifty vertical feet of stairs to the bridge, and then climbed up the hillside to where I'd left Concetta, I felt like I'd run a half marathon. I know it wasn't that long, but I sure was huffing and puffing by the time I hit the park bench where Concetta was happily still chatting with the grandmother, whose daughter had by then returned from her own hike down, and was now sitting next to her mother.

Turned out the grandmother had been married to a man who had worked for the Western Electric Company for his 30-year career, the same company for which my dad had worked starting right after World War II. This bit of information had kicked off a lively conversation between the grandmother, her daughter, and Concetta that was still going on as I approached. I don't think Concetta had even been aware how long I'd been gone. Good thing I hadn't fallen into the river!

After that, we hiked back up the trail to the little snack shack that lay at the edge of the parking lot. Concetta encouraged me to stop and buy an ice cream cone or something, but I decided it was too close to lunch and I'd pass. Besides, after getting 5,000 steps or more on my pedometer by going down to the falls, I sure didn't want to add back the calories I'd lost after doing all that work.

By the way, here's what we learned from the informational signs at the park:

The Kootenai River, as it flows and tumbles by the county park, is confined to a narrow gorge and ledges of sedimentary rock. The rocks here date from the Precambrian era and are 1.5 billion years old! They formed in an ancient inland sea. Imagine [the sign said] this mountainous area being completely covered by water.

The only fossils in these old rocks are stromatolites, which are fossilized remains of blue-green algae.

Between 15,000 and 12,800 years ago, the land here [continued the sign] was in the last phases of the Ice Age which covered the valley under 4,000 feet of ice. As the ice melted and retreated around 14,000 years ago, the ancestral Kootenai River cut through hundreds of feet of glacial sediments over thousands of years to achieve its present elevation. The Kootenai Falls currently has a drop of 90 feet per mile from above the falls to the lower canyon where it flattens out.

Wow! 1.5 Billion!!!

For the rest of the day we just happily motored east on Montana Route 2 in the direction of Glacier National Park. We stopped at the city park in Libby for lunch, and coincidentally had a conversation about Libby on Facebook with a long-time co-worker of mine, Tina, who calls the town "her old stomping grounds." Libby is a pretty town, and had it not been so early in the day, we would have been perfectly happy stopping over for the night at Libby's Woodland RV Park, which is now owned by one of Concetta's co-workers from her Legislative Counsel Bureau days in Nevada. Small world indeed!

We made only one other stop in this largely forested Route 2 area, and that was to consult the Good Sam book about potential RV camps in Kalispell just a dozen miles ahead. While Concetta consulted the book, I decided to let my sense of adventure have free reign, and I wandered away from the rig to check out the wonderful basaltic (think lava) cliffs that lay just beyond the rest stop. If you get too close to the edge, you better watch out for the sudden drop of fifty or more feet. But putting the danger aside, the juxtaposition of the level and fertile valley floor in the distance, and the ancient volcanic cliffs under my feet was quite startling.

When we got to camp tonight, a small park known as Glacier Pines, we were a bit disappointed. Not only was the park seemingly not open, and the office closed for the day, but the whole place appeared a bit neglected and overgrown. Still, moments later a chap appeared and told us he had contacted the manager, and she was on her way. Once she'd arrived, the manager turned out to be quite pleasant and the price, with the Good Sam discount, was just slightly above the average we've experienced on this trip.

On a funny note, last night when we pulled into the park in Ponderay, Idaho, the place also looked overgrown and ill-tended. But moments after we arrived, and had discussed the fact that the grass sure needed cutting, a lad appeared and started cutting it. Tonight, as we pulled into Glacier Pines, Concetta also remarked that the grass sure needed cutting. So you can guess what happened next. Yup, a lad came out and immediately started cutting the grass. All I can say is, either both park managers telepathically overheard us agree on the subject of grass, or Concetta has some sort of magical power over the grass cutters of this world that has yet to be fully explored.

Once we had pulled into our spot and leveled the rig, we set about doing some laundry. Fortunately, the facility was empty and Concetta had it all to herself. The machines appeared to be fairly modern and also fairly clean. We've stayed in all sort of camps over the years. Every sort of facility from the incredibly beautiful and expertly run, to the monumentally ugly and tragically neglected have been our hosts. For the most part, if the sewer, water, and electrical can be made use of, we're good to go. But Concetta won't hear of doing our laundry in a dirty and neglected facility, so we sometimes pass on that chore at certain camps.

And, well, that's about it for today's adventures. Tomorrow we're headed into Glacier National Park, and, hopefully, the Museum of the Northern Plains Indians, which promises to be terrific. So stay tuned! And when YOU hit the road on your next RV trip, we hope that the grass is always mowed, the laundry rooms are clean, and the wind is always at your back. We wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 18 - Nelson, British Columbia to Ponderay, Idaho - 143 Miles

Yesterday in Nelson, as you know, it was a day for walking, as we searched the hills around town for location shooting sites for Steve Martin's movie, Roxanne. In the process we accumulated around 20,000 steps each. Today, it was a day for hitting the road, enjoying the majesty of the Canadian Rockies, and sticking to the two-lanes as we motored south toward the U.S. Canadian border. Most of the day we encountered little traffic on Route 3A/6 south toward Creston, B.C. The scenery was nothing short of awesome!

In the morning we had weighed our choices as we usually do before setting out. We could go back north a bit and catch Balfour Ferry across Kootenay Lake with an eye toward the British Columbia town of Kimberly. We could drive the 3A/6 combo and head south, then east, then north, forming a big U-shape that would deposit us in Cranbrook on Route 95A. This was the route that we would choose if we chose to remain in Canada. Or we could drive part of the choice above, but at the town of Creston we could turn south and head into Idaho toward the town of Bonner's Ferry and Sandpoint.

It took some time, but we finally decided to just head back to the United States, a country much more friendly to our Verizon phones and mobile device, though sadly not as spectacularly beautiful as we had found British Columbia.

At that point Fate decided to make our lives more interesting. At noon we parked beside the roaring cataracts of the Kootenay River that runs south from Kootenay Pass, a long, hard grade we spent a good portion of the late morning steadily climbing mile after mile. The truck got pretty warm going up that long grade, warm enough where you could smell the oil, though the gauge didn't register much above normal.

Once we reached the summit we let the rig rest a bit and we walked around taking photos of all the snow still left thereabouts. Descending from the summit was much more easy, though I popped the gearshift into 2nd to hold the rig back a bit. Fortunately, the lack of traffic meant that virtually no one passed me even though I was rarely going faster than 50 mph.

Our bit of excitement came when we parked the rig beside the Kootenay to have a bit of lunch and discovered that the fresh-water pump for the onboard water tank had all but ceased to function. I blamed the bumpy 50-mile ride on a B.C. logging road for the pump's recalcitrance, and I set about checking out the pump unit for loose wires, a tell-tail burned smell, or some other unexpected malady. Not finding anything, I proceeded to examine the fuse panel. I made sure all the fuses were pressed into the cradles, flipped the breakers on and off, and generally tried to find something suspicious, all to no avail.

At this point we decided that wherever we stayed for the evening better be darn close to a Recreational Vehicle fix-it shop, or we would not be able to dry camp or otherwise function without a direct camp hookup to a fresh-water supply.

After lunch we gassed up in Creston, B.C., then headed straight south for the border crossing. Since we had experienced no difficulties with coming into Canada, we expected little if any difficulties leaving. Ha Ha! When we pulled up to the border guard's shack, we had the good fortune to be talking with a decidedly humorless chap who took one look at me through his mirrored sunglasses, and decided that I was probably the miscreant for which he'd been waiting all day.

He asked where we had been in Canada and what we had been doing there.

I said, "We've been in Nelson," as cheerfully as I could, expecting him to be the same.

"What were you doing there," the guard asked.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I said, still expecting the lighthearted demeanor of the Canadian border guard that we had met coming into Canada.

"Try me," he said without cracking a smile.

Finally sensing that maybe it wasn't the proper time to be lighthearted, I said as seriously as I could, "We were searching for shooting locations for the movie Roxanne." Then I stupidly said, "How old are you? Were you born before 1989?" I could feel the guard stiffen, as if I had asked him how many refugees he'd caught today.

Behind my guard, I could see a heavyset, much more pleasant-looking guard who seemed to suddenly catch on to what I was saying. He got up from his desk and came over. "I've seen that movie," the second guard said with a big smile. "It's a good one."

But still the first guard didn't crack a smile. He reminded me of one of those East German guards who was hoping to catch someone escaping East Berlin before the wall came down. No smile. Monotone speech. He was obviously trying to get me to admit to some misadventures.

In the same monotone, the first guard said, "bringing in anything? Maybe some marijuana?"

Okay, now I realized just where the East German guards had gone to work after the wall came down. He needed a job, and we needed more border scrutiny. Obviously America had hired this East German to guard the Canadian border. "Ah, no marijuana," I replied. I thought about making some sort of joke out of the question, but wisely thought better of it.

"How about agricultural products," the East German said, "Oranges and other citrus, tomatoes, avocados, peppers?"

"Yup, got those," I said. "Concetta chimed in and said, "we just bought them."

Without missing a beat the East German said, "Alcohol?"

I knew what to answer here as the incoming Canadian guard had asked the same question, then went ahead and gave us the correct answer. "Several bottles of table wine," I said, "and a bottle of Vodka for personal consumption."

Throughout this whole conversation the East German had not shown the slightest inclination of doing anything but conducting an interrogation. At this point he just stared at me, then asked me to put my arm down from where I had rested it on the open window so he could see my face clearly. Then, after a pause, he said, "You see that center lane over there?" He pointed at a spot fifty feet away and off to the side.

"Yes," I said. "I'm sure he was waiting for me to call him 'sir,' or maybe comrade border guard, but I had no such intention.

"Well, pull over there and turn off the engine. Someone will be out to check you over."

At this point I figured that the East German, and whatever storm troopers he could quickly assemble, would be out to disassemble the rig looking for some elusive stowaway, or perhaps cartoons of cigarettes meant for smoke-deprived Nevadans. But to our surprise, the good natured guard was the only one to approach the rig, and his mission was solely to confiscate yesterday's produce purchases. He was extremely pleasant, almost apologetic, and didn't mandate any sort of proof or personal search once I had gathered up all the offending agricultural products. After that we were free to go.

Fortunately we had anticipated being asked, in addition to our passports, our registration and insurance for the RV, which Concetta had in her lap. I can only imagine, with sweat tricking down my spine, what might have happened if we had any trouble producing said documents. Finally away from the border check, we breathed a sigh of relief and thought no more about our most recent acquaintances.

Our next mission was to find a RV fix-it shop for the water pump. It being the tail end of Memorial Day, I wasn't super confident that we would be successful getting a new pump, even if we found the shop. In all likelihood, the shop would be closed until tomorrow. But before we could turn our attention to that task, we had to repurchase all of our produce section items if we wanted to have a nice dinner this evening. What I intended to do was ask around at the market to see if anyone had any recommendations.

As fate would have it I was wearing my "I LOVE HISTORY" T-shirt today. After parking our rig at the Safeway in Bonner's Ferry, we were approaching the market when a young blond woman walked out, headed for the parking lot. "I love history, too," she said as she passed.

I immediately stopped and called after her. "Wait! Since you love history, I can trust you to give me some information."

This must have pleased her to no end, for she stopped, wheeled around, and came back. "Sure," she said. "What do you want to know?"

"Well," I said, "Is there a company in town that fixes RVs?"

The blond woman thought for several seconds, then said, "Nope, I don't think so. But down in Sandpoint or Ponderay, south of here, I'm pretty sure they do."

"Do we have to go back north to catch the right road?" I asked.

"Nope," she said, and turned to face the street adjacent to the market. "Just get on Route 95 out there and take it all the way."

"Great. Thanks," Concetta and I both said, and the young woman smiled warmly and strode away.

Once inside the market I asked the same question of our checker as well as the customer standing behind us who, as fate would have it, had driven up from Sandpoint to shop. The chap from Sandpoint told us roughly where to go to find the RV center, and so we were definitely set.

As it turned out, we did have a little trouble actually getting to the RV center. We saw it from the freeway, but it took some intricate maneuvering to actually drive there, which unfortunately involved heading the wrong way down a one-way street for a few feet. Fortunately, our guardian angel quickly revealed the mistake and we were able to get in the correct lane without incident.

When we arrived at the RV center there was a chap coiling a hose on the property who looked up as we rolled in and stopped. There didn't seem to be anyone else around. I got out of the rig and walked over to him. "What can I do for you," the guy asked me with a smile.

When I explained my problem, he said, "Come on, we'll take a look." He asked me what the pump had been doing and what measures I had taken to troubleshoot the problem. Once I had answered all his questions and we were both on our knees staring at the pump in the port side locker, I asked him if he could just replace the pump.

He grimaced. This pump is as good as you can buy. It isn't very old, and I doubt it has gone bad already. Probably something else is wrong.

I said, "Listen, I'll pay you whatever you want to get us up and running. We'd like to take off tomorrow sometime.

He grimaced again. "Well, we're not really open. The boss is letting me work on my own rig here, but I couldn't really work on yours."

"I'll pay you cash if you can fix what's wrong," I said. "We could even take the rig next door to the RV camp, and you could work over there so you boss isn't involved."

He stared at me for a long moment. "Well, it's not like I don't know where my next meal is coming from, but I could sure use the money."

"Okay," I said. "Let's do it then."

He smiled. "Okay, let me get my tester and we'll check the circuits. We don't have to move it." And that, my friend is yet another chapter in the Davis Family saga for lucky breaks on the road. The worker, whose name turned out to be Christopher, perhaps after the patron saint of travelers, went over every aspect of the system from electrical to water filters. We put in a new filter for the fresh-water tank, cleaned another, and then went into the rig and started on the electrical part. Here Christopher soon discovered that the contacts for one of the fuses was a tad too wide. He got a pair of needle nose pliers, squeezed the contacts just a bit, then returned the fuse to its proper spot. And presto! The pump came back to life, and both Christopher and I were now grinning from ear-to-ear.

I was so impressed with Christopher's dedication and professionalism, that I handed him a c-note and thought it a great deal. During the course of our checking routine I had learned that Chris had spent a large chunk of his life working on deep-sea fishing boats in the gulf of Alaska. Most recently, he had been working down in Arizona. Now he had come back to his hometown, and was planning on staying. You just meet the most interesting people on the road.

So now we're in camp, happily up to snuff in all of our support systems, and I hope that Christopher is treating himself (he's single) to a nice meal in the best restaurant in town. I wouldn't have been able to conquer this particular problem without him, or if we had formally checked the rig into the RV center tomorrow, it's quite likely the tab would have run much, much higher. So, a toast to my new buddy and a bon voyage for his next adventure, should he once again wander from his home.

And when you hit the road on your next RV trip, we hope that your luck is just as good. We wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.

Day 17 - Woodbury to Nelson, British Columbia - 50 Miles

Today was nothing if not intensely interesting and exciting. Though we didn't go far in the RV, only about 50 miles tops, we spent a lot of time "traveling." I ended up with over 21,000 steps and Concetta racked up about 18,000. What were we doing? Well, we did a bit of shopping when we arrived in Nelson opposite the local Walmart. That used up a few steps. But most of the day we spent hiking up hill and down dale in search of Roxanne. Yes, Roxanne -- the movie, which was filmed right here in good ol' Nelson on the very streets that we trod for hours.

Our camp hostess last night gave us a map of the downtown area and told us that if we looked hard enough we should be able to find some of the shooting locations around the business district. But at first we couldn't make sense of anything we saw as we explored the sidewalks along Vernon and Baker streets. At one point, however, Concetta stopped to look at some handmade jewelry that was being sold by a vendor set up on the sidewalk. While I waited, I talked to another nearby vendor whom I thought was a youngster.

Turned out this "youngster" was born in 1981 and was eight years old when Roxanne was filmed in Nelson. When I asked him if he knew anything about where the movie was shot, he scrunched his eyes a bit, looked up and down the street, then proceeded to tell me about how many blocks east the fire station was located, how many blocks north Roxanne's house was located, and how many blocks west a mural of Steve Martin was located.

Excited, we left that interview with a new resolve. Finally we had at least potential destinations. The first thing we did was tackle the steep hills to the east in search of the fire station. Believe me, the hills were steep and we rested often on the way up. During one of our rests we sat with a woman and her son who were also ascending the hill to their house. We all agreed that when you lived in Nelson you immediately get in great shape if you do any walking at all.

Once we had moved on, we almost immediately found the fire station, and though it appeared to have grown some in the last 29 years, it was obviously the correct station. They've either added wings on the original building, or the cinematographer had cropped down tightly to remove the more modern wings so as to make the station look more small and quaint.

With the fire station under our belts, and feeling more confident, we descended Wade Street all the way to Vernon to find the mural. When we found it, we saw that the mural of Steve Martin's C.D. "Charley" Bales was rather crudely done and no small amount of weathering had taken place, but shooting it helped keep our spirits up for all the walking we had to do.

At this point we proceeded north on Vernon Street and unknowingly walked right by the building used for the exterior shots of Dixie's cafe where much of the action took place. At the time we were more concerned with Hume's Restaurant across the street [bottom photo] that we were scoping out for dinner. Besides, the cafe had been altered considerably and we would have had a hard time recognizing it even if we'd been aware of its existence.

Unfortunately we sailed right by the cafe as we walked north in search of the street where the Baker Street vendor had told us we would find the splendid Victorian house that Roxanne had "rented" from Dixie in the movie. The Vendor had said that all we needed to do was go all the way north on Vernon and we would run right into it. Well, all we ran into was a forest of trees and a road that curved away to the west and out of sight.

At the precise moment that we arrived and stood there dumbly, trying to decide what to do, a trio of teens emerged from the forest and walked toward us. Since they were handy, and intended to walk right by us, we stopped them and interviewed them on the subject of Roxanne's house. They seemed to be vaguely aware of the movie, one even saying he'd seen it, but they didn't seem to have any idea where it might be. Still, they managed to illuminate what lay all around us and effectively convinced us that we were in the wrong place.

Once the teens had left, I told Concetta to stay put and I moved off in the direction of the next street to the west in hopes of seeing something that might give me a clue. Once I got down, I immediately saw that no 19th century Victorian houses were down there. As I trudged back up the hill toward where I'd left Concetta, I saw that she was talking to a young woman who was out walking her dog. Once I got within speaking distance, Concetta informed me that the young woman, whose name was Ellie, and who was a native of Grass Valley, California, said that she knew where the house was located.

Ellie started to give us directions, but then said, "How about if I take you at least close to there while walking my dog? We immediately agreed and off we went. Well the first thing that we did is tackle a set of stairs that ran on for about four city blocks, I kid you not. Once we had climbed a couple of city blocks worth, we arrived at Ellie's house and she gave us directions to continue up the hill to find the house. And, as an added measure of assurance, she looked up the address of the house on her IPhone, as well as the address of the cafe, which at this point Concetta remembered seeing and told me we had already passed down near the mural.

Thanking Ellie profusely, we said goodby to this charming young lady, and turned our attention to climbing another two city blocks of stairs toward our goal. It was a long climb, and we were about all in by the time we emerged on Cabonite Street where Ellie said we needed to hang a right and proceed downhill to Hall Street. Once there, Ellie said, you'll be at the house.

Well, as you might expect, we gleefully turned our steps downhill and thoroughly enjoyed not climbing stairs anymore. But our glee was short lived. Once we arrived at the corner of Carbonite and Hall, there was absolutely NO house that resembled Roxanne's. Desperately, I left Concetta in the shade of a large oak, and climbed Hall Street to the next cross street higher on the hill, but no soap, there was no such film location to be found.

At this point I agreed that we were NOT going to find our quarry, and we moved to the next item on our list to photograph, Dixie's Cafe. This one was going to be easy as we already knew exactly where to find it. It still was a considerable walk, but since we were headed for our last photo op of the day, it felt easier.

Once our cafe shoot was over, it was an easy jaunt to the next block to the south where we had made plans to have an early dinner. Having skipped lunch, we felt more than justified in having a big dinner at 4:00 p.m. Before entering the restaurant we responded to a hello by an outdoor diner who was seated right near the entrance. Turned out he was just as much of a talker as me and we spent at least 10 minutes chatting with the guy whose name, quite incredibly, was Nelson. I had to ask him twice since I didn't think I'd heard right. "Yup," Nelson said, "I'm Nelson from Nelson. Lot's of people have difficulty with remembering my name.

It was Nelson from Nelson who clued us about Roxanne's house when we told him what we were doing in town. "Well, you won't find the house here," Nelson said. It's in Vancouver."

"Well, I guess that explains why we can't find it," I said.

"But," Nelson went on, "the house where he rescued the kid from the top of the roof is back there where you were looking if you wanted to see that one."

I shrugged. "I think we're done looking for today," I said. "But we sure appreciate the information."

"And," Nelson said, "the tree where he rescued the cat is up there somewhere on the hill, too."

"Hmm," I said. "Well, listen, I think we'll just go in and eat instead. But thanks for the info and it's been a pleasure meeting you."

Nelson beamed, and I could see we'd made another friend. In fact, Nelson would have been happier, I think, if we had just taken a seat at his table and joined him. But we decided we wanted to eat inside, so bade him adieu. We had already visited the restaurant interior earlier in the day and it was so cool and plush and comfy in there we just didn't want to sit outside in the heat. I think Nelson understood.

After our dinner of fish and chips for Concetta, and seafood fettuccine for me, we got directions to the local camp from one of our waitresses, then set off for the Walmart parking lot to retrieve our home on wheels. We did stop along the way in a video rental shop to see if the proprietor had a copy of Roxanne to sell, but he told us he only had one to rent.

Some minutes and about five blocks later we emerged on the Walmart parking lot, fired up the rig that had spent the whole day nestled next to Kootenay Lake and all the passing sail boats, and headed for the exit. Though we overshot the turnoff the first time around, the municipal camp proved fairly easy to find with Concetta's navigational skills working superbly. There was only one spot left with full hookups when we arrived about 5:30 p.m., but then one was all we needed.

Our own mobile hot spot won't pull in a signal here, but fortunately the municipal Internet connection appears to be pretty good, so having had my shower for the evening and no dinner dishes to clean up, I was able to dive right into the blog. I did tarry a bit to meet our Scandinavian/Irish neighbors who lassoed me when I ventured out to take a photo of the rig in our camp site for the night. I sat with them for a good twenty minutes discussing everything from DNA to Napoleon's invasion of Russia. But mostly we discussed RV types, cool places to see in Canada, and the possibility of us coming to Edmonton to visit them.

Since we don't know where in the country we will be dropping our hook tomorrow night, I was noncommittal with Paul and Shawna's invitation to Edmonton. But these sort of invitations are pretty commonplace. We almost always find that our fellow campers are wonderful, talkative, friendly people. Last night we got the same invitation from our Canadian neighbors, though I've already forgotten where they told me I should come visit them.

But when you get ready to meet your wonderful fellow campers, hit the road, and set out on your own personal quest for adventure, we wish you exciting destinations and memorable travels from the Davises, the Happy Wanderers.