We don't re-visit a attraction unless it's really good! Welcome back to the National Bison Range!

After three days in Trout Creek, Montana, we are heading east with more great views of the Clark Fork River.

Our path took us through Paradise (Montana). We were expecting something a little fancier in paradise, but the mountain views were great.

Mark drove the motor home down narrow highway 200. We had the Flathead River to the left, and rock mountain walls to our right. It is amazing that the little boat on the river is so close to our motor home driving down the highway, and the car coming around the curve is even closer. It's not a highway for the faint of heart when driving a big motor home.

After experiencing a wet summer in Canada, we can see that Montana is getting dry. We have enjoyed low fire danger signs all summer, but now we are in high fire danger territory.

As we drive away from the river, we are seeing more of the golden hills as we get closer to our destination for the day.

We have been traveling for almost five years now, and we have repeated very few places. But we really enjoyed our first trip to the National Bison Range, and we decided to make a return visit today. So we started driving the loop road at about 6 p.m., hoping to find animals out this evening.

True to its name, our first animal sighting was this big bull bison. The dust is still flying from his roll in the bison wallow. These big animals roll around in the mud and dust to get relief from the flies.

Another bachelor bison was heading across one of those golden hills. We enjoy these big guys, but we have to be truthful, we were hoping for some bears. We saw one the last time we were here, but we both decided this just didn't look like bear country.

That's when Mark noticed movement in the brush right beside the road.

A black bear was grazing on the grass beside a little pond.

Visitors are required to stay in their vehicles, so Mark did some creative stretching (without touching the ground) to get a new angle for pictures.

If was fun to watch the little bear go for a swim right beside us.

Then he wandered into the trees, where he had to stretch up on his back legs to eat the berries off the branches.

If we had been a few minutes earlier or later, we would have missed that great bear sighting! As we pulled ourselves away, we rounded a curve and Mark caught sight of a black dot moving across the hill in front of us.

That's our second bear sighting this evening!

Goldilocks had three bears, and so do we! We saw the third one making his way across an opening close to the road.

He was heading toward a berry tree for a little snack.

After finishing up the bottom branches, he raised up on his back legs to reach higher. What a great view of these three bears! Denisa has been giving Mark a hard time about not getting pictures of the two bears we have seen while hiking lately. Today he redeemed himself in the bear photography category as all three were on his side of the car.

The only time that visitors are allowed outside their vehicles are on the park's two walking trails. We knew to take the bear warning signs seriously at the trail head, as we took this walk out to a viewpoint.

Back to the car, our wildlife loop headed sharply downhill as we came to the lower section of the park.

What we love about this wildlife refuge is the diversity we remembered from our last visit. So we weren't surprised to find these three bucks at the bottom of the hill.

They were concentrating on eating, with their muzzles down until something caught their attention.

We only saw one pronghorn this time.

We were thrilled when he moved closer to us for a better look.

The sun was getting low in the sky when we found this sizable herd of bison grazing on the hill-side.

Part of that herd was also scattered across the road, causing a bison traffic jam.

One young bull walked right past our stopped car,

while we waited on two of the youngest members of the herd to cross the road.

But the award for the the worst attitude in this bison traffic jam, goes to this one sticking out his tongue.

We found this remnant of the herd crossing the river.

The only animal group we hadn't found this evening were the elk. As we rounded the last curve on our loop, we saw this small herd with many young ones.

We were pretty impressed with this big bull, showing off his horns and standing guard over his harem.

But we were more impressed with our last sighting of the night--this grand-daddy of all elks showing off this rack near the exit.

Gates close at 9 p.m., so we had to hurry to hook up the car to the motor home that had been waiting at the visitor center.

Then we were on the road towards Missoula, Montana for the night. We include this picture because it was a very unusual view for us through the motor home windshield. We've only seen this night-time driving view a few times in the last 5 years, and it's not our favorite.

We rolled into Missoula after 10 p.m. We'll be here a couple days as this college town seems to host lots of fun. Have we mentioned that this is a repeat visit to this city too?

Sharing Huckleberries with the Bears

After a beautiful blue-sky day yesterday, we have chances of rain all day today. But that doesn't keep us at home, because our campground hosts have suggested a good hike and we're determined to try it. Even though it was sprinkling, we drove the 7 miles on a rocky, pot-holed dirt road that was barely wide enough for one car. I'm not sure what we would have done if we would have met another car coming in the opposite direction. But this trail isn't well known, and we were the only vehicle at the trail head parking lot. That means we'll have the trail to ourselves--or at least we won't see any other humans on this hike.

Even though the road was in terrible condition, we were glad to see new bridges in place over some of the water crossings once we started hiking. We wouldn't have to get our feet wet like our campground host thought.

We were sure hoping to find some huckleberries today. Trout Creek just hosted the Huckleberry Festival last weekend, and rumor has it that this is a good year for these wild berries. Two years ago we learned that huckleberries are only found at very specific altitudes and under very specific growing conditions. Denisa became a very slow hiker, as she kept stopping to inspect bushes and to pick an occasional huckleberry.

Alas, she wasn't finding many huckleberries. She did find some perfectly ripe thimbleberries. These beautiful berries must be a cousin to the raspberry, but they are really too seedy for even a berry-lover like Denisa to enjoy.

The clouds are still hanging around as we would like to see the mountain-tops that surround us.

We had heard that the first half of the hike was a gentle slope that heads to a waterfall and some old mining equipment. We found both at the same time.

Then Part 2 of the hike begins, as we head steeply up the mountain for views of the valley now far below us.

Denisa is smiling because now we are at a higher elevation and we are beginning to see huckleberries on the bushes. We're leaving markers along the trail, as we're planning to return to pick those berries on our way back down this trail.

That's when it happened! We rounded another blind corner and surprised a black bear eating those delicious huckleberries right beside the trail! We're not sure who was more startled--the bear or us. Mark hurried back down the trail while the bear hurried up the slope of the mountain. Now with a little space between us, Mark took a picture of the bear.

Denisa has been giving Mark a hard time about his poor bear photography skills when he didn't get a picture of the grizzly he saw on the trail a couple weeks ago. If you haven't found the bear in the picture above, you are not alone. If we zoom in A LOT you can barely see the blurry top of his black bear head in the very middle of the picture below.

Now we had to make a decision. Do we turn around and head back to the car, or do we push on for another two miles through bear country to our destination at Rock Lake? We've heard how pretty this lake is, but is it worth hiking in bear country on a deserted trail with lots of overgrown bushes and blind curves? We guess it is worth it, because we pressed on until we arrived at Rock Lake.

Nestled between several peaks of the Cabinet Mountains, we knew the views would have even been prettier if those darn clouds would lift.

But instead of lifting, it started sprinkling on us again. Now that we're a little jittery from being so close to a bear, we are checking out our surroundings to be sure there isn't another one taking a break here at the lake. That's when we realized that the bushes on the shore of Rock Lake were full of huckleberries!

Where we had seen a few tiny berries here and there on the trail, these bushes near the water were completely covered!

No longer worried about bears or concerned about the possibilities of rain showers, Denisa sets herself down in the middle of all those huckleberries and starts picking.

She always takes snacks for the trail, so we quickly ate that food so we could use the ziplock bags for huckleberries.

After more than an hour of picking, we took a picture of our huckleberry harvest. Now if we can just get all of these delicious berries back down this 5-mile trail without making them into huckleberry juice. Or worse yet, without getting mugged by a hungry bear.

We had hoped that the clouds would lift while we were picking berries. But one more picture at Rock Lake before we left still had those tall mountain peaks shrouded with clouds.

Knowing there was at least one bear on the long trail in front of us, we used our best bear-aware skills. We talked loudly, and sang all the verses of all the songs we could think of as we tried to make as much noise as possible. We certainly didn't want to surprise another bear on the way down the trail. The good news is that we didn't see another bear, and we got those huckleberries down that mountain. Mark's all-trails app says that we hiked 10.2 miles with an elevation gain of 1,854 feet today. We even got a hint of blue in the sky before we got back to the car.

We spent the rest of the day getting those huckleberries washed and in the freezer. Tonight we'll be dreaming of huckleberry cheesecake, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry crisp, huckleberry pancakes, and hopefully NOT about huckleberry-eating bears. Our last day at Trout Creek, Montana was certainly interesting!

Fancy Living in Trout Creek, Montana

We are staying three nights at the RV park in Trout Creek, Montana. This is a very nice campground, and we're even going to call our stay here "fancy." This is the first time we've had 50 amp electricity and full-hookups for over a month. If you live in an RV, that's a long time, so this feels pretty luxurious! We can take long showers, and run the microwave when the air-conditioner is on. We don't take any of that for granted any more. But that's not the reason we're calling this stay "fancy."

When we checked in, the owners gave us some great advice for kayaking and hiking during our stay. We wish we could have taken them with us because they work so hard every day! Our first day took us to Marten Creek for a little time on the water. We kayaked the wide area of Marten Bay, where hundreds of swallows were dipping and diving to snag the bugs near the water. We found it is very difficult to take pictures of so many of these fast-flying birds, but you can see a few as specks against the blue sky. We were glad those bugs weren't interested in us, as we realized we haven't had to wear bug spray in a very long time.

We had hoped to paddle up the narrow Marten Creek, but we soon ran aground on the rocks.

But those rocks make a great background to show just how clear the water was.

So we reversed directions and went under the bridge toward Noxon Reservoir.

Our channel soon widened, as did the number of water birds. We first found these ducks with their fancy spiked hair-dos.

Then we watched a big heron fishing in the shallows at the edge of the lake. Based on this picture, we would have sworn that this poor bird had only one leg.

But as he walked along the shore, we soon found out that he certainly does have two good legs.

When the heron tired of our stalking him while he was stalking fish, he flew to the top of a nearby tree. Even though the lighting wasn't good for a picture, the dark silhouette shows that characteristic two feathers sticking out from the back of his head.

We're guessing that this big lake could get quite windy, but we were certainly enjoying the calm weather today. We could see the tall cliffs on the shore line perfectly reflected in that still water of Noxon Reservoir.

We're even beginning to see some reds and yellows show up in the leaves along the shore. Autumn must not be far away here in northern Montana. What a great day to be out in the kayak! But this isn't why our stay here at Trout Creek is "fancy."

We still had time to make the trip to the nearby town of Thompson Falls. Our host had suggested a walk to the Clark Fork River that flows through town. We also walked across the bridge that took us to the town's island park.

A hike on the island gives some good views of the river, included the old high bridge that used to take cars across the Clark Fork River. Now it is a lovely pedestrian bridge. But that's not why we're calling our stay "fancy."

We also made a quick stop at Thompson Falls State Park because we had the Montana State Park pass that we bought a couple months ago. But we didn't stay long because we are on a schedule today. That's because the Trout Creek Farmer's Market opens at 4:00. We were there at 4:02, and lines had already formed at the  booths with fresh baked goods and home-grown fruits and vegetables. We bought a blueberry bar, plums, cucumbers, an apple fritter, and a pound of the biggest blueberries we have ever seen. We should have taken a picture of our farmer's market goods, but we started eating them as soon as we got in the car. But those delicious foods aren't exactly "fancy."

The exciting news about our stay in Trout Creek is that we have television! This is the first time we have been able to pick up over-the-air stations in the last 34 days. We didn't think we had missed television, but we did spend the rest of the evening in the motor home with it on. With our 50 amp electricity and full hookups AND television, this is some kind of FANCY living!

Some of Montana's Best Roadside Attractions

After two long nights in the casino parking lot--right beside the train track where they blow the whistles long and loud every time they pass--it was time to head on down the road. We decided to head east and then south through Montana.

Our inflatable kayak is a well-inspected water craft. We had to have it inspected when we entered the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, and now again in Montana, USA. At each place we got a certificate of inspection that is supposed to be in the boat when we are on the water. 

Our stop at the wildlife refuge yesterday in Bonner's Ferry didn't result in seeing any wildlife. But the helpful ranger gave great travel advice. She recommended the route we are taking today so we can stop to see two great Montana roadside attractions. Our first stop is in a parking lot large enough for the motor home at Kootenay Falls.

The picture above is the normal view that most people will see with this stop. It's a good hike all the way down to the river, and Denisa is that red dot standing a respectable distance from the powerful waterfalls. But of course, Mark usually likes to get as close to the waterfall as possible. He managed to climb onto the rocks to the right, and you can see him as the small blue dot beside the smaller waterfall in the picture below.

But then he saw that a little rock hopping . . .

would get him right beside the big waterfall.

Then he could take the close-up picture of Kootenay Falls that the normal tourist doesn't see.

So Denisa still stays the normal distance away from the water, so she can take the pictures of her abnormal travel partner. 

A new walking bridge across the Kootenay River was just completed last month, so we went to check it out.

We were surprised to see that the old suspension bridge has already been removed. After walking across it with a group of junior high boys, we can report that the new bridge seems very strong and can withstand a good amount of running and bouncing.

While we stood beside the bridge talking to some locals, we witnessed an osprey dipping into the water and coming out with a fish in his talons. We turned the camera in that direction to get this blurry white dot of a bird with another blurry thrashing fish under him. It's hard to see, but it's right in the middle of the picture below. Not exactly wildlife photography at its best?!?

We appreciated the ranger's advice for that stop. It was a great roadside attraction! Now we loaded up into the motor home for our second stop of the day. That will be Ross Creek Giant Cedars, a few more miles down the road. Traveling in a motor home takes a little more planning, as Mark had to find a place big enough to park and leave it. Then we unhooked the car for the last four miles of winding narrow road down to the old-growth cedar forest.

This forest of 500-year-old cedar trees was a cool place to hike--in more ways than one. As we entered into these tall canopies, the temperature dropped ten degrees. This is a nice level one-mile trail that took us to some interesting trees. The tallest tree in this grove is 175 feet tall! Some times we found twins . . .

and even triplet trees.

We even found hollow tree trunks still standing at Ross Creek forest.

A dry creek bed in the forest has become a forest of rock cairns.

Denisa added a few rocks to the cairns herself.

We have truly wandered into more than one of God's wonders today! After wandering around looking up at the tops of those tall trees, it was nice to sit down and rest our necks.

This was another great Montana roadside attraction on our trip today. With two stops, our 90-mile trip from Bonner's Ferry to Trout Creek took all day. We checked into a great site at the Trout Creek Motel and RV Park--another half-price Passport America find. We like these locally-owned campgrounds that usually provide us full-hook-ups at a very affordable price. We are now camped in the shade of some very big trees here as well.

The campground owners have run this place for 16 years, and they provided good advice for our three-day stay in Trout Creek. They had first-hand knowledge about even more of Montana's best roadside attractions.