Joe & Wilma's Excellent Adventures

 Saturday, July 6, 2024

Kalispell again

Today started out with a trip back to Kalispell. The town of Kalispell sort of completes the circle of Columbia Falls, Hungry Horse, and Whitefish in a line, and Kalispell a little bit to the west, but these towns are all pretty close together.  After breakfast at McDonald’s, we went to a Farmers Market that was on my list of things to do here, very nice, very pricey, lots of handmade items, baked goods, fresh vegetables, and flowers. We didn’t buy anything but I did get a free piece of cake. 

A lot of flowers were going out of this place.

Our friends, Dorothy and Arnie, were into these kinds of things a few years ago.  They had a nice display of these here, most with birdseed in them.

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And Brenda likes gnomes.  They had some really cute ones.

Walmart was practically next-door. All these places, McDonald’s, the Farmers Market and Walmart were within a half mile of each other. It’s a beautiful morning, heading into the 80s today. We had rain during the night again.

We did our shopping in Walmart, walked most of the store, checked out and came out to the car, and I couldn’t find my keys.  So after searching the car, I went back in and walked the store again, way beyond what I was really wanting to do. No luck.  They called the manager, I talked to a couple people -- no luck. I looked out through the glass doors and saw Joe ransacking the Jeep so I knew he hadn’t found them.  But when I opened the door to the Jeep, they were right there on the floor inside the door.  How we missed them, I have no idea.  I had looked there first because I have found them there before.  Joe must have moved something that made them appear, but thank goodness.  I really think it was a miracle, certainly an answer to prayer.  They sometimes fall out of my pocket when I'm sitting in the Jeep if my pockets are shallow, and I guess that's what happened today, again.

There’s still a little snow on a couple distant mountains, but most of the mountains surrounding these towns has melted, and I imagine the next couple of days will finish them off.  Temperatures predicted at   82 today, then 86, 91, 97 on Wed.  We are moving on tomorrow down near Missoula, but I don't think it will be any cooler there, maybe even warmer.  

We fueled the jeep at Costco. It was seven cents cheaper there than the going right in town, which is 3.49.

We got back to the RV about 12:30 completely worn out. Joe managed to get the groceries brought in and I managed to get them put away, but we were pooped.  We could have done without that little episode with the lost keys.

We spent some time this afternoon getting reservations for the next few weeks.  We still have one open week, but we do have some place to go tomorrow.  Reservations are hard to get, and we are heading to Yellowstone at the end of the month.  We do have 2 nights there and will hope to move into a first-come, first-serve spot at that campground if we can't extend.  That's at a national forest right outside the west entrance to Yellowstone, and we had stayed here before with Jeff and Brenda.

We put in our time here in Columbia Falls.  We probably stayed here longer than necessary, but when we made these reservations, we were expecting to get the rear a/c fixed here.  As it turns out, we will have that done in Bozeman in a couple weeks.  And it is heating up to where we are going to need that second air conditioner!