Day 23

Up at 8:30am.  And oatmeal again.  I’ve been using a Revereware saucepan as my pot on this trip and it’s just a touch small.  Every time I make oatmeal, some of it ends up overflowing.  I’ve been keeping an eye out for a slightly larger pot, but the one I have fits so well in the storage tote!  :)  I reckon I’ll probably spend the rest of the trip spilling oatmeal.

Before we left, I made out a menu of a week’s worth of meals, a shopping list of the “consumables” (things that must be bought each week) in those meals and how many meals use each item, and a master food list that includes the staples as well. My family is pretty big into a variety of meals, but I decided that we could eat the same thing every week for this trip.  It has made cooking and shopping pretty easy and straight forward.  

This has let us go shopping about twice a week as convenient and kept our food fairly fresh in the cooler.  Our ice needs vary mostly according to the weather.

The only problem that have arisen with this system is the inability to deviate from the menu plan once we’ve gone shopping without risking having food spoil.  This causes much frustration for Mom when she has come to be pretty excited about something she found in the store that we could buy for dinner or when she is wanting to “save” me from having to cook dinner on a late night or in inclement weather.   It doesn’t leave her with quite enough options and room for changing her mind for her comfort.

Another organizational aside ... I keep these in a binder and also included several extra sheet protectors.  I use these for sorting and storing receipts.  After we get back I plan to go through and run some totals to see how much we spent and on what.  It would be great to do this midstream so we could make some adjustments to improve the remainder of the trip, but I haven't found time for that yet.  The sheet protectors are also handy for storing maps, pamphlets, and other unavoidable paper collections.

I scored a purple snow peak spork.  

The NPS volunteer lady was cleaning out the bear locker and was going to pitch it.  I asked and I became the proud new owner!  She had come by yesterday and checked our registration … some campgrounds have somebody do that every morning and others you never see anyone official.  She had advised us that we really needed to keep the dogs leashed.  I asked about good places to exercise the dogs since they weren’t allowed on the trails, or on some of the lakes, and had to be leashed on the campground.  She suggested a trail that does allow dogs.  The rules were to protect the wildlife … some dogs might chase the deer.  The reason they aren’t allowed on the trails is because people aren’t faithful in picking up after there pets and apparently there is some virus in pet feces that is fatal to the wildlife.  All my vet-techiness comes out there and I’m gonna have to check up on that!  I do think that people need to be very careful where they let their dogs off leash to be sure their fun isn’t infringing on other people’s fun.  The other reason was that bears will come after the dogs and the dogs will come running to us which will put us in danger. 

Speaking of deer!  I have seen so many deer out here!   Herds and herds of them out in the fields, day and night.  Right next to the side of the road, not conceded about the cars.  I don’t think they need to be very concerned about their deer population.  

We left Bowman just before 1pm and stopped in at the Polebridge Mercantile.  Mom had seen a writeup on it somewhere.  I got a red pottery soup mug and a sticker.

Little cabins out back

Not sure if this is a rental cabin or somebody's house!

We stopped in at Sundrop in Columbia Falls to get more cheese puffs and some fresh produce.  Saw a advertisement there for a hostel right around the corner, $35, 6 beds, 2 baths fenced yard, and full kitchen.  We checked at the muffler shop and they said it would be Thursday or Friday before they could get us in and it would take 4-6 hours.  

We stayed at the Whitefish/Kalispell KOA again so we could take showers and do a couple loads of wash.  I hung out the wool and synthetics and dried the cotton.  Joshua was very adamant that we not stay there.  He would not shower and slept in the car.

We had grilled cheese and canned beef barley soup.  

3,320 miles in.