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6/23
The Robin’s nest has a vacancy sign. The tenants have moved on. But, where? Several hundred feet away we found the answer. The babes have left the nest while no one was looking. They fluttered to the ground, but still cannot fly well & cannot feed themselves. So, the foursome stays separated, but not too far from one another as they watch mom hunt & run to each one to feed them. They quickly catch on and within a day are going their separate ways. They do run to mom asking for another snack, but she is now ignoring them. They tentatively begin their own scratching in the soil for bugs ‘n such, and once in a while mom will give them that snack, but only once in awhile. Now, the dogs of the campers are another matter. Really dependent on their owners for everything, we see them strutting their stuff several times a day on the end of a leash. They sniff & they walk, they try to pull their owners this way & that as they explore. And every walk is an exploration. The tiny ones cannot pull effectively, but the larger dogs do it quite well. The more travel experienced are pretty complacent & well-behaved. But the household pet, taken only occasionally for a weekend away, is much more enthusiastic about checking everything out. For the owners, it must be tough at times. Doggie(s) may need to do their business at times not convenient. And the owners must be ready with that plastic bag to remove any evidence the dog was in your campsite. And with all the rain we’ve had, we’ve seen very wet owners & dogs doing the exercise/potty thing in the cold & rain. The companionship between these pets & their owners cannot be overemphasized. The love exchanged between the human & pet is something to behold. These animals are treasured & very well cared for. In return, the human is receiving such devotion. It is a very strong bond. When Gary & I walk around the campground daily, we often talk to the pet owners. Many, many of these pets are ‘rescue’ animals who’ve had horrible beginnings & were given new humans to care for them. Lots of patience, structure & time are needed for these creatures and the folks we talk with have made it a priority to give them what they need. I am speaking mainly of dogs, because they are what we see. There are a number of campers who travel with cats. Generally, they stay indoors, though on other trips we have seen them on leashes attached to a picnic table of some part of the rv. They like to lay out on the table and soak up the sun or rest in the shade of that table, depending on the weather. We have decided that traveling with a pet is not a good choice for us. But, for the people who do, it seems to be a great mix.
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As the rain drizzles, these pet owners cannot put off the inevitable: the exercise/potty walk. The young terrier takes a sudden energy burst & almost pulls his lady off her feet. Meanwhile, the well-behaved older dog is quietly walking by his master, who is carrying the plastic bag with the ‘evidence’ in it. When they return to their RV it will be time to dry off these cuties & themselves before stepping into their nice, warm home on wheels. This goes on several times a day, rain or shine.
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Nature calls for these companions, no matter that you are in the middle of dinner with your friends. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go. And you don’t want it happening at your dinner table!
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Left: Looks like we had snow, doesn’t it? This is but a bit of the cottonwood trees product that is all over the campground. As it literally snows its stuff, the lightweight, bouncy ‘balls’ of this stuff gets into everything. Right: Poppies growing in a neglected flower bed in the campground.
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6/24
The sun is bright in a very blue Montana sky with puffy white clouds scattered about. We decide to drive to the west side of the railroad tracks to seek out some homes built for the railroad workers of long ago. The more wealthy folks lived on the east side. The working stiffs were on the ‘other side of the tracks’. Then on to Columbia Falls to check out a lumber mill that is probably the key employer of the town. We wrote last year of the aluminum plant, with a long history in Columbia Falls that employed so many of the town’s people at one time. With much needed oversight by the federal government’s environmental agencies & the changing economy, the plant dwindled in size year to year until it finally closed last year. The timber industry is not doing well here. In northwest Montana there have been 18 lumber mills closed from 1988 to 2000. A total of 1700 jobs were lost permanently. As the afternoon progressed, here came the threatening clouds. It was a nice day & the clouds were just full of bluster. No rain.
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Unlike the eastside homes of distinction in old Kalispell, we’re in a westside neighborhood of modest homes. No markers to tell stories about these homes. This is the area the railroad built housing for its workers. If this house was one of them, it would have been for a supervisor-type person.
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This is the best example we could find of the railroad-built homes. Most have been torn down, so they are hard to find. The rest have mostly been remodeled into something 3 times their original size & shape. This house is a bit longer than it is wide, but not by much.
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This is the Plum Creek Mill at Columbia Falls. A huge operation that turns out plywood & MDF. Probably the biggest employer in Columbia Falls.
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Keeping the logs wet. No fire will start here! Because the end product is wood particles in one form or another, these logs are don’t have to be the large size used in creating product like lumber or furniture, etc.
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Just some more huge equipment used in the production of the plywood or mdf products. You can see the red pickup truck in the foreground being dwarfed by the size of the equipment. How about those clouds?
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This is a double-trailer load of logs heading into the plant. These trucks are arriving just a few minutes apart as we take pictures. This was the only set of doubles we saw.
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The pictures right & below show a man nimbly walking about the tops of the loaded trucks. A sign nearby has a list of Trucking Tarping Rules. And he is tethered to a safety line to keep him from tumbling from his slippery perch as he ‘tarps’ the load. By way of the yellow catwalk, he is able to walk from the top of one truck to the top of the next. Very busy place!
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The load on the left is covered & the man heads for the uncovered load on the right.
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We were intrigued by this sign stating that there were remote controlled locomotives operating in the area & that there may be no human on board. Unfortunately, we never saw one. This crossing was next to the mill shown in the pictures above. The mill had more land on the other side of the street we traveled on. We don’t know if the locomotives referred to had something to do with that plant’s operations, but probably so..
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In the foreground, the mountain on the left is the end of the Whitefish Range & the mountain on the right is the beginning of the Swan Range. The mountains in the background run through Glacier National Park, the mighty Rocky Mountains. I’ve shot this scene several times, but this is the best view I’ve had. Hope you enjoy it.
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The highway back to the campground from Columbia Falls is narrow & straight. Once in a while a hill is part of the road. These ten motorcycles are typical of groups of bikers who enjoy a ride on the roads taking them through beautiful scenery in and around Glacier Nat’l Park.
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A number of cultivated fields are bursting with a crop we believe is mustard. Beautiful, bright yellow. It has only taken a few days of sun for their color to burst forth. Ever so pretty!
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This is Spruce Pine on the River campground as seen from Hwy. 2. The ‘Roadhouse’ is not seen in this photo, but there are two RVs about in the middle of the photo at riverside. We are behind them in the trees.
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The right side of the picture shows the bridge crossing the Flathead River on Highway 2. The picture above was taken from the bridge. I was sure we were going to drown from all the rain that would fall from these very threatening clouds. Not a drop fell.
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