6/7 

We drove to the Medical Center.  The emergency room is state of the art.  Gary was seen immediately.  This whole process was what we had hoped.  After listening carefully to Gary’s recall of his illness, the doctor spoke of how he wished to go forward.  A simple test, that should have been done in Branson in our opinion, helped determine that Gary’s in better shape than we could have expected.  The doctor then consulted with a urologist, who confirmed what the ER doc had done, felt that no immediate action had to be taken, but he wished to see Gary to be certain.  Within an hour we were ushered into his exam room & this Baylor Medical School grad very carefully went over the info & test.  He assured Gary that the infection is gone & to stop the antibiotic.  He also assured Gary that he could continue our vacation, that elective surgery should be considered once we are home.  He also ordered one more test & a final consult next Monday. I cannot emphasize enough what great care we have received here-twice now.  These people actually care about the outcome of your situation.  Amazing &, for the first time since Gary got sick, we can relax, knowing that he’s in good, capable hands.  On a side note:  while Gary was in one of the exam rooms in the ER, I was gazing around the central medical station.  While paying attention to what they were doing with Gary, my eye kept going to a nurse that was busy at the central station.  I finally asked the nurse tending to Gary if they had a nurse named Peggy working there.  She smiled & said, ‘Why, yes.  Peggy Perkins.’  Well, my goodness!!  We have known Peggy since 1978.  Obviously, not well, as she moved to Kalispell from Fallbrook 5 years ago.  She was a supervising nurse at Fallbrook Hospital ER.  Our girls had been Pop Warner cheerleaders together so many years ago.  We would see each other at various times over the years.  And here she was in the ER in Kalispell.  Had great hugs & greetings & a promise to meet for a meal before we leave. Anyway, our relief knows no bounds and we are ready to start again our plans for a great summer.  To finish off the day, we did a little shopping in old downtown, went to Costco & Target and got caught in a short, fierce thunderstorm.

We’ve been in old downtown Kalispell & taken pictures here several times before. Just in case you haven’t been with us or don’t mind looking again, here’s a tiny bit of downtown. Upper left:  The horse pulling its carriage on its 2nd floor platform of this pre-1900 building always catches the eye. On the right: Who would hesitate to pull into ‘Bikology’ for any bicycle information?  This tidy shop looks up to the task.

The ‘cowboy’ swings from the roof to the 2nd story window using his trusty rope. Is he breaking in? Is he running from the law? Is he after his girl?  Questions only he can answer & he’s not talking.

The ‘Sassafras Shop’ is full of Montana hand-crafted items. From yard art to place-mats & antique glass to paintings, the inventory is fun to check out.

The anchor to the street.  Set down in the center of the street, with vehicles obliged to drive around it, is the courthouse still in use.  This stalwart building has stood for the law & order of this town for many, many years.

6/8 

A day to just do little stuff.  Rain is threatening so we will visit Glacier Nat’l Park in a few days.  Took a jaunt up to Columbia Falls for lunch.  Wandered through a store or two & went to check on a produce stand we like.  Because of the cold weather they’ve experienced & all the rain, they won’t be open until mid-July. They are just planting now.  Back in Kalispell, Gary sought out a good tire place.  He also did some more work with the failing tire.  After a couple hours of inflating the tire & poking about, he discovered that the valve stem extension has gone bad & is leaking.  We have to find the parts.  Took a walk through the park & had a couple of nice conversations with our fellow campers.  Always fun to find out where folks are from & their vacation plans.  Kalispell is not too far from the border with Alberta, Canada, so we see a lot of vacationers from there as well as British Columbia & Ontario.  As well as the U.S. folks heading for Canada.

6/9 

We are soooo far behind on the website that we are using this blustery, rainy day to work on it.  We are so distracted by the sight of this magnificent river that often we stop work just to gaze out the windows. Every now & again a downed tree will float by. We’re also trying to figure out where we go next when our time here is done.  We’re not going to backtrack to Minnesota.  That will be for another year.  Ah, well, we’ll figure it out.  Along with the river, we also enjoy staring at the sky.

Boy, the Big Sky is busy.  Never a dull moment in any direction.  Puffy clouds, flat clouds, white clouds, gray clouds, deep gray clouds, very big clouds, little clouds, all racing across the sky.  Clouds creep over the mountains as if to embrace them.  Rain one minute, weak sunlight the next, bright sun the next, followed by cloud cover.  Never a dull moment.  The day ends with a cozy meal in the coach.  Temps in the low 50’s keep us from using the barbeque.  A month ago the air conditioner was going full time in Texas.  Now the heater is our friend.

6/10 

Another rainy, windy day is promised.  We do some of those pesky chores and run some errands.  It did rain a bit here, but mostly there were bursts of rain all through the valley.  One incoming camper shared a tale of getting caught in a major cloudburst near the border shared by Glacier-Waterton Parks.  And we could see the clouds dropping their sheets of rain for miles all around us.  We took a walk after dinner and met more of our neighbors.  One couple, from a town near Calgary, Alberta, was walking their cute dog.  We had a nice conversation & we all walked together towards our coach.  The British Columbia couple, in a coach across the way from us, was out and the six of us began sharing experiences.  It turns out the Calgary couple had a relative known to the B.C. couple & other instances of paths crossing.  Small world.  The temp is getting very cold, so we called it a night & headed for the comfort of our summer home. Some of the pictures below were taken over the last 2 days.  Kind of comical.  Hope you agree.

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