Terry Haller

From the Izaak Walton Inn, my goal was to drive straight home via the northern route.  This entails a drive of about 1400 miles, and I split this into three days.  Bacause of the extensive amount of driving, I do not expect to take any pictures on this last part of the trip.

Tuesday was a nice sunny day, and I was away from my hotel by about 8:00 am.  I drove eastward for about ten hours, all the way though Montana and just over the border into North Dakota.  My goal for this night was the city of Williston, on the Missouri River.  The drive was mostly uneventful, and I could go pretty fast, as the speed limit was 70 mph most of the way.  I paralleled the main BNRR railroad which I followed throughout my visit to Montana.  I did see lots of trains, most notably the Empire Builder passenger train, which was actually going 80 mph in the same direction as I was and which caught up to me (I did not know it was there) by sounding its horn at a crossing.  I let it pass me.

I stayed in a pretty ragged hotel in Williston, ND and was on the road by 8:30 am Central Time on Wednesday.  I drove 125 miles eastward from Williston to Minot, and then I angled down to the southeast about 170 miles until I hit I-94.  The drive on a warm and sunny day was fairly dry farm country, punctuated by small, dusty towns.  I followed a train track much of this way but saw very few trains.

I-94 was the first Interstate highway I had been on since leaving Oregon!  I drove a further 270 miles east and south on the interstate until I came to St. Cloud, Minnesota, around 6:30pm.  There I found my hotel, where I planned to turn in early after a very long day of driving.  From this point all the way home, I will just stay on I-94 and cruise control!

Thursday, my last day of the trip, I was up early.  My room in St. Cloud, at a Holiday Inn Express, was one of the nicest of the entire trip:  full living room, kitchen and a separate bedroom and large bath.  I was actually sorry to leave it.  I was on the road by 9:30am, and I drove through the Twin Cities about an hour later.  I stopped for lunch and gas in Menomenie, Wisconsin.  I made it to Madison without incident and pulled into my condo’s underground garage around 3:30 pm.

Wasting no time, I used my large cart to help me get everything out of the car and up to the condo for sorting out and putting away.  Althea and kids came by around 5:30pm, and we went down State Street for a dinner on the sidewalk at Frida’s.  It was good to be back.

Monday morning, I left my hotel in Whitefish, Montana.  I drove around the Whitefish area and, by back roads, eastward to Columbia Falls.  My goal for the day was to stop in at Glacier National Park and then head up U.S. 2 into Marias Pass, where lay my hotel, the Izaak Walton Inn.

As expected, Glacier is still pretty well snowed in.  The famous Going to the Sun Road will not be open for at least a month, and maybe as late as July 1.  There was massive road construction in the park, so I did not want to hang around too long.  I did go the the visitor’s center, which is next to the beautiful Lake McDonald:

Next I drove back to West Glacier and continued east up U.S. 2 into Marias Pass.  My hotel for the night, the Isaak Walton Inn, is located in a remote spot in the middle of the high pass.  But it was a warm day, and temperatures were in the 70’s when I arrived.

The Izaak Walton Inn was originally built in 1939 by the railroad as crew quarters, and it was later converted into a hotel.

It is now privately owned.  The owners have put quite a lot of money into the main inn and a series of cottages accessible by pedestrian bridge across the tracks and up the hill.  Four of these cottages are actually cabooses!  Now they have moved a diesel locomotive into a spot near the main inn and are converting that into a luxury accommodation which will rent for about $500 for two nights minimum.

There were just five guests this evening, so it almost felt like I had the place to myself.  I walked all over the grounds, including across the tracks.  It is quite a comfortable, cozy place, though by no means luxurious.  A train goes by on the average of about once per hour.   My room had large windows facing in two directions, and I kept the windows wide open most of the night, till the chill canyon air forced sense into me.

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Saturday was warm, with a blue sky and white billowy clouds.  Some of those clouds later proved to harbor sprinkles, but the day was mainly sunny.

My driving plans for the day were to explore a long paved road through the Salish Mountains, Fortine Creek Road, which follows the main line of the Burlington Northern transcontinental line there.  This line follows a circuitous route through these mountains, ending up at the Kootenay River, below the Libby Dam.  I had done parts of this road in winter, but conditions never permitted me to do the whole thing before.  The total distance from my hotel to the end point is about 100 miles, so the total (there and back) is 200 miles.

On my way up to the start of this road, I took a while to drive the very primitive Fort Steele Trail, which is the remnant of a road built in 1864 to allow travelers to reach the gold rush town of Fort Steele up the Kootenay Riverin Canada.  This road, which follows the shore of several lakes, is less than ten miles long.  But it is very primitive, with lots of large mud puddles and sharp rocks.  It took me a good hour to get through this.

Next, I cut off the main highway at Fortine and found Fortine Creek Road.  This is a narrow road, with lots of potholes and rough patches, but it is fully paved, and I saw almost no other traffic the entire day.  Several times, I left this road to traverse dirt Forest Service roads which looked interesting.  This road follows the railroad, about 60 miles of which was relocated in the 1970’s, due to the construction of a dam on the Kootenay River.  The centerpiece of this relocation is the Flathead Tunnel through the Salish Mountains, at 7 miles in length, the second longest tunnel in the U.S. (the longest being the Cascade Tunnel on the same railroad through Stevens Pass in Washington).

The highway follows the railroad on both sides of the pass, and the highway climbs over the mountain while the railroad is passing through the tunnel below.  I was able to travel the entire distance without difficulty, finally reaching the Fisher River and following it down to the Kootenay.  During this drive, I saw numerous trains passing in both directions through pretty gorgeous mountain scenery:

Later, I retraced the same route back to Whitefish.  There, I caught dinner at a local restaurant and hung out in the park by the train station before returning to my hotel.

Sunday was my 63rd birthday!  I opened the many wrapped presents my mother and aunt left for me in my car.  Then I had breakfast at my hotel, the Grouse Mountain Lodge, and hit the road.  This day, my travel plans were relatively modest.  I drove about 75 miles south to the southern end of Flathead Lake, an enormous lake formed by the Flathead River.  Reaching that point, I returned on the east side of the lake to Kalispell and then to Whitefish.  Next I drove along the dead-end road which leads to the far end of Whitefish Lake.  There are some beautiful lake homes and ranches in this isolated area.

Next, I returned to the hotel for an early dinner and rest in my room.  This is my last night in Whitefish.  Tomorrow I head over to nearby Glacier Park, and I am staying at a chalet there for one night before heading seriously for home on Tuesday.

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Friday was a beautiful day in Kelowna, British Columbia.  Around 9:00am, I drove down to the large lake at whose north end the town sits.  Though the town has a population of 100,000, it feels much smaller.  The downtown buildings are two-story, and the traffic is not bad.  Due in part to its mild climate and dramatic setting, the population has grown rapidly over the years (in 1960, it was only 10,000).

I was up early because my route for the day was a long one, and I would prove to be on the road for 500 miles and twelve hours.  My destination was Whitefish, across the U.S. border in Montana, far to the east and south.  Here is the route for the day:

I had never been before to this part of British Columbia.  Most of this drive was on the east-west highway which runs not far above the U.S. boarder:  the Crowsnest Highway.  I had been on parts of this highway before.  There was gorgeous scenery throughout:  huge heavily forested mountains, rivers and lakes.  It may be just the time of year, but some of the mountain valley meadows seemed impossibly green.

From Kelowna, the highway follows the West Kettle River southward, almost to the U.S. border.  I followed this route through terrain which looked like this:

At the southern end, I joined the Crowsnest Highway and headed east, following a jagged route through the mountains.  En route, I crossed the Columbia River at its confluence with the Kootenay at Castlegar.  From there, it was just a short jaunt up the Kootenai to the “shangra-la
mountain village of Nelson, an old silver mining town.  This town, of about 10,000 people, is situated in a stunning location on the river, surrounded by high mountains on all sides.  The substantial downtown buildings were mostly built during the silver boom of the 1800’s.  It has developed a reputation as a counter-culture refuge, and many deserting American soldiers, during the Vietnam War, settled here.  The town has a small university.  It would be fun to stay longer than 15 minutes sometime!

I continued eastward, crossing over 5800-foot Kootenay Pass before descending to the the Kootenai River at the wide and verdant Creston Valley.  From here, I proceeded northeast to Cranbrook, and I paid a visit to the historic site Fort Steele, on the Kootenay River where it is descending south to the U.S.  Fort Steele is a gold rush town from the 1860’s which has been preserved as an historic village.  As it was getting late, I did not have time to actually go in this attraction.

Next, I followed the Kootenay south, across the border with the U.S. to Eureka in Montana.  Then I followed the Rocky Mountain Trench southeast into the Flathead River basin and the lovely town of Whitefish, where I found my hotel.  It was late, and I had lost an hour since entering Mountain Time, so I had dinner in my room and rent to bed forthwith.

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Thursday dawned bright, sunny and warm in Wenatchee, Washington.  I drank coffee and read the newspaper (as usual) on my computer before packing up.  I was on the road by about 10:30am.

My journey this day was mostly northward, across the Canadian border and to the British Columbia town of Kelowna.  On the Washington side, this was mostly straight, following the Columbia River for about 65 miles, till it made a big eastward bend and then following the tributary Okanogan River about 80 miles north to the border.  The terrain was pretty dry, though the rivers seem to irrigate a large amount of farmland in the immediate vicinity.  In Washington, this means apple and fruit trees, grapes and vegetables.

I passed the Canadian border with no difficulties.  There, instead of driving the direct route, 80 miles northward, to Kelowna, I had decided earlier to do the “scenic route.”  This involved about 180 miles of driving, first westward through the mountains to the town of Princeton in the valley of the Similkameen River.  From there, I headed north to the town of Aspen Grove, which is only about 20 miles east of the Fraser River Canyon, which I traversed nine days ago.  From Aspen Grove, I drove over large mountains to the upper valley of the same river I left earlier — the Okanagan.  Around Kelowna, the river actually widens into an 80-mile-long lake.

The scenery of this day’s drive was varied: from almost desert to high alpine forests.  Of particular interest were a number of lakes in the Okanagan watershed.  Some of the waters in this area are the most mineral-rich in the world.  An extreme example of this is the “spotted lake” which is covered with large spots formed by dissolved minerals of various kinds:

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Wednesday morning, I packed up at my mother’s home in Salem, Oregon.  I bid farewell and was on the road by about 10:30am.

My destination for the day was the city of Wenatchee, in central Washington.  I drove north to Portland, then across the Columbia River into Washington.  Then I caught the highway which follows the river on the north side, following this road eastward for about 100 miles.  I had never been on this side of the river, going through the Columbia River Gorge.  As one heads east, the terrain gets drier and drier.

Turning north, and leaving the river, I drove for over 100 miles through mountains and the Yakima Valley, finally looping around to Wenatchee around 6:30pm.  There, I quickly found my hotel and checked in for some badly needed rest!

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I left Vancouver on Thursday May 6 and drove across the U.S. border to Seattle.  It was a sunny day, but the traffic was backed up at the border, and it took an hour to cross.  I was heading for my cousin Linda Sicotte’s home in Issaquah, Washington, and I was there by about 3:30pm.  Linda was gone, but she left a key for me under the door mat.

That evening, I drove with Linda’s daughter Jessica and her husband Peter over to visit Peter’s parents and uncle in north Seattle.  There we had a pasta dinner.  At around 8:00pm, I drove downtown to pick up my mother Topsy, who arrived from Salem by train around 8:30pm.  We would both be staying with Linda.

Friday May 7th was Topsy’s birthday.  That evening, we had a party for her with many of the relatives at Linda’s house, and we also celebrated Aaron’s birthday on the same date.

Saturday the 8th was the big opera day.  Mom and Linda got their nails done in the AM.  I had lunch that day at Bellevue Square with Rick Erbricht, a Seattle architect friend.  Later in the afternoon, five of us (me, mom, Linda, Jessica and Chuck) left for a fancy dinner before the opera at a restaurant called Canlis, just north of downtown Seattle.  This restaurant has a magnificent view with food (and prices) to match.

Later, we drove to the Seattle Opera House.  Eventually, Ronnie arrived, and all six of us attended the opera.  It was the world premiere of a new opera called Amelia, by my composer friend Daron Hagen.  I liked the work, and I think most of my fellow attendees did also.  It was given a rousing reception by the opening night crowd.

Sunday was a quiet day.  We drove over to the National Cemetery to see Aunt Dottie’s grave, which I had not visited before.

Monday, mother and I drove from Seattle down to her home in Salem, Oregon.  The next day, we did quite a bit of shopping, and we had a birthday party for brother Mike in the evening.

Wednesday was a mostly cloudy day in Vancouver.  I planned to spend most of the day at several of the city’s major attractions:  Stanley Park, the Aquarium and the Museum of Anthropology.

I started by staying in my room at the Loden Hotel till late morning.  I had room service breakfast and read the New York Times on my computer.  I was not out of the hotel and on the road till 11:30.  I drove directly to Stanley Park, about a mile away.

This park was developed in the 1880’s at the end of a peninsula jutting into the sound.  At about 1000 acres, it is still heavily forested and is adjacent to Vancouver’s downtown.  There is a road of about three or four miles which runs around the perimeter of this park, and I drove this first.

Then I stopped by their rose garden area (no roses yet, but lots of tulips).  Finally, I visited the Vancouver Aquarium, which is located within the confines of the park.  This is a fairly large facility, focusing on the northern Pacific.  They also have large outside tanks, with whales, seals and dolphins.

By mid afternoon, I decided to drive about six miles over to the University of Vancouer to see their famous Museum of Anthropology.  The is the most fabulous museum of its kind I have ever seen.  Their specialty is native American art, including the world’s most comprehensive collection of totem poles.  I stayed here till closing time and wished I had had more time.

Finally, I drove back into downtown Vancouver and found (with some difficulty amidst the rush hour traffic) my hotel for the second night of my stay here:  The Four Seasons Vancouver.  I checked into my luxurious room and ordered room service dinner.  I was in bed relatively early on my last night in Canada.  Tomorrow, I head south for Seattle.

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Tuesday was sunny and cool, with lots of clouds.  This day, I would experience bright sun as well as quite a bit of rain.

I left my hotel in Kamloops, British Columbia, and set out down the Thompson River around 10:00 am.  My goal for the day was Vancouver, about 270 miles and five hours away if you drive there directly.  However, I decided to take the scenic route along the Thompson and Fraser rivers, so my total driving time, with stops, would prove to be much longer than five hours (ten hours, as it turned out).

The country along the Thompson is quite dry, almost desert.  As the river continues south and west, the canyon walls become steeper.  Finally, about 100 miles downriver from Kamloops, the river flows into the Fraser River at Lytton, BC.  There, it is obvious that the rivers have very different colors, and a “striped” river results from the confluence.

I later stopped at the Hell’s Gate rapids, where I took an aerial tram down to the level of the river from the highway, high above.  This is the narrowest spot on the Fraser, and the river rages as it passes though this gorge.  Finally, I came down to Hope, BC, which is the terminus of the gorge.  From there, the river turns west, and the gorge widens into a broad valley all the way to Vancouver.

It was alternately raining and shining during this last part of the trip.  I made it into Vancouver near dark and found my hotel, The Loden, right in the downtown.  This is a beautiful hotel, and it is very high tech.  It took me some time to realize that the room service menu was to be found only in electronic form on the TV.  But it was the fastest Internet speed I have ever seen in a hotel — a phenomenal 40MB download speed and 30MB upload.  I enjoyed a halibut meal in my room and went to bed early.

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Monday dawned cloudy and rainy in Revelstoke, British Columbia.  I took my time getting ready, since I knew that I wouldn’t be doing much exploration this day.

Revelstoke is really quite a beautiful town, given that it is very green, is nestled on the banks of the Columbia River and is surrounded by verdant hills and huge mountains.  It is also on the Canadian Pacific Railroad main line, and the town owes its very existence to that company.  They have a Rail Museum downtown, next to the tracks, so that was my first goal of the day.  I was the only visitor, but it did not take too long to see everything, as it is quite small.  They do have a steam engine on display.

Leaving the museum, I drove around the downtown area a bit.  They have fixed up the downtown, and it appears to be quite vibrant (considering that Revelstoke is not very large).

I headed west, across the river and into the Columbia Mountains.  Fortunately, these are not very high, so I did not need to do the incredible climbing and descending of the past three or four days.  It was raining continuously, and I was very sorry not to get pictures of some of my favorite spots in all of Canada.  The highway and railroad traverse a lovely valley which is surrounded by steep mountains on both side.  Near the top of Eagle Pass is a series of small mountain lakes.

On the far side of the pass, the highway descends gradually to Shuswap Lake, a most singular body of water.  It covers 120 square miles and is shaped like an octopus, with arms going in all directions.  Both the railway and highway pass around the south side of this lake, passing through the town of Salmon Arm.

The next 10-15 miles of highway goes through some gorgeous farm country, surrounded by hills containing every shade of green.  I spent quite a bit of time here, checking out the back roads and tracing the railroad when it left the highway.  By this time, it had begun to clear up, though it remained at least partly cloudy all day.

I continued on to Kamloops, the largest city in central British Columbia, where I checked into my hotel.  Since it was still relatively early, I set out and drove around the city.  It has certainly improved from the last time I visited in 1990.  The city has built a large park next to the Thompson River, so I stopped there to enjoy a cigar.  I had not been sitting long on a hill there when the wind started to pick up, and a rain front moved in.  I waited till the last minute to repair to my car, so I got a little wet!  It galed and poured for about ten minutes while I waited in my car.  Then it cleared up, and I resumed my perch on my chair and finished my cigar.

Afterwards, I returned to my hotel.

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