Nature Wins

I just have to start out with this. I know it's such a terrible thing to display, especially for all of you suffering through 90 and 100 degree temps, but I can't help it. Yes, that's right. It was 49 degrees when we got in the car to head to breakfast :-)

Nature will always do things her way. She's on no schedule, has no where to be. Unfortunately, we do. The clearing of the rock slide took longer than they expected, so when we awoke on Thursday morning, the Going to the Sun Road was still closed. We took our time, hoping that if we let enough time pass, we would get to continue our journey as planned.

It just wasn't meant to be.

With so many more miles still to cover, and our time frame for delivering the car in Seattle getting smaller, we just had to keep moving west. I wanted to cry. I did shed a tear or two, I won't lie.

We skirted the southern part of the park on Route 2, deciding to enter from the west and see as much as we could from that side. It wasn't quite as spectacular, but we did see Lake McDonald and the rushing waters of Avalanche Creek. In all, we saw 30 of the 44 miles of the park. As I mentioned in my previous post, we're so grateful we got to see what we did. This trip will serve as a teaser and a reason to visit again. At least we have an interesting story to tell from all of this.

On recommendation from Rob and Sara, we decided the best way to see Idaho was through the eyes of Lewis and Clark. After Missoula, we hopped on Route 12, otherwise known as the Lewis and Clark trail, and spent the most wonderful afternoon meandering along the Clearwater River, much like they did a little over 200 years ago.

We dipped our feet in the river.

We stood for a long time in a grove of Cedars, taking in the smell. Did I hug a tree today? Why, yes, yes I did!

And then this. Greatest discovery of the entire trip. Wild raspberries. We picked. We savored. We gorged.

We seemed to time our trek just right, as a strong line of storms passed just behind us and left us with the beauty instead.

We reached Lewiston, where we stopped for the day. Tomorrow we will wish bon voyage upon this little Toyota as we drop her off at the shipping company. A rental car will take us the rest of the way. We are looking at these next two days and feeling a little overwhelmed with the possibilities. We know there's just too much to see and do, and not enough time. Even though the lure of Portland and Seattle is strong, after coming out of such beautiful wilderness and not yet wanting to return to civilization, Mt. Rainier and Mt. Saint Helens is enticing too. We'll just have to make our decisions as we travel across Washington.