Northwestern Travelogue



Day 5

September 13, 2005

It's 45 and sprinkling. There is a high that is supposed to be forming that will clear out the clouds and expose the mountains. Just a day late!

Today we travel to visit our friends Bob and Jean who are the folks that run Woodn' Wares. They are the ones that make the wonderful hand crafted hard maple kitchen tools that we sell on our web site. They live in Belgrade, MT which is about seven hours from Glacier Park. With our DeLorme mapping software re-tweaked we headed southeast on nothing but blacktop! The trip was pretty uneventful with the most exciting point seeing the sun come out for the first time since we left home.

The rolling hills with the Bitterroot Mountains as a backdrop, is really pretty. The scenery changed all day long with the same basic theme. There were some areas with really sharp jagged rocks and others where they looked like huge stacked bowling balls. It's a very beautiful and interesting country.

Bitterroot Mountains

We arrived at Bob and Jean's at 4:00 PM in Belgrade, Montana where we were greeted with open arms. We had only met them over the Internet and never face to face. They are a very nice and gracious couple and gave us the grand tour of their woodshop. They have a real team effort in making their kitchen wares. The shop is divided into two rooms, one is for roughing out their spoons and the other is for all the hand carving and shaping that's involved. We never knew it but it can take Bob up to three hours just to get a large spoon carved into shape and ready for finishing. That's where Jean comes in. She does all the polishing and finishing and they really look great when she's done.

Bob

Jean

We had a fun time visiting with them and hope to come back again some day. After our visit it was off to the campground. We are staying at a KOA tonight just for a quick over night. We usually don't care for KOA's because so many of them that we see are a parking lot in a cow pasture. This one is in a beautifully wooded area with lots of trees. Like most KOA's it's only a block off the highway so you do have that noise to contend with.

Belgrade KOA

Our campsite was set up by 7:30 and we had a late dinner. After the long day of driving we were pooped and headed for bed after staring at the tube to unwind. Tomorrow it's off to Yellowstone.

BACK - FORWARD - HOME




VISIT RunnerDuck HOME PAGE