Day Four-Our quest begins as we head to Missoula and Sandpoint

We woke up at the "Hotel Intrepid" parked in a nice parking lot in Kalispell MT around 8:00 am. The business we are parked by has a nice bathroom so we freshen up, we make a breakfast of yogurt and granola and are on our way to Missoula MT to see what the terrain is like down there.



The drive west of town is beautiful and then our drive south to Missoula is exceptional for the first hour, actually it's all beautiful but the lake goes on forever and is amazing. You drive along the banks of Flathead Lake which is unlike most places I've seen. It is very long, and must be very deep as there are sailboats in the lake. It is surrounded by blue-green mountains and truly breathtaking vistas. We don't stop, we just admire and drive on to Missoula where we find a truck stop to take a shower and then drive through town. It is surprisingly a nice city of around 60,000 people. We tried to picnic at the park by the Clark Fork river but the bees got the best of us and we end up eating our sandwiches in the car.

Off we go as we have a good long trip to Sandpoint, ID to take. We pretty much follow the beautiful Clark Fork river right into ID. The land surrounding it is also pretty with nice hills and trees. We start to think this is going to be a tough decision for us. As we are about 20 miles from Sandpoint we begin to see the Pond O'reille Lake. It is huge and so beautiful. Sandpoint sits on the north end of the lake and is surrounded by tall evergreens. They have water activity and a cutesy touristy downtown and are 20 minutes from a ski hill. This is something we could get used to. We found a state park and set up our tent for the night.

We decided to leave off the rain flap so we are open to the air and starry sky. We put together a salad of greens and spinach with tomatoes, nuts and dried fruit, chicken and salad dressing we brought. It would have been a great night to picnic but yet again the bees got the best of us and we ate in the car. I have to laugh it's just the way it goes. We went to sleep to the sounds of silence surrounded by giant evergreens. Not a bad day all in all.