Camping and boating on Hungry Horse Resevoir

Hungry Horse dam and reservoir is located right outside of West Glacier Park. Friday Ken called "50" of his friends with an invitation to go camping at the "closed" campground located along the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Why the closed campground you may ask? No other campers there! So we packed up again, and off we went just for the weekend.

Meeting new people and discovering different lifestyles is just one of the benefits of our travel both here and abroad. Here's Randall with one of Ken's timberframing friends.

Randi took a whirl at the water skiing thing.... She almost got it!

Austin was up and going right away!

Our camp site was right here behind me.

Randi created a bow and arrow with natures tools. She's our artist in the family!

It's the middle of July and yes, it's cold enough for a fire!

And by night, we were serenaded for hours by the sounds of the 60's and 70's on guitar and vocals by Jeff. Oh my, he was fabulous! What an extensive 60's and 70's repertoire he has!

Huckleberry Picking at Big Mountain

Oops! I was sworn to secrecy. No one here reveals where they discovered their Huckleberry patch. But, Big Mountain is just that a BIG old MOUNTAIN. In fact, in addition to being a great source of little huckleberry bushes, the mountain is veiled with alpine lined trails for skiing on all sides. Choose your slope and go a picking!

Off we went early in the morning, just us 4 girls with some sawed off gallon milk containers, bottles of water, and some bear spray (just in case, one never knows). A picking we went for almost 4 hours hunched over scavenging the little guys.

10 cups later, we're done! I did a little over 1/2 my container while one of the "pro pickers" did a WHOLE container.

The huckleberry bush is normally just a green bush with ripened bluish berries. This one was unique with reddish leaves and the berries not quite ripe.

Usually they hide underneath the green leaves making the search more than just a scan of the eye. Finding the bush and lifting the leaves as your stooped over is the technique. Hum. Why did I enjoy this so much?

So what makes this huckleberry picking such a big deal? I mean everywhere you look roadside there are signs with fresh huckleberry pie, tarts, ice cream, and jam. In the grocery stores there are end of isle displays with huckleberry bark chocolate, lip gloss, candy, lotion, jelly, syrup etc. Well, the only place you are going to find a huckleberry bush is where mother nature planted it! No one has been able to cultivate it, period. So, there we have it. No mass production. You want some, go find it. Or, pay the big bucks just for a taste. I heard people can get $35 for a gallon.

I think I'll make a tart? No, maybe I'll make some jam. How about we just eat them as is, add them to pancakes, salads and cakes! Oh, decisions.

Glacier hiking for the day....

Well I needed to "nest", relax, and well enjoy just being here, that is in Whitefish. So I opted out of the next excursion. I figured that I'll get to Glacier soon enough. We're only a hop skip and jump from it anyway.

So the family's, the Leshers and the Beisers, went with some other "neighborhood" family's for a little hike, about 8 miles up and down a little mountain to see wildflowers.

The family photographer, that would be me, wasn't along on this awesome hike. So for now, that's all we get to see of Glacier.

A day at Flathead Lake

Huge! Known as the largest natural fresh water lake west of the Mississippi, Flathead Lake is located just south of Whitefish, Montana about 30 minutes. Beautiful homes line the perimeter with private docks and little islands all scattered about with dear, eagles, wild rams, mountain goats, and horses.

Here's Casey and Austin getting ready to head out on a sailing dinghy. So much bigger now than their trash collecting days in the Caribbean!

Here's one of Ken's boats. He owns this little sail boat called a Lightening, a Boston Whaler motor boat, and a Baba 30 foot sail boat.

We were entertain by this "tropical island" kind of band of locals playing instruments they made themselves!

Some of us sailed , some swam, some motored and some just relaxed to the beat...

Sailing in the Puget Sound, but first, the "shake down"

"Shake down" cruise in the Puget Sound is what we did for about 6 days. The first couple days the Randall and Ken helped Bob, the new boat owner, go through all the systems of the boat to make sure they were in working order. Quite the tidiest task testing lights, switches, pumps, navigation system, water system, engine and list goes on. Plus, the boat just needed to be gone through finding all the sails, spare parts, and just junk left over on board by the previous owner. All of this was oh so familiar to us. Just 7 years ago this October, we had did the same thing with Duchesse only by ourselves for the first time ever!

One afternoon I was in the galley when I heard the guys giggling who were all in the aft birth? Not a real big area for 3 full grown men. Too funny!

Something in the engine room, which is obviously tucked underneath, needed attention. But really, all three of them?

So we went shopping downtown Seattle to provision at the local farmers market. Of course we had to find the fish market too!

See the octopus on the huge halibut?

Just an idea for me to do in my spare time, some day?

After all the fixing, cleaning and provisioning, we left the dock sailing through the Puget Sound. Here's what we saw....

Mount Rainier as we left the dock near down town Seattle

Three men, all happy to be out, away from the dock, and sailing the boat after several days of labor!

Sails up and we're off!

Reminiscing with one of those romantic sunsets on board with the tranquilizing sounds of the water.

After docking somewhere that night, we left the next day to meet not only Bob's friend but the designer of all the Baba boats, nationally renowned Bob Perry.

We anchored right out in front of his house for the night and joined him and his wife at their home for a wonderful dinner and sunset.

The next day was a relaxing trip back to the marina in Seattle.

Spinnaker up and we're off!

Romantic fire in the gas stove to take the chill away. The days were warm usually but the nights were cold and it's July?

Beautiful flowers, candle light and oysters for an appetizer one evening

Randall and I love to cook...

Gorgeous view back at the dock in Seattle

Seattle? Already? We just go here!

Well sometimes you just got to take a deep breath and go with the flow. While I was just ready to enjoy where we are and do absolutely nothing, we were invited aboard a boat located in the Puget Sound in Seattle Washington. Hum. I haven't been sailing since we sold Duchesse in

March 2007. I love boating! Okay, we're off...

A friend of Ken Beiser's(our former cruising buddy) invited Ken, Randall and I to help him explore his newly acquired boat, a 40 foot Baba. From Whitefish it took us I don't know maybe 9 hours by car on very SCENIC roads! The trip there and back was just awesome. Here's one thing we stopped to see on the way to the Puget Sound:

The Gorge Amphitheatre one of Americas most scenic venues for a concert!!!!

You can see our view of the Gorge as we looked over at the porta-potties which were next to the stage... Oh, to see a concert there would have been incredible!

Whitefish

After arriving on July 3rd in Whitefish Montana, we had days of unwinding, cleaning, unpacking and settling to do after the 2 week journey north from Puerto Vallarta. Here's where we are from an ariel view on BING MAPS <----click there to see the map

The Beisers' residence

We're in the guest house next door...

the back yard

Moonshadow II, Moonshadow II, Duchesse here! over

We made it! Whitefish Montana, where we will hang out for the next couple of months, is the final destination for now! Today we traveled from Bozeman, MT to Whitefish, MT in about 7 hours, 10am - 5pm. Here's the days travels on the MAP.

Moonshadow II is the name of the cruising family here in Whitefish that we got to know while in the Caribbean. Cruisers know and call each other on the VHF radio by their boat name. And that boat name actually becomes our new identity. No one knew us as the Leshers. We were the Duchesse family.

And now after 6 years since we last saw Moonshadow II in Grenada, we are all reunited again on land here in Whitefish, their home town. Moonshadow II cruised on and off with us during 2003. They took a year and a half off shipping their boat south to Florida, sailing in the Caribbean, and later returning to their home here in 2004.

For this post I thought I'd go down memory lane in 2003 as we were...

Moonshadow II family on board in Grenada, 2003

Duchesse in the Bahamas 2003

The Duchesse family 2003

Trick or Treat in Grenada 2003 with the Moonshadow II kids and the Duchesse kids...

Austin, captain of our dinghy, and Casey were the trash collectors in the Clarks Court Bay anchorage. Several dozen boats scattered int he anchorage the boys offered to remove their trash on the weekends taking it to the dump on shore. Acquiring small tips, they would end up at the local restaurant counting and dividing the loot!

Kelly and Randi 2003 on a field trip in Puerto Rico

Austin and Casey at dinner in Trinidad

Ken, Casey, Austin and Randall aboard Duchesse checking out the catch of the day. Both families sailed aboard Duchesse for a "quick jaunt" to Trinidad from Grenada and back. We had so much fun we turned the adventure into 18 days of travel and exploration together.

Kelly, Randi, Austin and Casey passing time while sailing on Duchesse.