Mile 3081

Today I can take it easy as I have only 300+ miles to go.  The plan is to go around Glacier NP to the South where I will pick up Hwy-2 again, and to follow it all the way to Newport, WA.  As I don't want to go through the gravel on MT-89 again, I make a slight detour to Browning, MT.  And the detour was worth the drive, as I see black bear mama with cubs in the search for breakfast.  A little while later I see some more bear, some bison, and a lonely stack.  That detour was worth all the way and already made my day.  

Going around Glacier NP brings me to a statue of yet another great person, John Frank Stevens.  He was a civil engineer hired by the Great Northern Railway and explored the Marias Pass and declared it fit for a railroad.  With that connection amongst a passage through the Cascades and many more of the more than thousand miles of railroad he helped to built, the great transport ways to the pacific sparked an economy based on railroad transport.  Stevens left 1903 the Great Northern and in 1905 was hired by Theodore Roosevelt as chief engineer to the Panama Canal (1905 to 1907).  There is also a Roosevelt obelisk at this location at Marias Pass.

William H. "Slippery Bill" Morrison claimed "squatter rights" to the land at the Marias Pass.  Through tuff negotiations he agreed to give half of his land to built the Roosevelt obelisk at the Marias Pass, under the stipulation that no concessions "hamburger stands" as he referred to shall ever be built there during his lifetime, and he relinquished the rights to the rest of his land at the time of his death.

 

I continue following US-2 to Kalispell, MT (bad memories of the H-D dealership there from our trip 2014 to Alaska), and follow for great length the Kootenay river.  After passing Libby, MT, the falls are always worth to visit,  and following Troy, MT I cross the border to Idaho.  Unfortunately there are no nice pictures to show as the forrest fires around Bonners Ferry, ID made the whole sky hazy. 

I follow US-2 South to Sandpoint, ID before crossing the border to Washington State to reach Newport, WA, my final destination for today.

Today I was rewarded with great scenery and lots of wildlife.  A perfect day to be out and about, at perfect weather.

"You won't get fired if you do something, you will if you don't do anything. Do something if it is wrong, for you can correct that, but there is no way to correct nothing." - John Frank Stevens, self taught civil engineer 1853 - 1943