30 July - Goodbye Clear Lake Rec Area & Hello Nugget RV Resort, St Regis MT

30 July
This morning we pulled chocks shortly after 0800 hrs and hopped on I-90 eastbound towards Idaho and Montana to Nugget RV Park at St Regis MT.

On our drive today we passed through Spokane and Coeur d'Alene one last time for this trip and made good time as we traveled east.

Lake Coeur d'Alene on our right

It was a beautiful drive with forest on both sides of the interstate.

Hello Montana!

We topped Fourth of July Summit just over 3000 ft and then downhill until we transitioned Lookout Pass at just over 4700 ft.

When planning our routes we use  www.flattestroute.com  It not only helps you select the "flattest route" to travel, but also gives you interactive graphics.  You can see we had grades just shy of 10% and downhill over 7%.  The Cummins diesel-equipped RAM pulled the fifth wheel with no issues and the Jake brake worked great on the downhill side.

In route to our campground we stopped at the $50,000 Silver Dollar saloon.

It is quite an interesting place. Back in 1952 the couple that owned the place started collecting silver dollar coins and placing them on the bar top, and it was full at 2500.

Absolutely beautiful bar area.

The bar top displays the oldest coins, many of them from the 1800's.

 The collection expanded to the walls and they are full now and the collection has moved to ceiling-hanging wooden panels.

 

Doreen and I had a cold beverage while admiring the whole place.

The $50,000 count is now up to $71,047

A display of distilled spirits from Montana

We posed for a picture with a couple of the permanent fixtures!!

About 1240 hrs and 147 miles later we rolled into St Regis and the Nugget RV Park.

There is a legend of "The Nugget" involves three miners, one of  whom found a 23 oz nugget.  There is a lengthy journal that describes what occurred, but bottom line is the the founder died that night and the nugget has never been found.  Remnants of the mining camp are still here.

One of the mine shafts

The jail

The campground is very nice, much wider spaced than Clear Lake.  There is irrigated grass space in between each campsite, a picnic table and a fire ring (which is off-limits).

Wide drives between rows and mature trees provide some shade

We saw no precipitation again today and the area is very dry.  In fact the fire danger is "extreme" now so no camp fires of any kind.  Unfortunately there are many forest fires in Montana right now and one just a mere 18 miles from our campground.

Smoke visible over the trees from our campground.  A few of the campers here were evacuated from their homes near the fire

So the RV passed through Idaho and into Montana today, and we updated the "states visited" map accordingly!  Doreen had the honors for Idaho and I place Montana!

Just three more states left to place on this trip, seven more to pass through.

Tomorrow we plan to head towards Glacier National Park.  We have some issues with that, however.  The distance is too far to leave our dog here, and we cannot take our truck through a good portion of the park due to it's length and width.  We also cannot take our dog in her little kennel in the tour bus.  So, we will see what materializes. 

Stats Update:
Campsite#:  17
# States Traveled Through This Trip:  11
Baseball Parks Visited This Trip:  4
Point to point travel miles:  3761 miles

Vicinity miles:  6978 miles

Total miles:  10,739 miles

Total point to point driving time:   80 hrs 04 minutes

Total fuel purchased:  739.588 gals

Total fuel cost:  $1907.89

Average fuel cost:  $2.689

Average MPG:  13.29 miles/gal

# Nights at end of this stay:  85

Lodging cost:  $2418.19

Average lodging cost/night:  $28.45/night