Bert Gildart: Writer and Photographer

Bert Gildart: After nine months and approximately 25,000 miles, we’re back in Montana, though not back yet in our house. While on the road, we had our house winterized and so we have no water for plumbing. What’s more, the house is big—bigger than the Airstream, so our secondary house is intimidating—in many ways.

Upon entering we were overwhelmed by a continuous chirping, and quickly discovered the grating sound was our fire alarm system telling us the battery had run down and needed to be replaced.

Of course one always attends to such matters immediately, but when I climbed onto a stool and removed the alarm from the ceiling, immediately the telephone began ringing. The voice on the other end asked if our house was on fire, and Janie, who had picked up the phone, said, “No,” and then grew silent as she listened to the accusatory voice on the other end.

“Did you forget that your alarm system is linked in with your home security system?”

“Well,” said Janie, “I guess we did. Now how do I turn off the alarm? I’ve forgotten the password…”

SALMON RIVER FLOTILLA: Not much better luck with our desk-top computers. Quickly we discovered that in our absence the coding on our Linksys Broadband Router had changed, and that we would have to wait until office hours next day before using our desktops for email.

As well, Janie discovered bugs had invaded our bedroom and before sleeping in the bedroom in our house, she wanted to vacuum throughout.

And so we returned to our Airstream, extended the stabilizer jacks and then the slideout. Then we bathed ourselves in what had become very familiar and comfortable surroundings. Pouring a glass of wine, we rehashed the day, which had provided a spectacular driving experience. What’s more, inside our Airstream we didn’t have to listen to the alarm…

We left our campground along the banks of the Salmon River in Idaho, and although it was early in the morning, fishermen were flaying the river with their lines, for the steelhead were running. Men and women not only lined the river’s banks but a number of them had anchored driftboats in various currents and were trying their luck among the riffles. Several anglers pulled out substantial catches and we were envious, but we were commited to reaching home by the end of the day, and so we pushed on.

ENTERING MONTANA: The road quickly left Salmon River and entered the small town of Salmon, Idaho. From here, it was but an hour drive to Lost Trail Summit, Elevation 6695. The pass is famous for a number of reasons, but most significantly it was the route used by Lewis and Clark during their famous expedition of 1804 to 1806.

From here the road abruptly descends and within two hours passes through the college town of Missoula. From there, it is less than 100 miles to our home in Bigfork.

This last section of our drive passes through country that is particularly spectacular. The National Bison Range lies to the road’s left, while such towering mountains as McDonald Peak lie to the road’s right. Little wonder Paul Harvey, the famous newscaster of today, said the drive provides the setting for his favorite drive of all times.

Normally such commanding scenery requires many stops, and though the skies backdropping bison grazing on steep slopes in the Bison Range were faultless blue, we knew we needed to keep pushing on. On this nine-month-long adventure, our trip had been one endless series of sidetracks, meaning there is so much more to do and see throughout this great nation.

In the meantime, Janie has stepped back inside our house.

I hope she’ll figure out how to turn off the alarm…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 7:48 pm and is filed under RV Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.