June 25, 2025

Today was a big day for a certain someone in our family – Charlie turned 50! We wanted to do something special for him, but we also needed to drive… the driving won out.

We left Omak, Washington heading for the Canadian border. We wanted to take a drive through Canada that would have taken us up around Banff and Jaspar National Parks, but we finally decided that those would have to wait for another time. We still wanted to do some driving through Canada, so we opted to take Canadian Hwy 3 through the very southern portion of British Columbia. It was a beautiful drive, and we were glad we took the time to take it.

We re-entered the US north of Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho and found a great burger place in Bonner’s Ferry for a birthday dinner for Charlie. After our delicious dinner and another trip into a bookstore where Dominic was able to find a book of Grimm’s fairy tales that he’d been looking for, we started our drive east toward Glacier.

Don’t try to bring any citrus into the USA. Although ours was purchased in the US, it was thrown away because we were entering from Canada.

Charlie’s birthday dinner at Mugsy’s Tavern and Grill in Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Along the way, we came to a nice-looking pullover that was advertising Kootenai Falls. We’re almost always up for a waterfall if the hike isn’t too bad, so we decided to take a look. The waterfall itself was only a ¼ mile hike, so off we went. And the reward was great!

After admiring the waterfall, we walked another ¼ mile or so to a swinging bridge. This bridge was huge and intimidating to some of my crew. Of course, it didn’t help that the birthday boy purposely tried to scare several of the kids. However, they all lived to see another day of national parks – or maybe I should say they all lived to be tortured through another day of all of us riding around in our 8-seater Honda Pilot.

Birthday boy was shaking the bridge quite a bit!

Annette, Dominic, and Alex on the bridge

We were planning to drive the rest of the way that evening to Kalispell and stay at the WalMart (like we did 10 years ago), but I did a little looking up and discovered that they no longer allow overnight parking at that WalMart. After a little more internet digging, I found a Volunteer Firefighter park in Libby, Montana, that only charged $10 a night for camping, and we pulled in. Off to bed we went to be ready for our adventures in Glacier!

Rebecca