Monday, Monday......

We spent the morning planning and trying to figure out where to plug in more stops in between the ones we have now...

It looks like we are going to be in Glacier National Park starting the middle of this week...Then we head to Yellowstone National Park. There are about two and a half weeks remaining in September that we haven't figured out yet. The end of September we will be heading towards Ohio for Nick's Gypsy Journal rally, always a fun time! We know that the whole month of October we will be back in Indiana to spend time with Eldy's kids and grandkids and to take care of routine appointments. November is undecided, but December we will be in Florida. We're still working on January thru March.

After looking at maps and apps till our eyes got blurry, we decided to head into Newport, the nearest town to where we are staying and take a look at a little museum there. There is also an animal park called Cat Tales Zoological Park which is further out from Newport, but we didn't explore that.

The little museum was great! So much old stuff to see, it was really something to see how much they could fit in a very small space and yet keep it very well organized for viewers.  Lots and lots of old office equipment, old typewriters, old clothing, old shoe repair stuff, kitchen appliances and household appliances placed in room settings where you'd see the actual items used, vintage Christmas ornaments that took me back to the fifties when we decorated our trees with those great old German glass ornaments with the hollowed out shells, metal bells, vintage Valentine cards, and an old belt style exercise "jiggle" machine (I used to use my mom's hoping it would jiggle off some fat, but it just made my back and hips itch like crazy!) The older I get, the more I enjoy seeing all the stuff from the fifties and sixties.....The only thing I DIDN'T enjoy seeing was the antique dentist's chair from the 1900's. (Lots of dental trauma when I was seven through twelve years old--lost my two front permanent teeth in an ice skating accident and still remember sitting in the dentist chair at dusk at seven years old, getting air blown on my fractured two stubs left of my front teeth because the dentist wanted to make sure the nerves were still alive.) I lost the caps several times over my elementary school years clunking them on a Coke bottle, or the bottom of a swimming pool and each time the dentist had to check the nerves by blowing air on the tooth before replacing the cap. I wore silver stainless steel caps on my front teeth until the 8th grade. They didn't use porcelain crowns back in those days. I still have trouble going to the dentist and sitting in the chair today, and when they clean my teeth around my front crowns, I get really nervous. And yes, my dad use to sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" every Christmas which just made me mad! Interestingly enough, when the silver caps were finally replaced in my eighth grade year by porcelain ones that matched the rest of my teeth, nobody noticed!

Back to the museum..they had interesting outbuildings on the grounds--some antique mining and lumber industry equipment, old reconstructed cabins, an antique weather station, a lookout tower and an old caboose with railroad memorabilia inside.

For a small town, it had quite a collection of "old stuff"! We enjoyed looking at it today. And if you'd like a recommendation for a decent spot to eat, try Club Rio--a good sized tavern sitting on the Pend Oreille River in Newport/Old Town, just before the bridge at the WA/ID state line. They serve a great hamburger and have a nice patio overlooking the river and the mountains. They have live entertainment on the weekends which we are sorry we missed! We really enjoy getting away from the fast food and trying local taverns or little breakfast or mom and pop restaurants on our travels. We enjoy going where the locals go.....usually it's very good food! We don't have a very scientific way of finding these little places. We do it one of three ways, 1) use our Yelp app, 2) ask the locals, or 3) count the number of cars in the parking lot! Tomorrow is our last day in Newport...we'll see what we find......

A relaxing time at the riverfront