Enjoying Last Day of this Trip

Today eleven hours on fairly straight roads brought us to our destination.

 

It's amazing that we only have to drive that far to go from dusty prairie to startlingly beautiful mountains.  Or in today's case, to go from bone dry (extreme fire warnings) to beautiful Staveley Crescent.  Ah, home!

The mountains are in drought conditions just like we are.  Therefore, no fires of any kind are allowed.  It seemed strange to arrive back at the Whitefish KOA campground every night and not see campers having good times around their firepits.

We started yesterday at the Kalispell Farmers' Market.  I came away with dill which is much nicer than my own, some garlic, and some cherries.  This was the last weekend for Flathead cherries which are some of the latest summer cherries in the US.  They are plenty ripe and sweet and by this time tomorrow, they will be jam.  Let the canning begin.

Yesterday I was in two quilt shops and one of them was selling these one gallon jugs of glue.  Do you recognize the quilt shop logo?

Unbelievable, but true, the Kalispell Walmart still has a fabric department.  It's tucked way back in a corner and a very nice man named Bob King, not only discovered it, but also told me about it.  I needed interfacing and the Walmart price couldn't be beat.

The jugs of glue gave me a giggle as I pictured some grade two teacher putting them on the students' shopping lists

In Whitefish I stopped at the Cutting Edge quilt shop.  The quality and quantity of fabrics and the pleasantness of the single clerk, made my shopping experience great.  Plus, the front end of the store is a very nice gift shop selling Montana products.  The clerk in the fabric store invited me to take pictures of anything and everything and here is a sampling.

 

I've had the One Block Wonder book for ages and have never attempted a quilt from it, but maybe this will be the impetus.  The fabric is panda bears.

This is the shop's contribution to the row-by-row challenge.  If you want to make it, you can get the pattern from me.

Whitefish is a great town filled with gift shops and restaurants.

There are lots of  beautiful plants everywhere.  I'm not sure what this blooming bush is, but it is a great attraction for bees and butterflies.

I always want to go into bookshops, but even more so when they look like this.

The town has a lot of art and here is a temporary example.

And here is a permanent example.  It's one of a series depicting the four seasons. 

Here's art you can buy.  We should have as they are the only mountain goats we saw.  Real ones elude us.

 

We went to Les Mason State Park which is on the shore of Whitefish Lake.  It's a well used park as people don't seem to mind sunbathing on stones.  This definitely isn't a sandy beach like the one right in Whitefish.  The road to it was laughable.

This adventure has ended and it's been a good one.  Next week's travels will take us to Vancouver and then we should be home for many, many months ... except for necessary trips to Saskatoon.