Homeward Bound, Day 8

While we enjoyed a fire in the woodstove, Dave and Sheila cooked up a breakfast feast for everyone Saturday morning. Matt and Jessica joined us. We made plans for the day...hiking in the morning and hanging out at the North Fork of the Flathead River in the afternoon for us rock hounds.


Grace and Maggie hiking with Uncle Matt.






We hiked a long ways, the nieces and nephew getting to know their uncles along the way. Matt and Dave are great teachers and shared lots of their knowledge with the kids. What a super blessing! We hiked up to a beautiful view of the mountains, hung out a while, heard some fun stories (not sure if there's an Isbell who isn't a story-teller) and then returned to the cabins.


Jessica enjoying the view.




A story from Matt.


And then one from Dave.


"Bear hair" mustaches.


Moriah found a 'Montana' toad.

Steve, Sheila, and I laid out a cold lunch of salami, cheese, crackers, fruit, and veggies, then we were ready to load up and head to the river. Time was moving quickly and we wanted to squeeze as much as we could out of this short time together. We hung out at the river for quite a while, some of us finding just the right rocks, the younger girls making clay and 'painting' on rocks, the guys seeing who could skip rocks all the way across the river (John won...aahhh youth), and Char fetching rocks from the river bottom. We said our goodbyes to Matt and Jessica and headed back to Kalispell.


North Fork of the Flathead River.








The view across the river.

We spent a very nice evening with Dave and Sheila. Dave made us a pumpkin dessert outside in his cast iron dutch oven--yum! Steve got the sub ready for our early morning departure on Sunday.