Crossing the Columbia and continuing west and then north again I eventually got to the Olympics Olympics region, spreading my sleeping bag out on the shores of Lake Chinault [presumably Lake Quinault]. L. Quinault It was a pleasure to wake up and see that the lake was even more beautiful than suspected from what little I saw the previous evening. Some grebes and, birds better still, two male and four female hooded mergansers swam quite close to feed, now and then disappearing under water. A drive around the peninsula followed and eventiually brought me out by Crescent Lake [i.e., Lake Crescent], Crescent Lake if anything even better than Chinault, but about the best view of the mountains was obtained from a ferry from Fort Henry [?] to Seattle, from which the Cascades all the way from Baker to Rainier could also be seen. I went to the Naval Air Station to be sure of getting a room (though it was reluctantly given) and spent two nights there to get both a good rest and see a little of Ward Matthews. The next stop was by the roadside of a little town in southeastern Washington. I was headed for Lewiston, Idaho, to see Bollinger but found out the next morning I had missed him by a day. Swinging north I passed Coeur d’Alene Coeur d’Alene
Pend Oreille
Flathead Lake
Glacier National Park Lake, noting five snow geese on a log a stone’s throw from the road, and Pend Oreille Lake shortly afterwards, but continued on to Flathead Lake, Montana, before stopping for the night, in what must have been a little lakeside park. The next day’s big feature was Glacier National Park, which I had practically to myself, though stopping only to walk around a bit and take pictures at such places as the foot of Lake MacDonald (horned owl), a waterfall by the roadside, the top of the Continental Divide, etc. Lake St. Mary’s, on the east side of the divide, was, if anything, more beautiful than MacDonald, though the sun was bad for taking pictures.
After Glacier Park I speeded up and looked for no more scenery, though there were many ducks and hawks to be seen in the plains and prairies. A view of a magnificent ferruginous rough-legged hawk, hawk a rusty-backed job with a white tail, was most satisfactory. The last night in the sleeping bag was right behind a lowly gas station after I had got badly lost one evening and got so nearly out of gas that I dared venture no further. The next night was spent comfortably on the couch of a hotel in a S.D. town, there being no rooms available and consequently no clerk to throw me out, a sign “no rooms” being all that was necessary. It was getting too cold to sleep out.
The Twin Cities slowed me a little, and by the time I began to look for a room there was nothing available except a summer cabin with no plumbing, though heated by a stove. The place I had orginally aimed for turned out to be taken by a school teachers’ convention, and had I been less tired and more presentable I might have lingered around for some fun.