Day 4 (Aug 2) - Libby MT, so nice we saw it twice..... today.

We got to sleep in a bit today, which was loverly. The girls even longer.... the boys went and had breakfast, and brought us lazy girls back some food. Such nice boys :)

Then we packed up and moved out. With 5 plus hours to drive, we wanted to get an early start.

The kids did great on the drive. Our plan was to stop in Libby, MT for lunch, as we hoped to be there by that time of the day, and we knew they had a Subway and McDonald's if we didn't see anything else as we drove in. We also planned to fill up on gas in Libby...... you will never guess which we forgot to do ;) About 25 miles out Libby we remembered GAS! With 70 miles til the next town and 50 miles left on our tank we decided to turn around. We didn't have to go all the way into town, but we did add almost an hour to our drive time. Which is better than spontaneously camping in the middle of Montana. We trekked on and arrived at the Izaak Walton Inn just after 6.

Kids enjoying the drive?

Montana out the car window - 1 in a series

Montana out the car window - 2 in a series

Montana out the car window - 3 in a series

And our room/caboose was waiting. Yup, we are sleeping in a caboose.

Our Room

Its a beautifully refinished Great Northern caboose, with a kitchen and ¾ bath, a bedroom, and a cool bunk in the top part. All with great views of a fairly busy train line. Oh, and more pillows than are reasonable for a dwelling of this size, we aren't sure where to put them when its time for bed..... our bed had 8 full size pillows on it. Actually 4 standard in pillow cases, 2 queen size in cases to match the duvet and 2 more standard in shams to match the Pendelton blanket, but still EIGHT PILLOWS! Similar scenarios existed on the kids bed and the couch. I am only a little concerned they might multiply when we aren't looking.

view from bedroom towards kitchen/living area

Living/Kitchen area

Facing the other direction

Main bedroom (with alll the pillows)

Upper Bunk

Climbing up to the bunk

The Inn is full of train memorabilia, which is awesome for a certain train loving boy. They have inn rooms, cabins, 5 converted cabooses and 1 converted engine (which looks pretty cool). They have a number of trails around the area and a great bridge you can stand on that goes right over the tracks...... and we did. Its quite a feeling to stand directly over a freight train as it barrels down the tracks. WOW.

Izaak Walton Inn, view from the tracks back toward the Inn

On the bridge, right above a freight train

The Inn seems very busy, especially the restaurant and bar. But this is our first chance to cook for ourselves since we left home and it will be a while til it happens again. So we are taking advantage of it.

Having dinner in the Caboose. We can see the tracks out that window.

Tomorrow we are being super brave and taking a tour of Glacier National Park.... the brave part being, its an all day tour. They pick us up at the hotel at 10 am and bring us back at 6 pm. All day! We are hoping the kids do alright. Getting them to sleep tonight has been challenging. Apparently sleeping in a caboose is very unusual for them ;) We didn't tell them prior to arrival that the room was a caboose. They saw it right away and wanted to check it out, which worked out great... oh by the way, this is our “room” for the next two nights. But as I mentioned we are yards away from a busy rail line...... and trains don't close up at night. So hopefully the need to see every train that goes by will fade until morning. We have seen 6 trains pass since our arrival, just in case you were curious. 5 freight and the West bound Amtrak Empire Builder. I wasn't counting, but my train loving boy, informed me of this when the last freight train passed :)

Goodnight