The saga of the leaking water system continued this morning.

Over night we dried out the floor and carpet with judiciously placed heaters, so by morning it was time to put water in the tank and try the pump. Unfortunately while the pump did not leak, one of the joints near the pump had come loose during all the playing around and it leaked - talk about making new problems while fixing old ones. Or as Homer would say - Duh. But this was easily fixed by tightening the joint. Hope we can call a close on this episode.

From Missoula we headed north along highway 93 and then 35 up the eastern side of Flathead lake to Kalispell. In my Australian ignorance I had not realized that the lake was named after the Flathead Indian tribe; in Australia a flathead is a fish. Oh well!

From Kalispell we headed along US-2. The day has reminded us that winter is not done in this part of the world with regular light flurries of little hard snow balls; almost hail, and temps of 32-37F. There is still a lot of snow and the lakes are covered in white.

About 4:00 pm we stopped at Thompson Lake; there is a small camp ground beside the lake. The camp ground was still partly covered with snow but thanks to some previous visitors there was a good supply of fire wood cut and stacked; though somewhat wet. Just as we tried to start the fire an older guy (look whose talking) drove up and walked out onto the lake; it looked like he was checking a fish trap or line of some type. We were a bit surprised as we thought the lake was close to thawing. Some what later, I ventured out onto the lake also, and put my hand into one of the fishing holes. The ice was at least 12 inches thick - I could not feel the bottom with almost my entire forearm in the water.

After some effort we managed to get a good fire going and cooked dinner; this is great as I subscribe to the theory that it's not (really) camping without a camp fire. Right now its 7:45pm, 34F and I am sitting by the fire comfortably typing up this journal.