For our last two days we drove away from beautiful Kalispell and back down to the small town of kingston Idaho. We found a cabin in the woods that looked so charming I couldn’t resist it! It was just as charming as I had hoped and immediately the girls spoke for the attic room and the boys took the basement. It had two sets of tiny spiral stairs and a treehouse out back. Just the place to be to end our road trip. We took a hike the evening we got there and found lots of beautiful wild flowers and tiny pine cones. 
The main reason we chose this rural Idaho town is because we wanted to bike the Route of the Hiawatha. It’s an old train route that goes through the mountains over bridges and through tunnels in the mountains. We’ve heard a lot about it and that is amazing so we decided to give it a try. Beck and Desh each had a tag along bike that hooked to our bikes and it was the perfect way to go. The trial itself is 15 miles downhill so it wasn’t difficult and the kids all thought it was great. The first tunnel we went through is a mile and half long tunnel. The temperature is 46 degrees all year long and has a small canal running on each side of the trail with runoff from the mountains running alongside. It was wet and muddy inside and so so cool. We each had a headlamp to wear inside the tunnels and even with those it was super dark!
As we rode we couldn’t get over the scene that we were riding through. It was incredible to be on top of the mountains looking down at the trees and valleys below and to see the trail and bridges that we would be riding on.
A couple of the bridges we crossed were over 200 feet high! It was quite the sight to look down from those bridges. And of course the boys took the chance to throw rocks over the edge and count how long it would take to hit the ground. Some of the kids climbed up on the rocks next to our lunch spot and got stuck up there on the shale that kept sliding off under their feet. Josh assured me that they needed to be able to figure these things out but my mommy heart skipped a couple ears as I watched them try and get back down. Josh ended up rescuing them when keen slipped and scraped up his leg a bit. Dad was the hero of the day getting the kids off the side of the mountain!
We had perfect weather for the day - warm and overcast. Only about the last 20 minutes of the ride the sun came out and we got pretty warm. The kids were tired and hot and muddy from riding in the tunnels by the time we got done but they told us that the bike ride was one of their favorite parts of the whole trip. I have to agree! It was fun and adventurous and gorgeous and such a very unique way to see the countryside. We all loved it. And it was a perfect way to end our road trip. Tomorrow morning we head back home to Utah. It’s a 10 hour drive and we’ll probably get up early and head out. It has been such a fun getaway for us and we’ve seen parts of the country that we haven’t explored before! Lots of memories that we’ll never forget!
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