After such a long day yesterday seeing three large destinations in southeastern Idaho, I allowed my wife and children to sleep in this morning, resulting in a late start. I also knew this was possible because a sightseeing stop I allotted time to see was not available this day, but more on that later. We had a delicious breakfast at Jan's Cafe, complete with all the fixings. A lot of locals eat here too on a regular basis, and these folks were generally on a first-name basis with the staff here. I listened in on a conversation between the chef, who was probably the owner too, and the waitress about how hard it is to get people to work. With all the stimulus packages, they said people began to think they can get money for doing nothing.

As I paid the bill, I told the waitress they was right about that, and that's happening in California too.

Time Event Range Remaining 10:33 am Departed Lima 303 12:07 pm Arrived Butte Supercharger 168 Range/Distance ratio: 1.18 Conditions: Fast, 83°F We took a much-needed bathroom break at the Starbucks here in Butte, Montana, then bought drinks for the whole family. Cost to Charge: $0

Strictly-speaking, the car did not need the Butte Supercharger to complete today's travel. The Tesla Navigation correctly calculated, starting at Lima, that we only needed one charging stop in Missoula today. However, that first leg would be three hours, too long for my family, so we shortened the legs of travel by stopping in Butte.

The visual evidence around the town made it clearly evident that Butte had a long mining history. In fact one of the stops I considered was the World Museum of Mining. However, with the pandemic, although this Museum was open, it required specifically-timed reservations for most of the interesting tours, so it was a little more difficult to fit into our schedule, and we already decided to make this day mostly a simple travel day.

My wife chose to take the next leg of travel because it was a simple stretch of the Interstate. She's not as comfortable using Autopilot as I am, so she opted just for the adaptive cruise control.

* After my family enjoyed seeing a few Bison two years ago in Yellowstone, I really wanted to take the family to the National Bison Range. Here we could take a 90-120 minute drive through one of the last remaining refuges for freely-roaming herds of Bison. I knew the sightings could be up close because they strongly advise not to leave the vehicles during the drive. My advance research told me my car would easily have enough range to drive the 19-mile, one-way gravel road through the National Bison Range (much like our drive through Monument Valley four years ago) and then continue on to our next destination.

Alas, the pandemic shut down all public access to this Range for months. It was on an American Indian reservation, whose populations were especially vulnerable to the pandemic. I checked the web site and called their phone number repeatedly before our passage through this area today, but no, no, no, it remained completely closed, even the auto tour.

I was very sad about this, passing the eastern edge of this Range while being unable to enter. I designed enough flexibility into our schedule to allow one last chance to see it on August 9, after we depart Glacier National Park, but it was closed to the public that day too. Humans and the diseases we might spread were the problem, not the technology. (Remember when storms and mudslides forced us to cancel train tickets in Durango, Colorado?)

After passing through farmland, it wasn't long until we could see Flathead Lake itself (see top picture). Our route took us along the eastern edge of the lake, where we saw dozens of cherry orchards and farms, along with dozens of stands selling "Fresh Cherries". My wife made a mental note to make sure we sample cherries while we patronize the restaurants and stores in this area, either in pies or jams or otherwise.

We could see a fire on Wild Horse Island inside Flathead Lake. We couldn't tell if there was any real effort made to put it out, as it did not seem to threaten any structures.