Morning Guy Blog

For Early Risers Who Wish That It Could Be Morning All Day

For Early Risers Who Wish It Could Be Morning All Day

Far From The Maddening Crowd

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It is prime-time tourism season around here, right now. People everywhere.

Well, almost…

We still have our secluded summer swimming spot on the crystal clear waters of Flathead Lake — far from the maddening crowd.

Se¿liš Ksanka Qlispe¿ (or the dam formerly known as Kerr)

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The dam formerly known as Kerr Dam is running nearly full throttle — quite a sight! My visiting son and family joined us for the 700 steps down to an observation overlook.

This is the outlet for Flathead Lake, which receives its water from Glacier National Park and beyond.

When the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes took over operations in recent years, they renamed the dam Se¿liš Ksanka Qlispe¿. That’s a bit tougher than “Kerr.” No disrespect intended, but I now may have to refer to it as SKQ Dam.

E-Boat 2.0

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We “pushed the envelope” with our new e-boat technology and traveled to and from Flathead Lake’s beautiful Wild Horse Island with battery power (aka unicorn power) alone. No speed barriers were broken. In fact, we went sloooow enough to smell the wild roses.

Don’t tell anyone, but we traveled for 2 hours without seeing a single boat (and we can see at least six miles on this vast body of freshwater). And this, on a Saturday in mid-June with ideal, calm, relatively warm conditions.

Green Electric Boat (sort of)

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Can an electric 12-volt 1-hp trolling motor with a 100ah battery push our 4,500-lb. boat to that distant island (2-miles) and back? That was the bet. And we won. In fact, it pushed us along at 1.5-knots (nice trolling speed) for 5-miles, and it still had juice remaining.

We never fired up our very thirsty 4-barrel 250-hp Mercruiser. First time. And we feel virtuously green because, as everyone knows, electricity comes from the pixie dust raised by the stomping golden hooves of dancing rainbow colored unicorns.

Okay, we used a lithium battery. But still, that’s a lot of barge to push through the water.

We would now call it an e-boat, if WWII history had not already taken that name.

Hanging on tight to the might of 1-hp!
There’s a showoff on every cruise, it seems.