Whitefish Part I

Our wonderful friends, Neil and Allison, generously invited us to join them in Whitefish, Montana area, for part of the week in the middle of July. We drove the beautiful road to see them, planning on taking the Road to the Sun. As we got to the summit of the pass with rain coming down in torrents, the road was suddenly closed off because of rock slides. We had missed the slides by a mere 5 minutes (a trip for lunch at a drive through had set us back about that much time), which meant that we had to turn around and retrace our steps. Our journey was extended by a few hours as a result, but we also picked up a stranded paddler by the name of Halliburton from Atlanta, who kept us company and told us many stories about kayaking rivers both large and small. Our destination was Columbia Falls and our condo was in the Meadown Lake complex.

It was beautiful!! The complex included a pool and hot tub, a golf course, and many other amenities. Bevan and I had our own private suite with a soaker tub and a kitchenette.

Golf was the first order of business the next day, which I did not take pictures of. This is probably a good thing, since most of us were not completely happy with our games. However, the course itself was very nice. For the evening, though, we made our way to Whitefish to see the Conrad Mansion, an historical building built in the mid-1800's. It was certainly big...

But my favourite part was the teeny tiny Conrad Cat Door. The Conrad cat was mostly plain and highly standoff-ish I thought.

Afterward, we drove to Polson for our dinner cruise on Flathead Lake. Here's me, waiting to board.

Once on, we were treated to a pretty mediocre Italian feast, but then what can one expect for a $30 night of entertainment. Happily, the company..

And the scenery....

Was enough to make up for the dining deficiencies. After the meal, we got to walk around to enjoy the outdoors and the sights.

As the sun went down, it was satisfying to feel the wind and the lake air while boating. Since we chose not to take our Dragonfly out this summer, we had been craving some water time.

And we got to see the sun set in this beautiful place.

We made our way home, and got up early the next day to go biking. Our day was 5 hours of mountain biking, beginning in the West Glacier area.

We climbed many steep hills and enjoyed the natural sights.

A little gas station provided us with a place to eat our packed lunch.

Then we found our way to a steep hike up to Apgar lookout, a 2 hour hike up the side of the mountain, which everyone promised had a view that made the effort worth it. As we started out, a few people warned us that it was "hat". And it was. The trail was challenging.

Too challenging, it turned out, for Bevan, who got overheated and just plain exhausted. So I threw him on my back and took him back down the hill. (This is not entirely true, as he walked, but I think he would have welcomed a carrying. An APGAR, as Neil reminded us, is a composite score given to newly delivered babies to measure their responsiveness and health. Bevan would have scored poorly with an APGAR at that point.) Neil and Allison went on, but before Bevan and I turned around, I snapped a picture from where we were.

Then we began the hour long trek down. Near the end, we found a chilly creek to cool our feet and restore Bevan back to health.

And then we made our way home. It was a wonderful beginning to a trip that just got better and better.