Road Trip! Montana, United States

Last week we celebrated Father’s Day with my Dad, Stepdad and Spouse in my hometown of Spokane, WA. From there we continued on to Flathead Lake, Montana. I had seen pictures of how this big lake was so deep and clear that you could see right now to the bottom. I thought that would be really fun and beautiful to see in person. Alas, while booking our trip so early to avoid wildfire season this year decided to be all ironic and give the upper Western regions a flooding season instead. Because of the flooding there was a lot of silt and debris flowing into the lake and the bottom could not be seen. It also ruined the fishing opportunities for my eldest nephew.

We would like to take our son to Yellowstone someday, but the post-pandemic lodging prices have skyrocketed to a price point I’m not willing to pay. I’m also well aware of the crowds and delays that happen in the park when it isn’t being washed out by flooding. So, my frugality and determination to avoid crowds like the plague that they are, really worked out in our favor.

Our trip was shared for two days with my Stepsister and her two boys who are close to my son’s age. I love them and it’s so rare that we all get to spend time together that this was a special trip for that reason alone. While I’m almost twenty years older than my (step)sister, we naturally sync well together. I sync well with strangers sometimes too. When I meet people out in the big wide world, I’ll just automatically become best friends with a random stranger, and we’ll share a mini adventure together. Maybe we both got lost and we work to path find our way back together or we have to endure the same stressful or boring event.

We stayed at the Edgewater RV Resort & Motel in one of their dog-friendly cabins. They had just planted some new trees which I was happy to see because the amount of gravel everywhere is barely better than pavement. There were a lot of birds and I tried to get pictures for you, but they were practicing “stranger danger” and wouldn’t hold still, unlike my wild birds at home who think I should referee bird arguments (see previous post; Fernmire: Farming with Squirrels.)

I was only aware of the Flathead River creating one road closure. Nothing like what the Yellowstone River was doing much farther southeast of us.

We went to the Northwest Montana Heritage Museum in Kalispel, and I would recommend it. I always judge a places taxidermy quality on whether they have a cougar or other big cat (if native to the region) and how well that particular taxidermy was done. The shape and size of big cat heads make them notoriously hard to taxidermy without looking derpy (funny-looking.) This cougar gets an A+. I think Ermines are cute. I know that anything in the weasel family can be a problem for poultry farmers, but these little guys have a lot of personality if you ever get the opportunity to watch them.

We also drove to Big Fork to check out Kehoe’s Agate Shop. I met the owner whose father opened the shop in 1932. It’s always important to me to support local family business wherever I go.

We took a slightly different route on our way back home so we could see the south end of Flathead Lake in Polson.

Flathead Lake is Montana’s biggest lake.

Although I tend to drive at the speed of a low-flying aircraft, it took us 10.5 hours to drive straight through to home with a one-hour lunch break and a fifteen-minute coffee break. We were really surprised at how few cars we saw through Montana, Idaho, and all of Washington state. We were starting to think we had somehow avoided a zombie apocalypse or something until we rounded a corner just before our exit and found everyone parked for their favorite highway interchange to Auburn Hwy 18 from I-90 South.

That was on Thursday.

Friday morning, I was crushed to learn the Supreme Court really did overturn Roe v. Wade. I guess one person’s dystopian nightmare is another person’s wet dream. A white, male conservative friend got mad at me when I post my personal feelings about it on my personal Facebook page. He said, “How dare you make a public policy decision ultra-personal!” Well, when a public policy decision is all up in my woman parts, it feels ultra-personal.