October 14, 2017, marked the realization of a dream. After our 50th anniversary trip to
Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons with all the arrangements made by son-in-law
Darryl, we were encouraged to independently make such arrangements for a big
trip on our own. In March of 2017, after
accruing enough air miles with the Delta American Express card, I went online
and made reservations to fly out west for an eight day trip to Montana. From that point I made our car reservation,
motel reservations, boat ride and float trip reservations with every day
planned. I even made a detailed
calendar. We were within three days of
departure when we realized that we would have to cancel our reservations due to
the impending arrival of Hurricane Irma.
We lost no money on our cancellation and of course as usual with many
things we do, the actual day we were to depart turned out to be beautiful. I was so disappointed. When I cancelled with Delta, the reservation
agent tried to help me get on different flights but it was going to cost more
(miles) and on the longest part of the flight Bubba and I would not even get to
sit together. So I told her to cancel
the whole thing and credit back our miles which she did. A day or two passed and we were disappointed. I felt like if we couldn’t go that we might
never go. I prayed about it and told
Bubba I was going to look one more time.
Then I saw a flight four weeks away that was within our range (air
miles) and I booked it.
As I began to plan again I realized that some of the things
we had planned for September would be closed by the first of October. Then I began to see that the motels and even
the car rental were going to be much cheaper in October. In fact, we were going to be able to take a
ten day trip for less than the original eight trip was going to cost. As the old saying goes, “Man plans and God
laughs.”
The October trip turned out to
be the perfect trip.
We left on Saturday, October 14, from Tallahassee, Florida,
airport. It is a small airport and
simple for us to navigate with our carry on bags and my laptop. We ate a big breakfast at Apalachee
Restaurant in Bristol on the way to the airport.
The flight to Atlanta was short and
sweet. We had a layover of a couple of
hours in Atlanta which gave us plenty of time to find the gate for our flight
to Minneapolis-St Paul airport. We split
a Chick-fil-a sandwich while waiting.
The flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul was enjoyable. We watched movies and enjoyed airline
snacks. Again we had plenty of time to
locate our gate for our flight to Missoula so we shared a hamburger at an
airport restaurant and waited to board.
We arrived in Missoula around 9:00 PM, got our rental car (a Subaru
Outback) and our luggage with no problems.
Hilton Garden Inn was our first night’s lodging. It was close to the airport. I didn’t want to drive too far since we both
have trouble driving at night. When we
tried to access the suitcase that had been checked, we discovered that it had
been thrown around to the extent that we had to borrow scissors from the front
desk clerk to cut it open.
The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel. Then we loaded up our suitcases. (Bubba had managed to use straps to hold the
damaged suitcase together.) We headed
for the local WalMart to pick up snacks and water for our travels and a new
suitcase. From the WalMart parking lot
we were able to see that we were surrounded by snow topped mountains. Wow!
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| First Stop - WalMart |
The National Bison Range is located between Missoula and
Kalispell which was our next destination.
We took a drive through the range that lasted approximately two hours. We saw bison and elk and a lot of beautiful
scenery. After leaving the Bison Range,
we looked for a place to have lunch.
Most of the small town eateries were closed for the season. It was a good thing we bought snacks because
they were lunch on more than one occasion.
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| Great food at the DeSoto Grill |
Monday morning after breakfast at the motel, we took Highway
2 which goes around Glacier National Park to the east side of the park. The Going-to-the-Sun Road which is so famous
was already closed. On one side it was
due to winter conditions and on the other it was due to road
construction. We learned that there was
much to be seen anyway. Another
interesting aspect of this trip was that there was no traffic. You could go for miles without passing
another car. Around every bend there was
a beautiful display of fall foliage unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It was cold and windy although we wore
our heavier coats only once while we were up there. We visited Two Medicine Lake which was
amazingly beautiful with the Sinopah Mountain to the west and the Rising Wolf
Mountain to the north. We also took a
short hike to see Running Eagle Falls.
By now we were accustomed to a lack of places to eat and dug into our snacks. We also found that many
of the public restrooms were boarded up for the season. Later we found a decent restaurant where we had a huge pizza and took the left overs
back to the motel with us for later.
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| Beautiful |
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| Just driving down the road |
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| View from Highway 2 |
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| Park Entrance - East Side |
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| Running Eagle Falls |
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| Yep, it's cold! |
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| Two Medicine Lake |
The next day we went into what we could see on the west side
of Glacier National Park. We were able
to go to Lake MacDonald which is featured in many of the photographs you see of
the park. We drove right up to the lake. The parking lot was empty and the summer
concession stands were closed. It was
just Bubba and me with the most gorgeous scenery imaginable. The wind was blowing and it was cold, but it
was such a surreal experience that it brought tears to my eyes. We also drove back around to the east side at
the urging of a friend only to discover that the lodge she wanted us to see was
closed. We snacked all day and ate
leftovers in our room for supper and they were delicious. We spent absolutely nothing on food this day. That's a first!
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| It's just us and this gorgeous view. |
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| Fall foliage is beautiful! |
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| Just stopped and posed |
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| Everywhere is another gorgeous view! |
Wednesday we drove to the little resort type town of
Whitefish. Then we went back into the
west side of Glacier and drove thirteen miles of dirt road to Polebride,
Montana. This small community which
consists of a general mercantile store along with a saloon (closed) and some
primitive accommodations does not have electricity. The store is famous for its baked goods and
Bubba and I each had something – a pecan sticky bun and a cinnamon roll with
great coffee and hot chocolate. We
talked some with the owner of the store and learned that they would close the
end of October and would be travelling in their motor home to some of the
southern states. It turned out that her
husband had formerly worked in the area around Carrabelle and Apalachicola. Small World!
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| The road to Polebridge |
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| Can you imagine living out like this? |
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| Pecan sticky bun |
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| Huge cinnamon roll |
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| Polebridge Mercantile |
The dirt/gravel road was exciting to travel. The scenery was beautiful. The color of the trees was so brilliant that
it almost looked like they were engulfed in flames. We seldom passed another vehicle. If we wanted to take a picture, we just
stopped in the middle of the road.
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| Scenery on road from Polebridge back to Whitefish |
We went back into Whitefish where we had lunch at a little
restaurant, Loulas, which was recommended by a friend. We split a huge cheeseburger and fries and
then had a slice of huckleberry/peach pie with ice cream. Delicious!
It seems that this place is famous for their homemade pies and I can see
why. We went back to our room around
3:00 and spent the rest of the day taking it easy. No additional meals were wanted or needed.
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| Huckleberry/Peach Pie |
Bubba enjoyed the motel breakfast the next morning while I
feasted on the leftovers from Polebridge for my breakfast. We had a day of travelling ahead of us as we
planned to spend the night in Butte and see some mining history. Our drive for the day was past lakes. We saw many beautiful cabins and some
mansions which had views of both a lake and the mountains. It was beautiful country. We also passed miles and miles of wide open
spaces with the wind whipping through.
The wind was so strong you could feel it buffeting the car as we traveled. We passed no open restaurants
in the small towns we went through.
Again no rest stops. Eventually
we did come to a rest stop but it was at the exit we took for Butte. We went to check into our motel and then
planned to eat at a Perkins Restaurant which Amy always enjoyed when she was on
her mission trip here in 1996.
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| On the road to Butte |
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| A cross on the hill |
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| One of many scenic stops between Kalispell and Butte |
And now, the motel complaints begin. This motel looked great online. Some reviews were great and I found later
that I should have heeded the bad reviews.
The lobby looked nice and the lady at the desk was very nice. We loaded up all our stuff and trekked down
the hall to our room. It was awful. It was shabby. The carpet was stained very badly. A ceiling tile was pushed over making a hole
large enough for a critter to crawl through.
But after I complained a lot, we decided to stay since we were already
unloaded. We went to Perkins to eat and
the meal and the slice of coconut pie we shared for dessert was enough to make
me forget that we would be roughing it for the night. Our first views of Butte had already caused
us to decide that one night there was
more than enough. I learned later
that Montana residents refer to Butte as the “armpit of Montana”. I can see why. It was just not a nice place. As we turned back to the motel I saw a
homeless man holding a sign and started to feel guilty that I had complained
that our room was not nice enough. We
went to bed and I awoke to a bright light shining in the window. I woke Bubba up and told him that it was
morning and I was ready to get out of there.
Once we were both awake, I parted the curtains to observe that instead
of the morning sun, that the lights from Lady Lil’s Casino across our parking
lot were shining brightly. We left early
anyway and after a good breakfast back at Perkin’s, I put this night behind me.
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| Sunrise over Lady Lil's |
We were less than two hours from Bozeman, Montana. We got there so early in the day that we
decided to visit the Museum of the Rockies right away since that was the
attraction in that area we wanted to see.
The museum boasted some dinosaur skeletons which were very interesting
and also a lot of history of the cowboys and Indians of bygone days.
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| Bubba and the Buffalo at Museum of the Rockies |
After the museum, we checked into our motel, Comfort
Suites. I had almost cancelled this
because of the condition of the Comfort Inn we had stayed in the night
before. Boy, I’m glad I didn’t. Our room was on the top floor and we had a
living area separated by a half wall from the sleeping area AND we had a
beautiful view of the mountains. We had
skipped lunch in favor of an early dinner.
We had a great Italian meal and as we headed back to the motel, the
sprinkle of rain turned into snow flurries.
It was beautiful. I have never
seen it thick in the air like that. I
had snow in my hair. I don’t think I’ve
ever said that before! We returned to
our room and I sat at the window and watched it for as long as it lasted.
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| Sunrise |
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| View from our room in Bozeman |
The next morning (Saturday) I watched the sun come up over
the mountains while sitting in bed drinking coffee. What a blessing! When son-in-law Darryl heard we were in
Bozeman, he suggested we go back to Yellowstone National Park. When we learned that we were less than two
hours away, we decided that it would be crazy not to go. As we drove out of Bozeman, there was snow
all over the ground. The mountains were covered in fir trees which had snow on their branches making them look just like a Christmas
card. We went into the North Entrance of
the park where we were informed that many roads were closed due to winter
conditions, but the ranger directed us to the area called Mammoth for more information. This is the area where park employees
live. Last year when we visited there
were elk lounging around in the yards.
This time the elk were lounging around in the snow covered yards. After enjoying looking at the elk, we
decided to not push our luck going farther into the park since as Floridians we
don’t possess a lot of snow/ice driving experience.
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| Leaving Bozeman - Heading to Yellowstone |
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| Who Knew? |
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| A Pet? |
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| A little chilly! |
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| Always a great view! |
We stopped just outside the entrance in the small town of Gallatin. We had some great ribs
there. As we paid our bill and
complimented the young man who took our money on the ribs. He asked where we were from and it turned out
that he was familiar with the area we live in and that his dad was at Mexico
Beach that day supervising the building of a new home there.
We finished off the day with a cup of coffee for me and hot chocolate
for Bubba. We had already decided to
spend an extra night in Bozeman. I mean,
how can you give up seeing the sunrise over the mountain while you’re in bed
drinking coffee!?
Sunday was observed as a day of rest. We had breakfast, read and watched tv. We got out for a late lunch at Roost Fried
Chicken which was recommended by Yelp.
It was a great meal. We went
back to the room where we lounged around and began to think about our wonderful
trip coming to an end. That night I
repacked (again). Now our largest
suitcase was filled to the brim with dirty clothes as was one of our carry on
bags. We were pretty much down to one
small bag of clean clothes.
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| Roost Fried Chicken |
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| Dirty clothes take a lot of room. |
Monday we had our last motel breakfast and printed our plane
tickets for our flights home. Then we
headed back to Missoula from whence we came.
We shared a sandwich for lunch at a Perkins in Missoula and then checked
back into the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport. That evening we decided to end our wonderful
time in Montana by eating steak at Outback.
It was a perfect meal. We went to
bed early but neither of us slept well.
We needed to get up at 3:00 the next morning for our plane was leaving
around 6:00.
We got to the Missoula Airport around 4:00, turned in the
keys to our rental and found that we were so early that TSA had not even started the security screening
process yet. We checked two bags of
dirty clothes and were on our way. I
slept most of the way between Missoula and Salt Lake City as did the lady in the aisle seat next to me. We had a long
layover in Salt Lake City so we had Krispy Crème Donuts and right before our
flight we had pizza. The young lady next
to me this time was a Mormon girl on her way to Manchester, England from Salt
Lake City. She was so beautiful and
sweet and respectful towards Bubba and me.
When we got to Atlanta, our shortest layover of our whole adventure, we
had a sense of panic because we arrived so far from where we needed to be. Bubba declares that there is nothing wrong
with my knees because he could hardly keep up with me as I raced toward the
train that would take us to our terminal.
When we got on the train, we saw the Mormon girl, Sunny, had met up with
some other young people and was headed for the international terminal. It made us feel better to know that she was
not alone. We made our flight to
Tallahassee with minutes to spare and had an uneventful trip back.
Montana was amazing.
I would not trade the dates we went for anything. It is a huge state. Sometimes we would travel for miles (speed
limit 80) without seeing another vehicle.
In all we traveled 1500 miles in our rental car. We were never in a location where we could
not see mountains. When I was lamenting
our change to October knowing that many things would be closed, I asked Amy,
“Will we see some mountains?” She
assured me that we would, but she didn’t tell me they were everywhere. It was beautiful. I would rather enjoy the beauty of God’s
creation than any other trip I could plan.
It was amazing! Now we have two
trips of a lifetime under our belts.
Bubba is okay with flying now and has even mentioned that he wants to go
on another cruise. Where next? Who knows?!
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