Montana. Big Sky Country. I'd never been before, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Somewhere in my mind, I supposed that it was just a great big, open, rolling scene of hills and nature with some people tucked in there. In fact, it was one of the most continuously beautiful places I have ever seen.
This was largely a driving day. We stopped at Tamarack Brewing, where I declared myself "beered out" (much to Ryan's amazement), and picked at a delicious salmon sandwich for awhile.
We then pushed on to Glacier National Park to scope out the situation, but as destiny would have it, all the campgrounds were full. By this time, the change in altitude, barometric pressure, and temperature all built up to do a number on me, as well. I had a nice migraine settling in, my sinuses were raging, and my throat was sore and scratchy. We took a few pictures around the entrance of the park, then found a nice little cove full of mosquitoes in the National Forest for the night.
I took a nice migraine nap from 5-9, then woke up freaking out because it was still light out. Naturally, I couldn't sleep, so Ryan tried to do some hand puppets by flashlight.
In truth, it was a pretty rough night, because it was cold, and mosquitoes kept getting in and buzzing in my face, so we spent most of the night flailing around in the dark.
And yet, we awoke the next morning for a do-over of Glacier. I still felt pretty yucky when we got up and packed up, so my enthusiasm level was... low. Very low.
As we climbed up and up and up to Logan's Pass, some of that yuckiness was replaced by sheer awe as the true beauty and magnitude of the landscape unfolded below us. Here we were driving through the sky, surrounded by snow and waterfalls.
Once we reached Logan's Pass, I switched from my light fleece jacket to my winter fleece jacket. Our elevation was so high, if a cloud passed through, it would immediately fill the pass, dumping whatever was in it on the tourists and adventurers who were out of their cars, wandering around. The existing snow and slick conditions made it so the trails were closed, but we did get the chance to poke around base for a bit.
Seeing that we wouldn't get our hiking in at this location, we drove down out of the clouds to the more lush and hospitable parts of Glacier. On the way down, we saw Jackson Glacier, and also a roadside bear.
The lower levels of Glacier are an entirely different world- lush and green and dotted with beautiful lakes... but still windy and cool. Also, it's very hard to find parking at the trail heads, so patience is key.
Around 3pm, we zipped out of the park for a quick lunch in East Glacier, then zipped back in to do a bit of hiking at Two Medicine. Again, breath-taking scenery- and this time, Moose!
I was grateful that all of our wildlife encounters were at a safe and appreciable distance. Large wild animals are not known for being cuddly, and I have no intention of getting mauled by a bear or gored by a moose.
That night, we headed to Helena for our weekly shower. We were also running desperately low on clothing, so a laundry outing was required.
We had a lovely night of sleep, followed by a huge breakfast at a place called Steve's. We ran errands, and eventually landed at the laundromat, where I updated the blog with our Pacific Northwest adventures. I was also very, very thrilled at having clean underwear.
We also detoured to downtown Helena to check out Ten Mile Creek brewing, which is confusingly located inside an office building complex, but absolutely delicious.
There are very few large towns in Montana, and all of them are smaller than my hometown in Ohio. I personally found that very enjoyable- not only is Montana absolutely gorgeous, but it's quirky and a little homespun, too!
We then pushed South to Butte, Montana, where we again checked out a brewery. This time we checked out Muddy Creek, which had a potent habanero IPA that I enjoyed very much.
We wandered off to Metals Sports bar for dinner. The building was very cool- it had originally been a bank, and retained some of the features, such as the vault and original signage. They also had trivia and games at the tables, and I'm very certain our server did not like us at all. In any case, the food was delicious.
Those are homemade tater tots in that middle picture, by the way. *drool*
That being that, we pressed forward to Idaho Falls, driving through one last beautiful Montana sunset.
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