Big Sky Country

That farm on the horizon is over 2 miles away!

I never knew what that meant.  I heard it a million times and thought, "How can the sky be bigger in one part of the country and not the other?"  Well, I'm hear to tell you-I get it now.  It is bigger.  Like you can reach out and touch it.  It surrounds you and makes you feel very small.

Just about to the top..over 1.5 miles from the start!

There are so many beautiful things to see, touch and smell in this lovely state of Montana.  We started our vacation at a little inn near Whitefish.  The weather was not very cooperative but we made the best of it.  We decided to check out the mountain top ski resort near town.  To our delight the ski lift was open and running so we decided, what the heck...It wasn't raining at the bottom and I could see clouds at what I thought was the top.  We hopped on and off we went, up, up and further up the hill. A little over a mile! The view was incredible!  As we neared the top I could see a cloud hovering near the summit and we went right into it and through it.  So exciting...and cold...and wet!  But WOW! I can now say I literally had my head in the clouds!!

Would do it 10 times over!

The next day we went out to the bison range south of Kalispell.  It's about a 20 mile loop inside the range on a narrow, windy, dirt and sometimes poop filled road.  Too cool!  You can really get a feel of what it must have been like 100 years ago before modern trappings.  It was so peaceful to stand in a grove of ponderosa pines an hear nothing but the sound of the wind through the boughs.  Nothing like the wind in the loblollies-it's much louder and more fearsome in the ponderosas! 

You can look to a neighboring hill and see a herd grazing.  It was such a pleasant drive to wind your way through the range.  The views were incredible and changed at every turn in the road.

Not just for Bison...







The sun cooperated for the most part that day.  One the way back we darted in and out of rain storms and as we approached Flathead Lake for the trip north back to Whitefish, I was getting rather put out that the weather was crappy.  We rounded yet another curve in the road and there in front of us was the most spectacular rainbow that I have been blessed to see.  As I was sliding down an embankment and slogging through the knee high weeds to get a better picture, I was reminded that you can't get a shot like this without the rain, so thank you Lord for providing this once in a lifetime opportunity!!

We tried to take in the sites at Glacier but the weather was against us.  Not to mention that the Road to the Sun was closed.  Not due to weather, but for maintenance.    I'm sure it is beautiful when the sun shines, but it wasn't too bad in the rain either!

It sure is different from Delaware!