Big Fork, Montana

We arrived in Montana on Sunday afternoon and stopped in Kalispell for laundry, lunch, and grocery shopping. We continued to the east side of Flathead Lake through Big Fork and south for about 15 miles.

We have this adorable cabin rented for the next 2 weeks. It’s a simple one room cabin with bed, table, bath, mini kitchen, and an old fashion potbelly stove for heating the place. Best of all: a large front deck with chairs and a grill and a fire pit out in the yard with a great view of the lake.

Bob’s friend, Catherine, from work had arranged with the owners for an awesome gift basket to be in the cabin when we arrived. Wine, cheeses, fruit, the works! It was so nice and we have enjoyed something from it every day. I enjoyed the wine and dark chocolate before I unpacked. Our first night here we grilled salmon and planned the next day.

Monday we headed to the Jewel Basin in Flathead National Forest. We hiked to the top of Mt. Aeneas, the highest peak in the Jewel Basin.

The hike went pretty much all the way up and then all the way back down; not a lot of bells and whistles. We had lunch at the top and you could see Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake, Big Fork River, and a whole lot of widerness. There were no goat or bear sightings. On the way back down we got turned around on account of some ambiguous directions, but we ran into a prepared and ambitious hiker who allowed us to follow him. His pace was a bit faster than ours (a brisk jog) and we had blazed out to the car in no time. Monday night we grilled out again and had our neighbors (from a cabin across the road) over for a bonfire.

We inadvertently told these neighbors from Seattle that we were not impressed with Washington wine, which they would not accept. Naturally, we invited them over to prove their reds are worth a damn. We had a fun night and went to bed late.

Today we hung out at the cabin reading, laying in the sun, and eating cherry cobbler that I made from scratch from the cherry trees around our cabin. (I know, I’m amazing.) In the late afternoon we went horseback riding. I haven’t been on a horse since Camp Ondessonk 1990 and Bob has never been on one. We were with a family of 4 that had big issues; Compared to them Bob and I felt like real cowboys the way we could take a little trotting and make the horse stop and then go again. Real professional stuff. With the exception of a long train ride, there’s nothing I’ve romanticized more than horseback riding. In fact, we went today to start practicing, as I had planned to trade in the Element for a horse upon our return. However, horses revealed their downfalls to me today: horse flies, poo, chafing, the disarming realization that you’re not the boss. This is not to say horseback riding isn’t great… it is. We had fun and I’d like to go again, but we’ll keep the Element for now. Tomorrow is Glacier Day #1….