As we mentioned in our profile, we are originally from Montana, where we regularly return for vacations and to visit our families. This blog entry reflects some of what we experienced during our latest visit in August, 2018, which gives further credence to our earlier post proclaiming that We’re NOT Real-Time Bloggers.
It’s a bit of a grab bag of images from our trip home. Also, the “Sampler” in this post’s title is our way of confessing that some of the images and videos shown below are actually from our visit home to Montana in 2017.
Some Random Signs of Western Life
Cowboy boots are part of the Western scene. Not all cowboy boots are alike. Right next to the plain, ordinary work boots you can find the type of boots that that might fit in with the outfits worn by a certain political consultant and campaign manager known for the company he keeps. You can go beyond regular cow leather to embrace alligator, snake or (in this case) ostrich.
We could not see the end of this train, even well after it began rolling out of the station. It’s like a rolling oil pipeline:
Conrad Mansion
In the West the definition of “old” or “historic” is measured on a different scale. In Europe when something like a castle or a palace is thought of as old, more than likely it’s been around for centuries or perhaps even millennia. In the Eastern U.S., anything pre-dating the country’s founding can qualify as old. In Western Montana, a mansion surviving from the 1890’s makes the cut. The Conrad Mansion is a wonderfully-preserved example of frontier architecture, located in Kalispell:
Out in the country
One of the things that we get to enjoy on our trips home is to get out of town and go out in the country to enjoy the scenery. Here are some pictures from our sister-in-law’s/sister’s home outside Kalispell, MT.
Glacier Park and Its Critters
Glacier Park is about a half hour drive from Kalispell. The picture above looks down from Logan Pass towards Hidden Lake.
True confession: the pictures above and the video below of pileated woodpeckers did not require long hikes into the deep woods of Glacier Park. No, these critters were really quite close up. In fact, the woodpeckers were doing their thing on a tree right across the street from a gift shop in Apgar Village in Glacier Park.
Glacier Park provides a shuttle bus that ferries passengers on the Going to the Sun Road up to Logan Pass. These shuttles help take traffic off this busy, narrow, cliff-hanging engineering marvel built in the 1930s. It also freed us from having to hold onto the steering wheel, and allowed us to create this time-lapse video that captures the ride from Logan Pass down to the road’s switchback. At this speed, you may need to take Dramamine to cope. Click on the full-screen icon to get the full effect.
Big Mountain
We don’t ski, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy a ride on a ski lift in the summer time up to the top of Big Mountain near Whitefish. Yes, we know that the operators of the ski resort renamed it Whitefish Mountain Resort a few years ago, but we prefer to stick with the name it had way back when we were kids.
The time-lapse videos below give you a perspective on what it’s like going up and then down the mountain, and the view that you are fortunate to enjoy along the way.
Going up…
…and coming down!
We hope that you enjoy this sampler from our vacations in Montana.
Halfway There Travelers 
This is great! Makes happy that I vacation here all year long!
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Beautiful pix — thanks for sharing!
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