Goodbye Sweet Willy, Hello Montana!

I would like to say the next morning we woke up nice and refreshed, but that would be a lie.  It was not because of Willy, the bed was very comfortable.  It was more that both Angie and I are city folk and we were not use to sleeping in the middle of nowhere with so little noise.  I live in Brooklyn, even as I type the horns are blaring and the idiots are cranking their crap music!  Cottonwood was just so silent!  Well, that and we had had a discussion as to whether we should leave the light on outside during the night or not.  I said no, I don't want to see any lurkers while Angie voted for leaving it on so we could attack.  Thanks to that conversation, we both had a hard time sleeping. Because we psyched ourselves out!  Apparently, we have issues, city living will do that!  Seriously, Cottonwood is completely safe, we have just been citified. 

Ass Cold in Montana

We packed our stuff and were off yet again.  We were dismayed to see it was raining...again.  But we put on a happy face and hit I-95 and were on our way, sort of.  We missed our exit and had to take back roads which were pretty but added time.  Never miss your stop in the middle of nowhere.  We finally did find Highway 12 the historic Lewis and Clark pass.  The odd thing is that everything in the area says it is the Historic Lewis and Clark pass.  Still, we figured why not, it was along a river and had to be pretty.  It was, but it was raining so hard it was difficult to really appreciate.  That and we had a big construction truck going 10 under the speed limit.  No biggie, usually, but he refused to go into the turn area for slower traffic, that and there is no passing or exits for 99 miles.  Yeah, you haven't lived until you have truck water flying at you for a good 50 miles.  Eventually, he turned off onto a construction site and we came upon the sign welcoming us to Montana.  It wasn't quite the joyful moment I had anticipated as it was cold and pouring!  Still, I posed with the sign as I shivered in the full on rain, hello Montana! 

Chasing Mountains

Oddly, as we crossed into Montana, we were greeted with a sign telling us that every time we saw a white cross it represented someone who had died in a car accident.  I got what they were saying, they wanted us to slow the hell down, but it was hard to do when the speed limit was 70 in most places.  I mean, they used to not have a speed limit.  Still, it was kind of disturbing!

By the time we hit Missoula, the skies had finally cleared.  So we decided to check out the sites of Missoula.  Missoula was bigger than I expected, it has about 68, 000 people which isn't huge by any means but quite nice.  The people were friendly and we had a nice lunch and grabbed a coffee before heading onto Whitefish, Montana.  If we had had more time, I would have loved to stay overnight in Missoula, it seemed like a nice city and had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. 

Crazy Blue Water

After our stop in Missoula, we were off once again!  A thing or two about Montana.  It is very clean and very scenic, I mean breathtakingly so!  The water is so clean in parts; it is clear blue and green.  I have never seen water like that before in my life!  There were beautiful snowcapped mountains along the route and lots and lots of farms.  Oh, and everyone has a horse and a truck.  Everyone!  Also, it is said that you can see wildlife everywhere.  I really wanted to see a moose or a bear, though Angie was freaked by the latter.  Within the first 30 minutes, I did see several birds, deer and a bald eagle.  Ok, not exciting (except the bald eagle), but a start! 

Spot the Deer!

The trip to Whitefish is incredible as the views are gorgeous though it was a more populated than I expected, much more than Idaho had been.  We ended up spending most of our time in Kalispell as it had more things to do and a lot more places to eat, though we ended up eating at a Mongolian Grill that was a bit overpriced.  It was good, but the hot and sour soup was odd and vinegary and they didn't really have hot sauce.  Still, it was good I guess.  They had moose meat in the meat section which intrigued me, but I am a fish person so I  grabbed the salmon instead. 

After Kalispell, we hung out in downtown Whitefish after checking into our hotel.  It is very cute and has plenty of little shops, but mostly bars and such after 6PM.  After grabbing dessert we headed back to the room at the Chalet Motel.  It was a decent, fairly priced, clean room for the most part except for my bedspread which I always kick off anyway due to the fact that they are rarely washed.  Well, this one hadn't been cleaned in who knows how long and I may be scarred for life from what I saw.  The only thing to do at that point to erase the memory was to play Scrabble again while watching bad TV.  Tomorrow we would be up REALLY early as we would be heading to Glacier National Park!