MONTANA

Crazy about Montana. Landed in Missoula after an easy drive out of rainy Seattle. Blue skies broke open in Ellensburg and stayed in place every single day. I get why they call it Big Sky... It's gorgeous there!

Took off for a few days in Glacier National Park and fell in love with the breathtaking views of glaciers, mountains, trails, and wildlife. Wow! One morning, around 9 am I look out the window of my motel room in the park in time to see a momma black bear with her cub about 4 feet from my door, just strolling through to the woods right beside my room. I stuck my Nikon D90 out the cracked open door and got a couple of amazing shots. The cub stood on it's hind legs to stare at me, and momma bear cuffed him and moved him along. Great luck to be so close and have it turn out well!

"Going-To-The-Sun Road" was only partially open from both sides of the Park, which meant turning around about 17 miles into the drive at the West entrance and back tracking out and then entering again from Two Medicine for another short drive and then entering from the East entrance for another 15 miles that were open before coming to the closed signs due to about 50' of uncleared snow! Many Glacier drive was open, and what a beautiful lodge there! Very
impressive lodges at Lake McDonald, St. Mary's and Glacier Park Lodge! Perhaps the snow will be cleared out by the end of July...a very wet winter sure leaves this park buried

Fell head over heels in love with Ennis! Actually think I could live there! It's a perfectly complete year 'round town filled with sweet bars, restaurants and great possibilities of easily meeting the locals! Met one cowboy who even went out to his truck to bring his 00 flyfishing rod into the bar to show it to me! He could bend that rod into a knot and it
didn't break!

Also really liked Helena and enjoyed a tour of the Capitol Building there as well as getting to meet new friends for dinner and drinks! One friend, George, was born and raised there and it was fun to find his old house, hear about life back in the day!

After a great flight to Chicago today (getting bumped up to First Class) I'm ready for sleep and then the Cubs vs Sox baseball game at Wrigley Field on July 1st! I have the best friends in the world! Thank you Carol and Dave for this next leg of my trip and for all the fun about to happen!