Flathead Valley

July 1.

On Wednesday we explored the upper end of the Flathead Valley, just west of Glacier NP. Mostly in search of lunch, but also barns and other photo ops.

The map of the valley in the tourist guide we had showed the town of Bigfork right on the shore of Flathead Lake. I had read in our tourist guide that Bigfork had become something of an artist's village. Based on this extensive research and my own intuition I reasoned that there’s got to be a restaurant there with a deck overlooking the lake. As we drove through town we saw houses lining the lakefront, but no restaurants. Then we crossed the Swan River. I got a brief glance to the left, away from the lake, and it looked like there were commercial developments back up the river a short distance. That's it! We turned around, re-crossed the bridge, turned off the highway, wound around a few blocks and there it was: an inn advertising open-air dining overlooking the water. I’m amazing!

We had a fine lunch. Across the river was this house that Susie would like to have.

From where we parked and where we ate, all we could see of Bigfork was one block with our restaurant and a couple of other inns and some small businesses. We started to turn around and leave, but Susie said, Drive ahead a little. I want to see something. She had seen someone carrying a large hanging basket of flowers. Wondered where they were going. We drove ahead a half-block, just looking to see what had become of the flower-basket delivery, and to our surprise, to the right at the first intersection there was a three block stretch of all sorts of galleries and shops. And, all these shops were adorned by very large hanging baskets of flowers. So, we parked and strolled, enjoying the traveler’s dumb luck once again.

Every shop was decorated with two to several of these baskets. Even the real estate agencies back on the highway, we noticed on leaving, had hanging flower baskets. Don't know how well the artists and real estate agencies are doing, but the nursery or nurseries are doing quite well.

A small sculpture garden featured this bear.

Meanwhile, back in the valley, on the way to and from Bigfork (I kept wanting to call it BigFoot) we saw these fields of a yellow-flowered crop – canola.


Also saw a couple of barns.

Susie wanted to show you that I was outstanding in my field of chasing down barns. Had to wind down a narrow lane to get here. For sale: 190 acres.

Here’s a picture from the internet of a barn we saw near Kalispell, the largest town in the area, but couldn’t conveniently photograph.

Huckleberries are big here – pies, ice cream, jam, honey. They're somewhat similar to blueberries, definitely better in Montanans' eyes. They’re picked in the wild, high up in the mountains of NW Montana. Pickers have to watch for bear competition at times. On the way back to our West Glacier campground I bought a slice of huckleberry pie, then later warmed it up and applied some KOA ice cream to it. Yum-yum. Good stuff.

When we left West Glacier on Thursday we retraced our route to Bigfork and continued on down the east shore of Flathead Lake. This is a very large lake -- the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi -- 28 miles long and up to 15 miles wide.

There are many cherry orchards in this region. We stopped at one that advertized a large parking lot and bought some cherries and cherry-huckleberry jam and honey. Had a piece of toast with the jam on it as I was composing this posting. Outstanding.

There was a long stretch of torn-up road from below Flathead Lake to Missoula that made for slow going and difficult driving -- bumps, barriers, narrow lanes, ... . We're on our way to Dillon in the SW part of the state. Main attraction is tomorrow's Fourth of July parade in Ennis.

Cheers,

Susie and Rob