Montana Vacation Part Deux

Once we left the cabin, we headed to Kalispell. We spent several days at Marcie’s house. One of those days we headed to Big Mountain in White Fish. Jason missed out on our trip because he had another golf day planned with a friend.

You can just make out the ski trails in the mountain ahead.

As soon as we got there, we hopped on a lift to ride it to the top of the Alpine Slide ride. You can see some of the slide in the picture I snapped of Betsy, Taylor, Beau and Jim in the first lift.

And this is the picture of them from the lift I was riding on.

It’s me, Jessica and Parker. Aren’t we brave riding with the safety bar up? Actually, I didn’t know we had one!

And bringing up the rear is Jared, Olivia, Brittany and Jacob. Behind them is where the Alpine Slide ends.

Here’s a small section of the slide taken from my lift.

As you come up to the top, they tell you to get ready to run so the lift doesn’t run you over. Here’s my kids and Britt getting ready to run for it.

Time for some documentation photos….pay attention Jacob. Jared knows what to do.

Hey Jared, let me get a picture of you. Thanks for blocking my shot Jacob.

Um, Jacob… will you please cooperate so I can remember this day and scrapbook about it please.

Oh look, it’s me and my kids. The background almost looks fake in this picture. As you can tell, it was a chilly day.

This is looking down at part of the Alpine Slide track. That tiny man is there to take pictures so the tourists can spend lots of money for a copy.

Here is most of our group. Everyone gets instructions on how to operate the sled. I’ll be in line as soon as I get some photos.

Get your phones out so you can video your slide!

There goes Jared! Have fun!!     So did they enjoy it?

YES!! Here they come up the lift to go down the slide again.

After sliding, we all went on a nature trail walk. Big Mountain also has zip line tours, but it was WAY over our budget.

We could hear these people coming down these lines before we could see them.

I really loved being on that trail. Living in Arizona makes you appreciate simple streams and green everywhere you look.

Finally the day trip is over and it’s time to go.

Everyone is a little tired and ready to call it a day.
That’s it for part deux. I’ll try and wrap up the Montana Vacation in one more post to come soon…..

Our Montana Vacation (part 1)

We got to escape the heat of the the Phoenix valley for a little while this summer. Almost 2 whole weeks. We left the last week of June on a Thursday night and drove straight through like we always do. I have to say that the last 6 hours of our 21 hour drive are almost painful.
I took lots of photos of my view from the front seat of the truck.

As soon as we crossed the border, I took a picture of the first Montana snow-capped mountain. Beautiful. From here we only have about 4 more hours of driving until we make it to Plains.

Our windshield has collected some of the native insects. I’m very happy to see the sign that lets me know we are almost there.

Love the green hills up ahead.

This is the Clark Fork River. It is so swollen from all the snow melt. It’s flowing FAST and it’s muddy.

I had to throw this picture in here. This is down the street from my mom-in-law’s house. I LOVE it. I should have knocked on the door of the house and asked if they were interested in selling it. Don’t ya just love the wings?

Here’s another view of the Clark Fork as seen from the bridge in Plains.

It’s Tina (Fat Lard). These folks also had some miniature horses.

Isn’t it adorable?
We went to the cabin after the weekend. I was looking forward to seeing all the work that Jacob and his cousin Brittany had accomplished during their 2 weeks before the families arrived.

There used to be a shed right where Jacob is standing. He and Brit had muscled that thing down during many trips back and forth from Plains.

Katy Lou had to get a permit so we could burn all the scrap lumber and the kids each helped to chop some of the wood into fire pit sized chunks. The rest would be for the bonfire later.

Tell me who doesn’t enjoy a good bonfire? This picture does not do that fire justice. It was BIG and it made so much black smoke (probably creosote in those old railroad ties). I half expected the fire service to show up.

When dinner time rolled around about 3 hours later, Jacob decided to use it to cook his hotdog. Those coals were pumping off some serious heat, so he found himself some protection. LOL!

No trip to the cabin is complete without having s’mores.

Check out the wood burning stove. After our first night, Jason fired it up and cooked us all some bacon. He’s awesome.
The kids did so much work that they were done after one night and we ended up going on to Kalispell later on this day.
To be continued…..

Huckleberry time!!

Before I met Jason, I would have thought that a huckleberry was just a character from a cartoon. A couple of years ago on our Montana trip, I went with Jason on a huckleberry finding mission. We were successful in finding a patch of the elusive little berries and now we make sure that each time we go to Montana, we take a drive up the mountain to our spot with the huckleberries and spend as much time as we can picking them.

We were fortunate to be going a few weeks later in July this year. I say fortunate because the huckleberries had more time to get ripe for us. Jason and I drove up alone one of the first days we got to Montana to scout out whether or not they were ripe and hoping that they hadn't been discovered by the locals. We had our first hint that the huckleberries were close by when we found a big pile of bear poop on the road. It was purple-ish...which meant that there were definitely berries nearby!

Do you see that tiny little berry? THAT is a huckleberry. Just click on the photo to see the details full size.
Jason took a picture of me with my baggie of berries since I'm usually the one behind the camera. Now I have visual proof that I was really there! LOL...

After a week of vacation, the kids were ready to pack up and head back to Arizona. They had no more reason to stay since the cousins had already gone back home to California. We told them that we were going to go pick berries one more time and if they wanted to leave a day early, then they had to lose a little sleep and go huckleberry picking with me while Jason was golfing with his buddy, Scott.
Here they all are with their own baggies of berries. Well, there were so many more left and Jason really wanted to go back out, that he and I went back later that day and picked some more. I was amazed to find that we were also surrounded by wild strawberries. They were EVERYWHERE! Here is a handful that I picked. They were really small but were super sweet and delicious.
The strawberries went into my tummy right away. I think I should have picked some more to share, but we were not there to pick strawberries.
So now we have 3 baggies like this in our refrigerator with fragrant, tart little huckleberries. Now I understand why they charge up to $40 for a gallon of these things. It took us at least 2 hours of picking to get this much.
I'd tell you to come by and try some, but by the time you get here, they will be all gone!

Rope swing at Twin Lakes

One of the things the kids looked forward to on this Montana trip was going back to Twin Lakes near the cabin so they could swing on the rope swing they found last year. We were all very happy that it was still there.

Jacob by the rope

Jared has the rope and Olivia and Parker wait for their turn.

The bravest kids use the make shift ladder to get a lot more out of their swing.

Jared out on the rope

When they got bored with the swing, the kids practiced skipping rocks before we took off.

You have to make sure you find a good rock to skip.

Everyone looks to see how far the rock makes it across the lake.
We didn't stay as long this time that we did last year. Sadly, Samantha had to stay behind at the cabin with her dad since she wasn't feeling well because of blood sugar problems from her diabetes.

A little more Montana

I thought that since I am still keyed up from work that I'd share some more photos from vacation.

I let the kids loose with my camera while we were at Quinn's Restaurant and they had lots of fun taking pictures...

Here are our 3 oldest posing for their youngest sister.

"I'm crushing your head!"

Just how bad is the cellular service in Plains? Well, if you have T-mobile, you might just have to find the "spots" to talk where your phone won't drop a call.

"Dad, can you hear me now?"

We were surprised to see a helicopter out at the cabins. They were scooping water right out of the river just up the road from us.

Don't let those power lines fool you into thinking there is electricity at the cabins...unless you bring your generator to hook up to the lines you are using propane, baby!

This next one is just something Samantha found while out taking a walk.

It's the circle of life, kids.

We spent many fun hours at Twin Lakes because Jason found us a rope swing! He added some extra rope to it so the kids could swing easier.

...and me, too! Thanks Jason!!

The kids all got a shooting lesson thanks to Beau leaving us his rifle to use.

Here's Jason setting it up for the kids.

Jacob taking aim.

And finally, how can you call it camping without a campfire and SMORES!

Believe it or not, it's about 9 o'clock at night in this photo!

So that's it for tonight, folks. Hope you've enjoyed the second round of vacation pictures.