Day 5 - "Don't Worry It's a Flat Hike."

Remember that picture from the last post of the sunset? Well, if you look at the pictures you can see some clouds pouring over the mountains. It was really quite beautiful. Little did we know that that night was the last time we would actually get to see those mountains because the next morning we were socked in with clouds. No worries though, up there even when it's cloudy it's still pretty...just a mysterious cloudy. Since the sun wasn't out it was also quite chilly which was perfect! It was about 55 or something like that when we left the hotel to move onto bigger and better places....or so we thought.

Our next place to sleep was to be in St. Mary's. We had made reservations for 2 nights in a Pinnacle Cottage which according to the pictures was absolutely beautiful. They have fireplaces, kitchens, 2 bedrooms, a living room and a bathroom with a tub/shower (which is way different from the 2 ft x 2 ft showers we've been having...which btw are very hard to maneuver around to shave the legs...you hit your head on walls and if you drop anything good luck. So, thankfully as they say, "When in the mountains do as the mountain-women...if you get my drift...). Anyway, the week before the trip I had looked up these places we were staying and happened upon a review site that gave this place about an 79% disapproval rating...yes, my friends that is right, basically in mathematical terms that means that 79 out of 100 people rated this establishment as terrible. In fact some of the ways that this place was described was, "Your Worst Nightmare Come True", "I Felt Like I was in Friday the 13th", "Stay AWAY!", and my personal favorite "Horrific Experience...Bed Sheets/Mattress Saturated With Urine"...no kidding! That's a true story! In fact allegedly that happened while we were there. Haha! Anyway, needless to say we were a little wary of what we were walking into.

Thank you St. Mary's Lodge and "Resort" for not failing us too! I'm sure when Daniel went in to check us in they said something like this:

"Haha we got you! Welcome to St. Mary's Lodge and Anti-Resort we lost your reservations! So sue us! You are going to have to live under a tree somewhere along the lake down below and fend off the wild bears that are coming out to eat the huckleberries! I can also sense there are two not-so-rustic women in your vehicle...yep, good luck that buckaroo!"

Shocking isn't it?! They informed us they sold those cabins to KOA campgrounds so we would have to go there to straighten it all out. We went and they were very kind (at least I got that impression from Daniel). They told us ever since they bought that property from St. Mary's they have had problems with the St. Mary's people. Apparently even though St. Mary's sold the properties to KOA St. Mary's was still making reservations in them! Wow! Thankfully, much to Jessica's and my relief they had one of the cottages open for the night so we were guaranteed one night in them, but we would have to check out the next morning and then St. Mary's was supposed to find us a place to stay the following night. Jessica and I assumed it would probably be in one of their infamous teepees that would blow down on us in the middle of the night or something lovely like that.

We enjoyed our accomodations for the night though which made it very hard to say goodbye to in the morning:


Pretty nice, eh? It really was great.

That day we took a hike...shocked? This time we headed up to Logan Pass. Jessica and I were told by the boys, "Don't worry it's a flat hike." So, we were excited! Awesome a flat hike where we don't have to climb rocks or sheer cliffs. I'm not quite sure what dictionary was used when using the term "flat" because it wasn't flat. In fact we climbed stairs. Not little bitty stairs...like taller steps. I have short legs...short legs and tall steps do not mix. Now, it was really foggy up there (and about 45-50 so we were in our warm jackety coatlike attire) so you couldn't see all the way. Jessica and I would get oh so excited when we'd reach the "top" of the stairs only then the fog would kind of clear and show us our next set...and our hearts would be crushed.

This picture is not mine...hence the clear sky...these are some of the stairs. They are not steep, but they go on and on and on and on and on...



I had no idea it actually looked like this. Wow.

We did get to see some wildlife though! Starting with a hoary marmot. They are these large rodents. If I would have seen these sooner they might have been one of the animals that crossed my mind at 2 a.m. the other morning.Kinda makes you wanna curl up with a 30 lb rat doesn't it?

We also got to see mountain goats up close and personal.

He looks snuggly too.

When we got to the Hidden Lake Overlook this is what we saw.

Now, close your eyes and imagine this is what we saw...well, don't close your eyes...look at this and imagine this is what we saw:


Through all of that fog this is what it looks like. Nice, huh?! We had to use our imaginations because we had no idea that it looked like this when we were up there. I figured there would be a lake down there though since it was the Hidden Lake Overlook. I'm smart like that.

That night dinner was AWESOME!! We were introduced to the new love of our lives. It's a little place called Johnson's. Holy cow! We had the special which was grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and vegetable beef stew. It was quite possibly one of the best meals ever! Finding this little gem (thanks to Doug's boss for the recommendation) was one of the best things on this trip. If I could marry it, I would. I want to go back to Montana just for Johnson's. Blessed Johnson's.

Tune in next time to find out if we had to live with the micro-bears in the mountains the next night and for: Day 6 - To Ride Horses with the Drunk Indians or Not to Ride Horses with the Drunk Indians? That is the Question.

Day 4 (Part 2) - How Old Am I?

After a 10 mile hike and then a pretty sleepless night due to the mouse gang in our room, my body was rejecting me. My legs were screaming out, my feet were cursing and my knees definitely weren't acting like Christians. I don't know what it feels like to be 85, but I'm pretty sure that was as close as I'm gonna get for about 59 more years. I felt like I was waddling everywhere. The knees were not bending so well...so, we wanted to take it easy.

Daniel went out at one of those non-existent hours in the morning and rehiked the 10 miles we did the previous day to get the perfect shot...he is a crazy man. There are bears out there...micro and regular. There are moose (I prefer to call plural moose, moosen) out there. There are rabid ground squirrels out there too I'm sure.

He got back at around 10 a.m. as the other 3 of us were finishing up breakfast. We decided the waitress would be the perfect person to ask about easy hikes or fun things to do in the area. Little did we know she was one of the people we saw the previous day on our hike "skiing" on her boots down the side of a mountain on rocks. We were a little wary of her suggestions...here they were...

1. Do a 3-4 mile hike to Red Rock Falls and soak in the pools of water. Feels good a warm day.
2. Ski down a mountain on your boots...but watch out for the rams.
3. Jump off of waterfalls on the hotel grounds...they are only 60 feet high.

I don't know about you, but #'s 2 and 3 sound fantastic. (Just a bit of sarcasm there people.)

We decided to do a 3-4 mile hike to Red Rock Falls. A nice, easy hike for non-Christian knees.

It wasn't too horrible and I told my knees to take it like a man. They can be a couple of sissies sometimes. There's no crying in hiking!! (There is when there are wild animals in your room though...I "forgot" to include that yesterday...I kinda woke Doug up the 2nd time when I was bawling my eyes out because of the mouse gang - there had to be at least 16.2 mice in there I'm sure - I wasn't scared of them I was very, very angry at them...sorry, back to today's blog) Again, the hike was worth it:

We didn't wear our suits, but decided to stick our feet in the pools that this crazy waitress told us to swim in...
Can't you tell how we were ready to jump right in and take a little dip. No way! I don't know who this waitress was, but there was no way we were immersing ourselves in that water. It was beautiful, but so stinking cold. I have no idea how Doug kept his legs in it for so long. I think he said at one point they were kinda numb. It did feel good on the feet after a while, but definitely not for swimming in!

The boys decided to be crazy brave and walk out to the edge and look over the top of one of the falls, but us girls stayed sitting on a tall rock, overlooking the area. We looked straight ahead instead of watching our husbands risk their lives for the sake of photography. This is what we watched.
Safe and pretty just the way we like it. Not like this:Thankfully this wasn't the last picture of these two.

We eventually hiked back and on our way back to the hotel as we were driving we saw one of these:
Except we didn't get this view...praise the Lord. He was on this hill as we drove past it.


Here was our sunset that night...Amazing...


Overall, a good day. No limbs (or toes) were lost. No one fell off of a waterfall. No one got car sick. Plus we had a sure place to sleep...which is what we did that night, mouse gang or not.

But would we have the same luck tomorrow?

Find out in the next installment Day 5 - "Don't Worry It's a Flat Hike."

Day 4 (Part 1) - There's a Moose Under Our Bed!

You know, after a super long hike all you want to do is sleep. So, that's what we planned on doing. Sleeping. Which we did. We were dead to the world until 2 a.m. That's when I awoke very suddenly to the sound of a plastic Wal-Mart-like bag rustling violently.

At first I thought, "Oh man, the air conditioner/heater came on and is blowing on one of the bags. I'm going back to sleep." But then I immediately realized, "Wait just one second, there is no air conditioner in her and this room is 100 years old and there's a little heater high on the wall that's nowhere near any plastic bags in our room! HOLY CRAP (pardon my French...I was very alarmed) THERE IS SOMETHING ALIVE BESIDES US IN OUR ROOM!!!" I sat straight up in bed. This would be the point that Doug stirs just a little bit and starts to realize I am no longer lying next to him but sitting next to him and getting a little agitated.

He says, "What are you doing?"

I respond, "There's something making a noise in the plastic bag."

He groggily replies, "It'll be fine. Go back to sleep."

So, me, being the brave girl that I am layed warily back down in bed with full intentions of lying there freaking out inside sleeping. Until...

I heard slow footsteps walking around my side of the bed. That was it...I was done! There was no silent freaking out happening with something walking along my side of the bed. I sat straight up again and started violently shaking Doug this time! "Doug wake up!!!! There is something alive in our room!!!"

"It'll be fine. Go back to sleep!"

I kinda sit there for a second and imagine every animal imaginable at now 2:15 a.m. My thoughts ranged from a mouse, to a wild cat, to a ground squirrel, to even the micro-bear Doug was telling us about earlier (I told you it was early in the morning...imaginations are horrible things sometimes). This caused me to panic more and I began to think I was going to hyperventilate.

"I can't! It's walking around by my side of the bed. You have to get up and find it!!"

"Fine."

He turns the light on and gets his flashlight out. He takes a look under the bed a couple of times and declares it holy ground (although, I'm was not walking barefoot down there in case something decided to grab my toes).

He tells me all will be fine and to try and sleep. At this point I am literally shaking and he has to remind me to breathe. I can still hear those stupid footsteps. Everytime I did I tensed up which also bothered Doug.

I knew that it was probably a mouse, but I read Fox News far too much and lately there has been a crazy trend of babies getting eaten by mice until they die or lose fingers, toes, and parts of noses. Everytime I closed my eyes I imagined getting overtaken by mice and having my toes gnawed off. It wasn't a pretty sight. It was just easier to keep my eyes open. Needless to say, not a lot of sleep was had after that.

Doug got up a couple hours later to take sunrise pics. He totally left me in that room to fend for myself against the mouse gang. Good thing I'm scary cuz they stayed away.

Later when we were ready for breakfast and heading downstairs Doug announced we were getting a mouse trap so he wouldn't have to deal with me flipping out in the middle of the night again. Now, the people that work there are from all over the world. The man we chose to talk to was from France, and this how the conversation went:

Doug: We have a mouse in our room.
Frenchman: (pointing to gift shop) Gift shop.
Me: (thinking) What the heck?!
Doug: No, we have a mouse in our room.
Frenchmen: A moose?
Me: (thinking) Yes, sir, a moose crawled through the window in the middle of the night and won't leave.
Doug: No, a mouse...we need a trap.
Frenchman: (confusion written all over this poor kid's face) Trap a moose?
Doug: Do you know what a mouse is? (using hands to show size and how they skitter around a room) A rodent. Small. Has diseases.
Frenchman: No, I don't know mOUse.

I then see someone grab a net on the end of long stick and then know that this is going nowhere fast. This gentleman is American and knows about such things as mice. He tells us they can't kill them (they can't even kill bugs) because they are protected animals.

You have got to be kidding me. This protected animal tried to eat my toes the night before and it's okay. Two gentlemen take their little butterfly net and skip off to our room.

There was no hope. We had a roommate and he was not leaving anytime soon. I named him Scooter.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 4 (Part 2) - How Old Am I?

Day 3 - Please Someone Kill Me Now!

Now that all of our air travel was done for several days we were quite excited! Now, the real vacation could begin.

Doug and Daniel started out their day way before Jessica and I did. They left around 5 a.m. or some horrible hour like that that should not be recognized while on vacation, but they like it. On a regular non-vacation day, no way, but on vacation, bring it on! Jessica and I took it upon ourselves to sleep for them, which we did quite well.

After a breakfast of french toast (I had vanilla hazelnut, Doug had huckleberry...more on a later date) which reminded me vaguely of funnel cakes we headed to our next location. Off to Many Glacier which looks like this:


Our hotel was very close to the Iceberg Lake trailhead (don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about when I use terms like trailhead?! Just wait til' I whip out switchbacks...gives you chills doesn't it?!) which was our hike of choice for the day. It's 10 miles roundtrip. This doesn't sound so bad when you think of it in terms of driving. I was gasping for breath on the way there on several occasions, but that 's because I'm from KS and we don't have elevation thus we have oxygen here. Sad to say we didn't really see much wildlife except for a mountain goat. There was the instance of a "micro-bear" which Doug told us was more vicous than a regular bear and very small...I think he was making it up...I have my suspicions. I was pretty pooped and so were my feet by the time we reached Iceberg Lake, but it was worth the view:

An apparent tradition that I was not informed of proceeded. Jessica and I were instructed to remove our shoes and step into the water...the water with big ice cubes floating in it. I noticed something right away...the boys didn't do this, they just took pictures and laughed at us girls writhing in pain from the freezing temperature. I think next time they will be required to do that and then we will take pictures and laugh at them! Sounds fair to me!

Well, when it was time to start the 5 mile hike back my feet were not happy that they were being forced back into boots. The rest of the hike taught me a lot about prayer. I talked a lot to God on the way back. I'm sure he was teaching me a lesson and I'm still trying to figure it out. This was my time with God:

"DEAR JESUS, MAKE THE PAIN STOP! I WANT TO SEE YOU! I'M READY TO COME TO HEAVEN RIGHT NOW AND SOAK MY ACHING FEET IN A NICE GOLD BOWL OF WARM WATER AND MAYBE EVEN SIT IN A HOT TUB OF HOLY WATER!"

I was losing my mind. The only thing that got me back was the promise of pasta. I got my pasta too. I could have been the worst pasta in the world and I would have been happy because it would have been food in front of me while I was sitting.

We returned to our hotel where we fell into bed for a long night's sleep...or so we thought...

Tune in tomorrow for Day 4 - There's a Moose Under Our Bed!

Day 2 - Luggage? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Luggage!

After our glorious day of travel the day before we happily awoke refreshed after about 5 hours of sleep. If you know my husband, 5 hours of sleep is about 3-4 hours short of acceptable sleep length. So, maybe we didn't wake up so refreshed, but we woke up nonetheless. We made our way to the airport in hopes of not getting stuck. Thankfully we weren't flying United so our chances of getting anywhere on time skyrocketed!

Remember my fear of going through security because of sniffing dogs? Well, my fears have now multiplied by 1,000. Yes, it's true. They have these new machines there. Big, tall machines you stand inside and they have an arm like thing that whirs around you. I did not know what this new machine was, but I did notice the sign that said something like this,

"You are about to enter this scary looking machine. You can either A. stand inside it and let it whir around you painlessly or B. get frisked by that really disturbing looking security guard on the other side. Choose wisely."

Well, shoot, I totally chose the scary machine thing. What harm can a scary looking machine do?! None, that's what! It didn't hurt at all. Sad to say, Doug had to go through the machine AND get frisked. He is a pretty shady looking character.

After we went through it, Doug says, "Those machines have been really controversial." He then tells me they are body scanning machines. So, after getting our Cinnabon (priorities) I took it upon myself to research these alleged body scanners. I shouldn't have. My life would be much better not knowing what they are. Apparently these body scanners truly scan your body. Like they see through your clothes. At this point I felt very violated and kinda wished I had just been frisked. They should have had a sign that said this instead,

"You are about to enter this scary looking machine. You can either A. stand inside of this machine as we look through (yes, we said through) your clothes to see if you are carrying anything dangerous like a fingernail file in your armpit or elsewhere (yes, we will see it if you try) or B. get frisked by that disturbing looking security guard who really is a gentle giant on the other side. CHOOSE THE FRISKING!"

I digress.

Onto the airplane ride. It was good. It was on time. It was Delta. God bless you, Delta.

We arrived in Montana and were greeted by Jessica. She's from Florida, you'll hear a lot about her over the next few days. She's one of Doug's friends from college and belongs to Daniel who was currently waiting in the car on the curb expecting to be there for 10 minutes. Jessica, Doug and I stood around and waited for our bags to ride around and come to us. They didn't come....even though we were assured they were on the flight. Hmmm...so, we wait in line behind a whole lot of other people who are now in the middle of Montana with nothing to wear. To make an already long story short, the nice lady didn't have a clue where our luggage was. Yep, no record of it. Even better since we were informed a very short time later in the car by Daniel and Jessica that the only clothes they'd seen for sale were authentic Indian clothing. That sounded REALLY promising. The lady then told us that they would wait until the next flight came in that night from Denver and if our luggage happened to be on that one they would drive it up to us.

So, we all hop in the car and head up to the hotel through the windy roads. This is the point in my life where I discovered I really can get car sick. We don't have curvy roads roads in mountains here in KS so I was never given the opportunity to experience the feeling of carsickness. Oh, and I had a migraine on top of that. That helped a ton. The only problem was I was the new girl and considered myself to be tough. Carsickness is for wimps. That's what I thought until my stomach started to turn more and I thought I was going to lose consciousness. That's when I turned to Doug and told him I didn't feel well. Thankfully we pulled into town for lunch. I thought that might help. Nope, it doesn't, just so you all know. I ordered lunch but if I even touched the food to my tongue it didn't want to go down. But I gave it a good effort. We then went and bought 2 of my best friends on the trip, Mr. Excedrin and Miss Dramamine. I love them so.

Back to the hotel we went to take drugs and nap. It worked! Life was good again, so we went on a 4 mile hike. Pretty sure I was gonna die. There is no oxygen there, but we made it to the top and saw this.
It was lovely. Then I felt like a weenie because a couple kids came bounding up the mountain and I felt like falling over dying. Then the kids's dad comes up the mountain in pristine condition carrying an infant. I felt even worse and wanted to crawl into a bed and sleep.

So, we went back to our hotel (after seeing a black bear on our way down the mountain) that looked like this on the outside:
and this on the inside:and we went to sleep. We were there and all was well.

Tune in tomorrow for Day 3 - Please, Someone Kill Me Now!

Day 1 - The Cursed Travelers

You know, I used to look at airports and get all excited and jittery thinking about the prospect of climbing onto an airplane that would take me off to new adventures. The only thing I ever dreaded was going through security, but even that didn't scare me to much until they bring in the dogs. It's never good when they bring in the sniffing dogs.

Now, I walk into the airport and brace myself for the inevitable news that something has gone wrong with at least one flight we are supposed to ride on. Our most recent trip did not let me down either.

It all started when we went to check in at those handy-dandy self-check in kiosks (man, I love that word! I could say it over and over again. Kiosk, kiosk, kiosk...fun!) Much to our dismay we get a message similar to this,

"I'm sorry you are flying United. Your flight is running 55 minutes late so we're gonna try to make the rest of your airport experience for the day as stressful as possible. Oh, you want to go to Montana do you?! Muwahahaha. That's very funny! We laugh in your face! You most likely aren't gonna make your next connection. That's too bad for you. Go on up to the line ahead and wait and a person can help you fly there within the next week so you only get 2 days of vacation instead of 7."

It went something like that, as I recall.

We went up to the desk and the kind lady (she really was...she might have been new.) confirmed what the kind kiosk told us. She informed us we could try again tomorrow, but there were no guarantees. My husband, my knight in shining armor, who doesn't take, "come back tomorrow" as an answer informs the kind lady that we will take the risk of missing our flight in Denver and our luggage most definitely not making it on our flight and arriving on the next. So, we check in and even make it through security without dogs sniffing us.

At this point we decide no more United for us. The rest of the day solidifies this wise choice of ours.

We sit and wait in the Wichita airport...in case you have never been blessed to fly out of the Wichita airport, there is NOTHING to do in this airport. Sitting is your only option. This wouldn't have been quite so bad if it would have happened in say, Dallas, Chicago, or at least an airport with moving sidewalks or escalators where we could ride them for hours on end. We are then informed why we are late. Apparently the plane we are supposed to be on got delayed an hour and twenty minutes out of Houston because of mechanical problems. I hate when they say that. It doesn't phase Doug because his plane always has mechanical problems. I like my planes to work when they are in the sky. They then tell us it will be delayed another 15 minutes because it hadn't even left Denver yet. When it finally gets here we are told we can't board for another 20 minutes because Denver has bad weather and they have grounded all flights going in and leaving.

This is another point when having a husband who is a pilot comes in handy. He pulls out his phone and looks up some aviation weather site where everything is in a secret code. Come to find out there is nothing wrong around Denver. This is also confirmed by other passengers who call friends in Denver who say, "The weather is fine! Crazy United people!"

We finally board and leave about 2 hours after we were supposed to. Surprisingly we land in Denver and miss our connecting flight by 30 minutes. After not finding anyone to help us we are directed to gate B39. It's name now lives in infamy. According to the really old lady in front of us in line she counted everyone in front of her. There were 99 people and the line was approximately 2.7 miles long. That might be exaggerating, but not by much. :-) We wait for 30 minutes and hardly move. So Doug and this man behind us get the bright idea that there has to be another customer service desk somewhere else. Sure enough! They walk a very long distance and find a line with 5 people in it. Me and the other wife stay in line just in case. We waited an hour before it was okay to step out. We also found out that this other man makes ice cream in Montana, Wilcoxsons, BONUS! It was good by the way.

I promise this day is almost over. I'm telling you it was long!

Doug used his magic negotiating skills and got us a flight out of Denver that night to Salt Lake City. We were to land at around midnight. We got no free hotel room out of the deal because we were told they coded the delay as a weather delay. Fabulous. We did get to eat some food before leaving Denver and then our flight was delayed 30 minutes out of Denver. Way to go, United! We love you!

We made it to Salt Lake City, surprisingly and got to stay here (although we didn't know this is what it looked like on the outside cuz it was really dark):

Thankfully, this place had a bed and we were able to sleep in preparation for the next exciting leg of the trip the next day...

Tune in tomorrow for: Day 2: Luggage, We Don't Need No Stinkin' Luggage!