Road trip, Day One

Don and I decided to take one last road trip this year, which we did last week. Since our time away from home was shorter than the second honeymoon trip we took in May (due to work commitments), we were gone five days and confined our travels to Montana.

Why Montana? Because it's a beautiful state, and despite living right next door, we've seen very little of it. Don loves to pre-plan such trips with the understanding that such plans may alter at the last minute, so he scouted a large loop through the Treasure State, touching on a number of sites, and culminating in an overnight stay in the charming town of Philipsburg, which we discovered on our last trip and wanted to explore further.

So, after renting a car, we hit the road early on Sunday morning, September 8. We decided to use Lolo Pass to get into Montana rather than taking any of the more northern options.

Hwy. 12 crossing into Montana is a looooong route. I don't know why we thought it would be shorter, but there you go. That said, it was very beautiful ... although smoky. In fact, smoke from distant wildfires was prevalent throughout the trip, unfortunately.

But the Locksa River, which we were following, was beautiful. Here it's glinting in the morning sun.

But as we climbed higher into the mountains, we noticed something peculiar: There were a lot of trees down.

While we stopped to photograph one particularly bad stretch, this wasn't an isolated situation, either. For miles and miles and miles, there were trees down everywhere, in quantities that were nothing short of catastrophic. What on earth happened?

Hoping for some enlightenment, we stopped at the visitor's center at Lolo Pass to inquire.

"July 24 windstorm from Syringa to Missoula took out thousands of trees," explained the Forest Service woman at the desk, in a tone that sounded like she had repeated this exact explanation many many times. "In Missoula they clocked the winds in town at 80 miles per hour, and up on Mt. Sentinel at 109. The damage happened in half an hour. They had forecasted thunderstorms and 60 mph winds, and it turned into a big, big, BIG issue."

Yowza. We later looked it up and confirmed the incident. Quoting from a Missoula news article:

"The severe storm that hit Missoula July 24 shook residents and left extensive damage around town. Now, we’re learning more about the weather phenomenon behind the storm.

"People have wondered exactly what caused this weather event. The most common theory for a while was that it was a microburst, a small localized downdraft in a thunderstorm. However, it turns out that it is something far more rare.

"NBC Montana spoke with the National Weather Service to learn more about the storm.

"'There’s only been a handful of these events documented in the western United States,' Alex Lukinbeal, a meteorologist with the NWS, shared with us.

While winds are common during summer storms in western Montana, the winds on July 24 were equivalent to that of a Category 2 hurricane – that is far less common.

While the assumption the storm was a microburst is a strong guess, Lukinbeal says it was actually a similar, more wide-scale event called a derecho.

"'These derechos are long lasting wind storms associated with thunderstorms, and they typically need to be at least 240 miles in length,' Lukinbeal explained about the rare event. 'So this derecho or complex of thunderstorms that produced the really extreme wind, it tracked all the way from northeast Oregon, through Idaho and then through western Montana.'

"Derechos are a slightly more common occurrence along the eastern portions of the U.S., but the West rarely sees this kind of weather event. The last one in this half of the country, according to Lukinbeal, was in 1994 in Utah and Nevada.

"However, this storm was even more rare in one distinct way – it may have been the first derecho documented in western Montana."

Looking back in my weather diary, we realized this was the date a passing violent storm cell tore a huge branch off an enormous willow in our yard.

Yowza indeed.

From Lolo Pass, we descended into the town of Lolo. On the way, we passed mile after mile of burned forests from an earlier (as in, many years earlier) forest fire. It was very sad to see.

In Lolo, just a few miles outside Missoula, we stopped and got a couple of pizzas. While we planned to have some for lunch, we also wanted to make sure we had food on the road (a lesson learned from our May excursion). While the pizza place was baking the pizzas, we went to a nearby grocery store and stocked up on drinks, crackers, cheese, salami, and a bag of ice to fill the ice chest we had with us.

With that bit accomplished, we headed through Missoula. We'd been to this college town once or twice before, and the one thing that always strikes us is how many casinos are there.

They're built into every gas station and every strip mall. Don went through one once after stopping at a gas station to use the restroom, and he said it was dark. As in, really dark. (The term he used was "like purgatory.") He said the brightest lights were from the machines, though there was recessed purple lighting that lit up the ceiling. He reported the people sitting in front of the machines were listlessly pushing the buttons and hoping for the best. He said no doubt they were gambling away the mortgage.

At any rate, the first time we were in Missoula and noted these casinos, we tallied something like 75 before we lost count. It's awful, awful.

We fled Missoula and headed north on Hwy. 93 toward the town of St. Ignatius and our only concrete appointment for the trip. We were getting hungry and the delicious smells of the pizza wafting from the back seat was calling to us, but we couldn't find anywhere to pull over and enjoy a meal. Finally (I was driving) I took a random road off the highway, thinking we might find a wide spot to stop and have lunch. A railroad track was ahead of us, and before we crossed I glanced down and saw a train right there, bearing down on us. Yikes! I slammed on the brakes. Close call!

We did a ten-point turn and got back on the highway. Finally we spotted the Gray Wolf Peak Casino, which had a huge parking lot, and pulled in.

On the outskirts of the parking lot was a picnic area, so we were finally able to eat lunch.

Just beyond the casino was a wildlife bridge, which I thought was the coolest thing ever.

The smoke was still very thick and would remain so for the duration of our trip, unfortunately.

The appointment we had was with a woman named Laura, the owner of Roaming Bison Ranch outside St. Ignatius. Our plan was to interview her for a future magazine article.

We found the ranch without any trouble. The location was stunning, or would be if we could have seen the mountains through the smoke.

So there we were, standing outside in the shade of a tree, chatting with Laura (who was as nice as nice could be). Suddenly we heard grunts, and turned to see a roaming litter of pigs. Don and I laughed as the animals passed right among us. "They're our escape artists," Laura said. "They just roam in a big circle around the farm."

These are Mangalitsa pigs. I don't know why I found it so funny to have pigs wandering about, but it was hilarious to watch them.

After spending a good hour interviewing Laura, she took us to see the bison.

The herd consisted mostly of cows, calves, and a few immature bulls.

It was breeding season and the one mature herd bull was testy, she said, so of course we kept our distance. You really don't want to get on a bison's bad side. They're massive.

He was definitely a Big Boy.

Here's a calf chowing down on mama's milk.

As we headed back to the house, we passed the pig pens (with the roaming escape artists still roaming). Laura and her partner sell pork as well as bison meat.

The whole interview was fascinating from start to finish, a definite high point of our trip.

After we left Roaming Bison Ranch, we happened to pass a pull-off offering splendid vistas of the mountains ... or what would be splendid except for the smoke.

This pull-off was immediately adjacent to the Garden of the Rockies Museum, which unfortunately was closed. (It was Sunday, after all.)

We headed north toward Flathead Lake, passing some extraordinarily pretty countryside. You can see the lake at the top.

I'm trying to remember where I photographed this extraordinary wall of advertising. I think it was at Polson.

I don't know why I didn't take any photos of the snug farms and landscapes we passed on the east side of Flathead Lake (mostly because I was the one driving, I guess), because it was charming from start to finish. The predominant crop was cherries, and we passed lots and lots of small family-owned orchards and roadside stands selling the fruit. It had almost a New England-ish feel to it. Just lovely.

We avoided Kalispell (of course) and skirted around toward Glacier National Park, our destination for the next day. Outside Columbia Falls, we passed something so extraordinary that we turned the car around to see what on earth it was. Welcome to the Ten Commandment Park.

This was about a one-acre circular drive through lots and lots of billboards proclaiming a single message.

In the center was a massive cross, but it had been knocked over from a rotted base, possibly by the same windstorm that took out the trees in Lolo Pass.

It had an impressive crown of thorns at its top.

I'm never sure how effective exhibits like this are as tools of conversion, but Don and I agreed that everyone needs a hobby, and the Great Commission is as good a hobby as any.

We continued on our way toward Glacier, admiring the smoke-filled scenery as we went.

One thing Don had done in advance was book us a room at a place outside Glacier. Actually, well outside Glacier. Even though we were technically off-season (namely, after Labor Day), Glacier is one of the most-visited parks in the nation (with good reason) and accommodations in the vicinity had sky-high prices as a result. We simply didn't feel like forking over in excess of $350 for a single night's stay somewhere, so Don looked at alternatives and found something called the Glacier Haven Inn. It was located 20 miles down Hwy. 2 from the West Glacier park entrance near the hamlet of Essex.

Accommodations were basic. We booked a dry cabin (no water or bathroom) that was charming and clean.

The bathroom and shower facilities were literally right next door. Best of all, the price – while still high – was a whole lot better than accommodations closer to the park.

We had dinner in the bar & grill at the Inn. The restaurant was very rustic.

The facility was run by a Caucasian man and his Chinese wife, delightful people. Apparently the Chinese mother-in-law did most of the cooking – we watched her since we were seated next to the half-wall separating the dining room from the kitchen – and the food was nothing short of incredible.

The husband said his mother-in-law used no pre-made sauces on her food, but made everything from scratch. It was fabulous.

After dinner, we walked the eighth-mile back to our cabin. The lodge and campsite are sandwiched on a fairly narrow strip of land between the highway and some railroad tracks.

Tomorrow – smoke or no smoke – we were headed for Glacier.