By JoDell Haverfield, Have Travel Memories
I am amazed at all the people I have talked to recently who are heading to Montana, so I thought I would share with my readers a few places to visit and things to do near our favorite part of Montana.
While I have been blessed to have traveled to many distant and beautiful places throughout my life, I feel I have lived in the best of two worlds, the beach and the Rocky Mountains. Even though being raised in the Navy meant we mainly lived near beaches from California to Hawaii to Florida, I have also been blessed to have lived most of my life in Salt Lake City and northwest Montana. Post Navy in 1966 my family settled in Missoula, Montana. I married a local boy in 1971 and except for a brief four-year stint in Boise, Idaho, in the early 70s, we remained in Montana until Dave and I moved to Destin in 2007.
The most popular airports to fly into the areas I will be telling you about are Missoula (MSO) and Kalispell (GPI), which is closer to Glacier Park and the Whitefish Ski Resort. Here are a few of my favorite vacation spots. From Missoula it is a three-hour drive to Glacier National Park where majestic mountains began to form 170 million years ago. Perhaps it’s no surprise artifacts have been discovered of the dinosaurs that once roamed there. Soon after the establishment of the park in 1910, a number of hotels and chalets were constructed by the Great Northern Railway and are now listed as National Historic Landmarks. Another historic landmark is the Going to the Sun Road because it is so high it seems as though you are going to reach the sun. After its completion in 1932, it was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Glacier Park is well known for its wildlife, including massive Grizzly Bears. You will be greeted by a huge stuffed Grizzly if you land at the Missoula airport.
On highway 93, just nine miles southwest of Missoula, is a bedroom community known as Lolo, first named by a fur trader in 1831 as he camped on a creek that he referred to in his journal as Lou Lou Creek, meaning Wealth but somehow shortened to LoLo which may be an Indian name. It was in this community that we raised our family overlooking the picturesque Bitterroot Valley.
It is also in Lolo where you will find Travelers Rest State Park, the only archaeologically verified campsite of the Lewis and Clark expedition in the nation. It was on this National Historic Trail that Lewis and Clark camped before they split up on July 3, 1806, with Lewis heading north to explore the Marias River area and Clark following the suggestion of Sacagawea south to Yellowstone along the Missouri River to rendezvous in North Dakota.
One more hour down highway 93 past Lolo is Darby, where the famous Yellowstone TV show has been filmed on the very real Dutton Ranch.
One of our favorite vacations is four hours east of Missoula. West Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole is a mere 127 miles from West Yellowstone and well worth the trip!
We savored the Montana summers because they didn’t last very long. I think our favorite vacations were when we headed 100 miles to Salmon Lake, just one of the many lakes in the Swan Valley, or we would drive 100 miles west toward Glacier Park to Flathead Lake, much like people in the south head to the beaches for vacation. We loaded up our boat with water toys and food and made our way to a campground or a vacation rental which was my preference, after all, the Montana bears are much bigger than the Florida bears.
Glacier Park is three hours west of Missoula. Flathead Lake is named after the Flathead Indians, who originally dominated the area along with the Blackfeet. We enjoyed many family vacations at Flathead Lake. I used to spend my summers there in high school visiting my grandmother and my aunt, both well-known artists in the area. When you visit, you can stay at the Kwataqnuk Resort in Polson, rent a luxury lake house of your own, park an RV, try the new glamping fad or just go old-fashioned camping with a campfire and smores! You can enjoy hiking and fishing or shop and dine in Bigfork, a quaint and charming little town where you will experience the culture of the old west. Be sure to pick up some huckleberry chocolate before you leave. Another favorite pastime is visiting one of the many haunted old west ghost towns that dot the entire state.
There is so much more, but I want to leave room for pictures!
Thanks for Travelin’ with JoDell – Luxury Travel Advisor for Have Travel Memories Vacations
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