The only reason we ventured into the back country of Montana was because a friend of ours was getting married in Glacier National Park. So we packed up the CR-V and drove. Once we got out of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, there wasn't much of anything. Miles and miles and miles of nothing. Lots of trees, hills, and mountains. But lots of nothing. In fact, the only real city we went through was Kalispell, which is where we were to meet our friends for lunch at a rather dimly lit saloon with sawdust on the floor and video gambling machines in the corner. A rather interesting slice of life, but they supposedly made the best pizza around. I'm sorry, but if I'm going to eat kraut, I'll eat it on hot dogs -- not pizza.
Once we were done with lunch, it was off to the Many Glacier Hotel. It was another three hours away. Instead of going around the park, we decided it would be best to drive through the park. Let me tell you, there are some gorgeous sites on the "Going to the Sun Road," but if you're scared of heights and narrow, winding roads, this isn't the road for you. I'm not typically scared of heights, but the short, rock walls between us and several thousand foot drops were of little comfort as we inched are way up the road.
Once we make it across the park, it's another 10 miles up Hwy 93 and another several miles back into the park. Along the way, we saw several people off to the side of the road. We pull off to see what the commotion was. Everyone was watching a bear with her cubs far off in the distance. The park rangers were around to make sure nobody got too close to the bears, but most everyone stayed on the road. Everyone was trying their best to take pictures. We even got a couple of pictures, but the bears are "dots" in the distance.
After coming as close as I wanted to becoming bear food, we finally made it to the hotel. It's an old, rustic sort of hotel. No elevators. No TV. Tiny bathrooms. Twin beds. The walls were thin like the dorm rooms in college. And given we'd been driving all day, we were looking forward to a little quiet time. But without a TV, there's not a lot to do except read. Planning ahead, we bought some books in Kalispell at their concept of a shopping mall. I picked up Idoru, by William Gibson (yes, the guy who wrote Neuromancer). We both started reading our books and dozed off. We slept past the time the dining hall served dinner. Damn. Fortunately, the bar was open and was still serving food. We both ordered drinks and chicken quesadillas. Best quesadilla I ever ate. Good beer, too.
You know you're in the boonies when:
When we drove back to Spokane the following day, we decided not to go through the park, but go around it on Hwy 93. There was a lot of nothing between there and Kalispell. For a while, we had even more country radio stations and nothing else. But there was lots of wide open country before our eyes and, at least in August, most of it is beautiful.
The big thing I got out of my trip to Montana was that, while many people choose to live in over-crowded cities, there is a lot of untouched beauty still left on Planet Earth and even though none of my technology worked there, within my lifetime, we'll be able to live anywhere and still be connected to people.