Flathead Lake, Montana

Chris and I were invited to a (mostly) expense paid vacation to Flathead Lake, Montana, this last weekend by the owner of Farr West Outfitters, the company Chris brokers for. It was so nice to get away without the kiddies, which doesn't happen very often. (The boys stayed with Grandma and Grandpa McDowell, always a favorite for them.)

After about a ten hour drive, we finally made it. Flathead Lake is unlike anything else I have ever seen. It's a piece of heaven on earth! Our condo walked right out to the lake. The first thing we did was jump in the water before the sun set!!

The next morning we had a chartered fishing trip on Flathead Lake. It was awesome! The lake is so big that without wind there is 4-5 foot waves! You have to have a nice big boat to go out on it, which our guide had.

The fishing was fantastic! We had four poles on a couple of down riggers and by the time the guide had the 3rd or 4th pole set up, we'd have 2 or 3 of us reeling in a fish! It was just solid fishing like this for about 2 1/2 hours. The guide was running around crazy getting one pole set up, just in time to get the next pole set up.

We caught some nice fish, a lake trout called Mackinaw, or Mack for short. Between 4 of us, we pulled in around 30 fish, maybe a little more. The largest fish was about 35 inches, caught by Dave, the owner of Farr West Outfitters. Christina caught a 34in fish weiging around 18lbs. Most of the fish were about 8-14lbs and they fought pretty hard. Chris's last fish gave him a pretty big fight!

I didn't dare take my camera out onto the boat because I was worried about it getting wet, so we just have a couple of pictures of Chris on shore. Although, Dave has some pictures I'm waiting for him to e-mail, so I'm sure I'll have another post soon with all the rest of the pictures.

After fishing, I needed some time to settle my stomach, so we opted to take a quiet afternoon napping and picking fresh cherries. All along the lake are endless places to buy and pick cherries. We found a really friendly place that just happened to win best tasting cherries of the year, for the area! They were only $1 a pound!! We loaded up!

We, also, enjoyed walking around the town of Big Fork. There was just one little street with all kinds of art galleries. There were some interesting things and cute little buildings.
The next day was probably my favorite. We went white water rafting down Flathead River. It was wild!! Oh it was such a rush and so crazy! We had so much fun. Chris and I were the pace setters for the raft (we went on a paddle raft). That means we were the ones in the very front, the ones that got pounded in the face with water, over every rapid.

We had a great guide, who taught us what we needed to know. After the first set of rapids (and not doing so well) he gave us all a lecture about what would happen if we didn't do what we were supposed to do and in the lecture he said, "You have to get aggresive with the water! Don't be scared of it!" So I just kept thinking, "BE AGGRESSIVE! BE AGGRESSIVE!" and then I'd paddle like crazy!

I got knocked off into the middle of the boat once or twice, got a few mouth fulls of water, but it was way, way awesome!! Our last rappid was called The Buffalo. It was about a 15 foot drop, straight down! When the boat peeked the top, Chris and I just looked down and saw this big drop and then huge rapids at the bottom. It was slightly intimidating, but so worth it!

We have a great picture that the raft guide took for us. We wont get it for about 2-3 weeks though, so I'll have to wait to post it.

Later that day, Chris and I decided to split by ourselves and head home. We took it slow through Swan Valley, just outside of Flathead. Chris and I both agreed it was the most beautiful place we'd ever been to. The pictures just don't do it justice! You have to go there to truly appreciate it's beauty.

That night we ended up in a private cabin on the side of a highway, about an hour outside of Missoula, Montana. It was a nice little place with friendly people. We asked the owners if they knew much about Utah and they just said, "It's flat and there's Mormons, not as nice as here." lol!

The next day we were pretty tired of driving, but we headed out in full force, hoping to get home. We didn't hardly stop, but we did manage to get this great picture and to stop in Spencer, Idaho, to check out the Opal Capital of America (and to buy Landon some opals).

After a very short visit with my sister, Victoria, at a gas station in Pocatello, Idaho, we headed over to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho for the night. We went to one of the oldest hotels in Lava, built in 1918, but it had been fully renovated just before we got there. Our room still had that "new" smell and the sheets still had the fold lines from coming out of a new packet. We were the first people to use the new room.

Chris "charmed" all the old ladies at the check in desk. He had them all giggling and laughing. What a flirt! lol. They must have liked him because they gave him free tickets to the World Famous Hot Pools. So, we headed to the pools that night. It was nice to relax and stretch our legs after such a long drive home.

And finally that brings us to today. We woke up at about 5:45am and headed out to pick our boys up in Evanston, Wyoming. The trip was great, but the best part was seeing the smiles on the boy's faces when we went to pick them up! What sweeties they are.