Montana and Idaho

After leaving Medora, we drove to Billings and stayed at the same hotel we did last summer. I remember that hotel well as it was where I got the call that my first T@B had been destroyed while being transported home. Well, this year, we were there in much happier spirits! We found our favorite Montana gourmet pizza chain (Mackenzie River Pizza), and enjoyed some good Montana-brewed beers along with them.

The next day's drive was the longest of the trip, Billings to Coeur d'Alene, but it was a gorgeous trip! We first stopped at Livingston, which has a really nice Main Street:





Next stop was Bozeman, where we had a nice walk up and down their Main street and saw the rotating horse in front of the Army-Navy store:



Coeur d'Alene had pretty blossoming trees along it's main drag-
And this very interesting "house boat" on the lake (not quite sure if it was being transported somewhere or if the owner really indeed built a house on a barge!).

Glacier....finally!

A couple weeks late and a few new Subarus short, but we finally made it to Glacier to do some whirlwind sightseeing. Since we didn't have time to go all the way to Banff, we decided to at least "dip our toes" into Alberta to say we'd been there. We drove along the east side of of the park all the way up to the Canadian border where the park then turns into Waterton Lakes National Park.

Waterton's prime attraction is the gorgeous, grand, all-wood Prince of Wales hotel. Just as we passed the scenic turnout, the sun came out from behind some clouds to light up the hotel and it's hillside (ok, Photoshop helped out a bit here as well, but the scene really did seem this magical). Behind the hotel and down the hillside was the quant little Welsh-inspired village of Waterton, where we enjoyed a traditional fish and chips lunch while overlooking the lake.

In the afternoon, we back-tracked to the U.S. again to begin one of the most "must see" scenic stretches of highway in the country-- the "Going to the Sun Road" (which bisects Glacier from East to West). Besides the scenery, the road is equally famous for it's bright red tour buses with their peel-back canvas rooftops. I wish we would have had time to ride in one.

We spent the night in Kalispell (west of the park) so that we could drive the GTTS Road twice in two days, and we weren't disappointed....breathtaking mountains and waterfalls, a big horn sheep, and turquoise blue glacial waters.

Lake McDonald


Wild Goose Island


Avalanche Gorge

On our second day, we decided to tour the other grand lodges on the East side of the park. On our way to lunch at the Many Glacier Hotel, we spotted this black bear nibbling on her own lunch!

Our final stop was to the "original grand lodge", the East Glacier Hotel and it's incredible four-story-tall timber lobby built about a hundred years ago for wealth tourists from the East who arrived with their steamer trunks at the railroad depot a few hundred yards from the hotel's front door. Amtrak still makes stops there today! A delightful perennial garden lines the pathway between the depot and the hotel.

Great Falls

The service manager Bob, was only the first of many warm and delightful people we met in Great Falls. When we had quickly stopped on the outskirts of town the day before for lunch, the town appeared to me to be rather dumpy and forgettable. But now that we were stranded here (for likely another week), and we began to see more of the town, I quickly realized how wrong my initial impression had been. I wondered how many other towns I've driven through over the years and also quickly wrote off could have revealed the same surprised had I stayed there longer.

It's interesting that when doing a websearch of other websites that discuss Great Falls, that this site's author had a similar impression of the city (he also had some nice photos of the town which I neglected to get).

Rather than stay at another campground, we decided to stay in a hotel this time around. But, not too many options for lodging that offers free wi-fi while also accepting large dogs and mothers who smoke! Fortunately, Great Falls had a very nice, clean Motel 6 that was just perfect for us.

Our first morning, Bob had the Enterprise Car Rental office come pick us up to get our rental car. It was also a Subaru Outback (and did a great job at starting to renew my confidence in Subarus!). The guy at the rental counter, by coincidence, also was a native of Chicago and he recommended a good pizza place for us to try. Then, our valet driver said we'd just HAVE to go to Eddie's Supper Club to enjoy their steaks and 2-piano lounge. The night before, the tow truck driver had highly recommended we go hear "Piano Pat" at the O'Hara Motor Lodge. Oh, so many entertainment options and so little time!

We decided to splurge that Friday night by going to Eddie's Supper Club. What a time warp it was!

(photo courtesy of Roadfood.com)

The waitresses were clad in 1960's short barmaid outfits, and appeared to have worked there since that era...no spring chickens here! This was a real, honest to goodness throw-back supper club-- with dark paneled walls and booth dividers with those old yellow and red transparent plastic top sections. There was a large lounge with red Naugahyde swivel chairs and a pair of pianos with 2 old guys playing all their favorites from the "rat pack" years. I expected Dean Martin or Sammy Davis Jr. to come waltzing through to offer a cigarette and a martini at any moment! But all joking aside, their steaks were outstanding and food was the best we had by far on the entire trip. If you ever get to Great Falls, you HAVE to go to Eddie's!