This trip was a blast! Took about 265 photos with my camera that I'm still sorting thru, lol.
@Dback Jon - At Glacier, the Going-Sun-Road was only open up to Lake McDonald due to heavy snowfall this winter (this was June 17th). I was so bummed :-( We took the Red Jammer bus and it went around the park into Many Glacier and Two Medicine Lake. It was still beautiful! We 'tried' hiking the Cedar Trail but it was so bug-infested that people coming back said 'you won't make it more than 10 minutes in'. The mosquitoes were as big as bees.
Def want to go back to Glacier (maybe during late summer).
@Jersey Girl - we drove thru the Elk Reserve every day but alas, they don't come down until autumn. We did hike to the Hidden Falls (took the ferry from Jenny Lake to save some time). It was a Sunday so it was crowded, but the falls were gorgeous. We had a meal at the Teton Village Four Seasons steakhouse, but not a big fan of steak so I tried the bison tartare. I was surprisingly good - almost like sashimi. Did have bison several times on this trip.
@MrYeahbut Yes, I heard that the Idaho panhandle was home to a lot of Skinhead organizations. Def a lot of flannel and baseball caps! That seems to be the male uniform in Montana/Idaho, lol. We did golf at the Couer D'Alene course. Our caddy was amazed that everyone made their first shot onto the floating green. Then the boat takes you out there to complete the par. I wasn't golfing, just driving the cart but I got an honorary certificate as well
Whitefish was a lovely little town - Like Jackson, but on a smaller scale. We stayed at The Lodge in Whitefish, overlooking the lake. Gorgeous!
Kalispell was kinda blah ... much bigger but their downtown was kinda cute.
BTW, it was huckleberry season so it was all things huckleberry! Smoothies, pies, pancakes, ice cream, etc, etc.
We ended up overnighting in Butte since it was halfway between Glacier and Teton. That's where we got pulled over for doing 65 in a 45 mile construction zone. Michael was driving, so I got worried when the state trooper asked him to go into the patrol car with him
. They seemed to be having a long conversation so I snapped a photo of them. He did give us a recommendation where to have good steak in Butte, lol. We visited the World Mining Museum - that was pretty interesting. All the preserved buildings, mining equipment, photos made it look like it was still inhabited.
On the way to Butte via the I-90, we decided to take a detour to visit the Garnet Ghost Town, which was off the Drummond exit. Do not - I repeat - DO NOT ever take his route! It's 20 miles of bad roads (Bear Gulch). The last 10 miles were steep inclines up small, gravely roads that were so narrow we didn't think we could make it all the way up there - many times we thought about turning around but thankfully the 4-wheel drive SUV was able to handle it - whew! Once we left the ghost town, the road back via Hway 200 (from the north) was so much better!
Grand Teton Park (which translates as Big Teats) was so gorgeous. We were staying at a friend's house in Jackson and he has a creek that runs thru his back yard with trout - they actually caught some. We saw some elk on the ridge above, which also has a bike trail.
We golfed at the Teton Country Club which has amazing views.
From Jackson to Yellowstone was about a 3hr drive - 4hrs if you want to get to the Lamar Valley. What can I say? Yellowstone was amazing in it's bio-diversity. Glaciers, hot springs, geysers, rivers, waterfalls - it has it all! Crowded as heck, and this was only late June. Especially when traffic jams occur if someone spots a bear, or bison and decide to stop to take photos. The park rangers have to come out to direct traffic, lol.
Ok, that's enough for now. The only thing we didn't see were the wolves at Lamar Valley but they're kinda secretive.
