Deer Lodge to Kalispell Day 19

186 miles. Hot, hot, hot.

We left Deer Lodge and at first drove through Ranch land with lots of cattle, horses and cowboys. The landscape gradually became one of forest and lakes. Logging trucks and sawmills replacing horses and cattle.

Feeling peckish we spotted a few Morgans outside “Pops” restaurant where we stopped and joined them. The food and coffee were good, but the service was a bit slow mainly because our party of ten upset their usual flow of customers.

Our journey continued for another couple of hours when we stopped for a picnic lunch at Swan Lake. The lake is manmade having a dam at the north end. Swan Lake is a very picturesque location with a little marina and the steep hillsides and shoreline dotted with some very grand looking log cabins. Just as we were packing up our lunch a chap walked by and asked if we would like to have a quick trip out on his boat and we soon found ourselves skimming across the surface of the lake at high speed. The boat owner was, it turned out, an engineer at the dam and it was only the second time the speedboat had been out.

Arriving at the outskirts of Kalispell our satnav had a brainstorm and took us on a nine mile detour giving us a good look at all the suburbs and industrial estates around the town. Kalispell sits in the county of Flathead so named after the river and lake, which dominate the region. The Grand Hotel, our lodgings for the night, was charming and very friendly. We were treated to coffee and homemade biscuits on our arrival and made to feel most welcome. The girl on reception told us that the “Moose Saloon” would be an interesting place to visit, so six of us duly did. The Saloon was about a twenty minute walk away. The entrance to the Moose was not very inspiring with expletives scratched into the door and blacked out windows, but having walked that far in ninety five degree heat we thought we would give it a go. What a contrast the bright light outside was replaced by total darkness until our eyes adjusted to the gloom. The floor was covered in a mixture of sawdust and peanut shells and there were no windows. There was nothing to do but order two jugs of beer and a large bowl of unshelled peanuts – we had a wonderful hour or so scattering our nut shells and drinking beer.