Day 25 - Whitefish

Flathead Lake
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A little warning to you all – I was watching the news this morning and am in the middle of an outbreak of West Nile disease. I don’t know what this is, but think it has something to do with mosquitoes as there was some footage of them, and don’t know what it does but if I start acting weird then you know that I have contracted some crazy disease out here in the middle of nowhere! And I thought that travelling to the States was safe from odd diseases! Today I travelled north from Missoula up to Whitefish which is where I am now. The scenery again was really beautiful and I stopped to have lunch at Flathead Lake which is about 20 miles long by my reckoning. However, the drive to get there consisted mainly of roadworks which in the States are like nothing I have ever seen before. Not only do they go on for about 30 miles but once they have dug up the road they seem to leave it and go on to something else leaving you to drive on rocks. Poor Thelma’s tyres!! I felt like I was off-roading! However, there were lots of cows in fields surrounding the roadworks which were quite diverting as they all have really big horns here – didn’t manage to get a picture though as the road was all dusty. I am going to Glacier NP tomorrow but decided that as I had managed to make pretty good timing so far I would go in this afternoon as well and have a potter around. I was really glad I did as it is absolutely stunning. The photos don’t do it justice and I could snap away all day and still not even come close to capturing all it has to see. It is a really big park but there is only one road that drives through it called ‘Going to the Sun Road’. The rest of the park you have to see on foot. I drove about 30 miles into the park which took about an hour and a half before turning back and retracing my steps. I shall drive through the rest of it tomorrow. The road goes from down in the valleys where the air smelt of pine trees up 6,000 feet into the mountains where the air smells of wild thyme which was so nice! I stopped at the top and had a wander around for about 1/2 hour. I didn’t go too far as there were signs warning for bears everywhere and I didn’t want to have a close encounter as apparently they do appear all the time out of nowhere (and it would be just my luck that I would find one!). It’s times like this when I wish that I was travelling with someone else as I would love to do some walks into the park as I’m sure the road doesn’t show half the amazing scenery as you would see on foot. However, I’m not prepared to do treks into the park by myself as there is no mobile reception or anything (I haven’t had any for the past couple of days) and I’m too scared of bears! I left the park about 6.00pm and was glad that I left when I did as the road was really narrow and curvy and a huge thunderstorm suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It is now really windy and there is lots of lightning in the distance so I might have hit my first proper lot of rain since I arrived here! Thelma will be pleased as she needs a clean! Tomorrow I head back to the park before heading east to Great Falls.

Typical Montana view
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Distance travelled today – 230 miles.

Distance travelled today - 230 miles

Bearwatch – 0, I’ve been keeping out of their way!