Camping and boating on Hungry Horse Resevoir

Hungry Horse dam and reservoir is located right outside of West Glacier Park. Friday Ken called "50" of his friends with an invitation to go camping at the "closed" campground located along the Hungry Horse Reservoir. Why the closed campground you may ask? No other campers there! So we packed up again, and off we went just for the weekend.

Meeting new people and discovering different lifestyles is just one of the benefits of our travel both here and abroad. Here's Randall with one of Ken's timberframing friends.

Randi took a whirl at the water skiing thing.... She almost got it!

Austin was up and going right away!

Our camp site was right here behind me.

Randi created a bow and arrow with natures tools. She's our artist in the family!

It's the middle of July and yes, it's cold enough for a fire!

And by night, we were serenaded for hours by the sounds of the 60's and 70's on guitar and vocals by Jeff. Oh my, he was fabulous! What an extensive 60's and 70's repertoire he has!

Huckleberry Picking at Big Mountain

Oops! I was sworn to secrecy. No one here reveals where they discovered their Huckleberry patch. But, Big Mountain is just that a BIG old MOUNTAIN. In fact, in addition to being a great source of little huckleberry bushes, the mountain is veiled with alpine lined trails for skiing on all sides. Choose your slope and go a picking!

Off we went early in the morning, just us 4 girls with some sawed off gallon milk containers, bottles of water, and some bear spray (just in case, one never knows). A picking we went for almost 4 hours hunched over scavenging the little guys.

10 cups later, we're done! I did a little over 1/2 my container while one of the "pro pickers" did a WHOLE container.

The huckleberry bush is normally just a green bush with ripened bluish berries. This one was unique with reddish leaves and the berries not quite ripe.

Usually they hide underneath the green leaves making the search more than just a scan of the eye. Finding the bush and lifting the leaves as your stooped over is the technique. Hum. Why did I enjoy this so much?

So what makes this huckleberry picking such a big deal? I mean everywhere you look roadside there are signs with fresh huckleberry pie, tarts, ice cream, and jam. In the grocery stores there are end of isle displays with huckleberry bark chocolate, lip gloss, candy, lotion, jelly, syrup etc. Well, the only place you are going to find a huckleberry bush is where mother nature planted it! No one has been able to cultivate it, period. So, there we have it. No mass production. You want some, go find it. Or, pay the big bucks just for a taste. I heard people can get $35 for a gallon.

I think I'll make a tart? No, maybe I'll make some jam. How about we just eat them as is, add them to pancakes, salads and cakes! Oh, decisions.

Glacier hiking for the day....

Well I needed to "nest", relax, and well enjoy just being here, that is in Whitefish. So I opted out of the next excursion. I figured that I'll get to Glacier soon enough. We're only a hop skip and jump from it anyway.

So the family's, the Leshers and the Beisers, went with some other "neighborhood" family's for a little hike, about 8 miles up and down a little mountain to see wildflowers.

The family photographer, that would be me, wasn't along on this awesome hike. So for now, that's all we get to see of Glacier.

A day at Flathead Lake

Huge! Known as the largest natural fresh water lake west of the Mississippi, Flathead Lake is located just south of Whitefish, Montana about 30 minutes. Beautiful homes line the perimeter with private docks and little islands all scattered about with dear, eagles, wild rams, mountain goats, and horses.

Here's Casey and Austin getting ready to head out on a sailing dinghy. So much bigger now than their trash collecting days in the Caribbean!

Here's one of Ken's boats. He owns this little sail boat called a Lightening, a Boston Whaler motor boat, and a Baba 30 foot sail boat.

We were entertain by this "tropical island" kind of band of locals playing instruments they made themselves!

Some of us sailed , some swam, some motored and some just relaxed to the beat...