Montana Trip (part dos)

Settle yourself down and be ready for a doozy of a post, full of pictures (yes, me! I put pictures in a post!) and too many words.

We finally made it to Belt, MT. It's a tiny town of about 800 people, and there's no stop light, just a couple stop signs. I honestly could say it is my dream town. It is nestled in a small valley and is therefore protected from all the worst weather. It is surrounded by green hills on all sides. The Urick's house is just amazing and so adorable. It is tucked underneath a grove of trees at the end of a dirt road just outside of town. I fell in love immediately. The house, the trees, the meadows, the creek nearby; it is my idea of paradise.

Something about small towns just make me happy. Making money is not a huge goal for most people. Houses are small, stress is low, people are just generally happier. My iPhone didn't work in some parts of the house, and I found that I didn't care! Technology isn't a huge deal in small town Montana like it is in Gilbert. I felt like I didn't have a care in the world. I love that everybody knows each other in that town. Some people say they wouldn't be able to handle living in a small town because it's so far from everyone else, Target is too far away, they would get bored, they wouldn't be able to handle the isolation. I don't know about all of you, but I know I would love living in a small town for all those reasons!! It's hard to put into words exactly what it is about small town life that I love. I think I just envy how much simpler, stress-free, and slowed down life is. Not that my life is all that crazy (because it isn't), but I just felt so renewed after my short time in Belt. I want to go back!

Sydnee, her brother Clint, Chic, and I headed to Glacier National Park the day after we arrived to Belt. I was so excited! The drive there wasn't too crazy exciting, just miles and miles of green wheat fields blowing in the breeze. Can we talk about why they call Montana "Big Sky Country"? Guys. They are not kidding. It is physically impossible to take in all of the horizon in that place. It blows my mind how much sky there actually is! I had the misconception that Montana is mostly mountains, in fact it is the complete opposite! The area that we were in was very flat, and the majority of those flat areas are turned into agriculture. Good thing the wheat fields are beautiful! (To me, anyway.) That's why GNP is so shocking to the eye, the mountains rise up out of the flat land very suddenly. The peaks cut into the sky like knives. The landscape in GNP is so breathtakingly beautiful that pictures cannot even begin to capture the epicness of such a place. I'm still going to post my favorites though :)

Our first real view of Glacier National Park. I almost cried.

Sisters!! 

Sydnee and Clint. The best two people in Montana!

The most photographed place in the whole park. Goose Island.

The first day we went for a hike along St Mary Lake.

Sigh.

This bighorn's name is Big Nasty, as named by the park ranger.

The air coming out from under this snow pack was freezing!

My friend, Big Nasty.

It was a 4-mile round trip hike to Avalanche Lake. All of those waterfalls were loud!

This glacier water was freezing cold. It felt like knives!

The round shape of the valley is carved out by long-gone glaciers.

Just chillin.

The stripe in the middle of the mountain is The Going-To-The-Sun Road. Built in the 1950's, it stretches from the east to the west side of the park and is 52 miles long. Not for the faint of heart!

Big Sky Country sunset.

Wheat fields for miles. I loved it!

On Sunday, we went to church in Whitefish, which is a town 30 miles west of the park. Fun fact, my Grandpa had gone to church at this same building only a couple weeks before, a couple days after he started his Canada-to-Mexico biking trip. Whitefish is a beautiful town! I loved the West side of Glacier NP, it was much more mountainous than the East side. 

After two glorious days in Glacier, we headed back to Belt. I had to return the rental car on Wednesday, so we headed back to Idaho on Tuesday. I almost cried when we left Montana. I honestly wanted to stay forever. During those four days there, that was the happiest I had felt in a long time. We made it back to Idaho that night, and waited around all the next day at the Mattsen's for our car to be finished. The mechanic called me around 8 p.m., informing me that it was finally done! Chic and I were shortly on our way back to Utah in my faithful Roadrunner. We arrived in Orem late that night. Once again, we had another fun day the next day hanging out with Heather and Kayla. Little girl was crawling so much better than she was even a week previously! Too much cute for me to handle!!

The next day, after 12 exhausting days of stress and bliss, we headed back to Arizona. It felt really good to be headed home finally, although I did feel like I left my heart back in Montana. I cannot wait until that wonderful state and I are reunited. Hopefully sooner than later.

I could only find two drawbacks to Montana. One, the winters. The winters there are hard, snowy, cold, and LONG. Two, everything is super spread apart, so gas a big expenditure there. Belt was 30 miles outside of Great Falls, so to go to the movies, big grocery stores, or basically anything else, you were looking at a 60-mile round trip. However, the driving time passes quickly because their speed limits are a bit higher there. Can you say 70 mph on country highways?? The race car driver in me loved it. 

Needless to say, I will be back in Montana eventually, maybe and hopefully for a longer term thing. If I could find a PTA job there, I would be there already! That's how fast and hard I fell in love. Now if only I could make that happen between me and a man. :)

Montana Trip (Part 1)

Ever since I saw a friend's pictures of Glacier National Park several years ago, I have wanted to go. When I moved up to Utah and had a roommate from Montana, I knew I definitely needed to go. Sydnee and her family were nice enough to let us come up and stay with them in tiny Belt, MT (20 miles outside Great Falls). That place is amazing! But, before I can get into the awesomeness that is Montana, I have to talk about the 5 days it took us to get there.

Day 1- Monday, July 1st. The little sister and I leave hot and sweaty AZ for slightly less hot Utah. We make it with no problems and arrive in Orem at our brother's house that night.

Day 2- Tues, July 2nd. We hang out with Dustin, Heather, and little Kayla who is just learning to crawl. I think I may be biased, but she is the cutest thing ever. We have a relaxing day of eating out, Netflix, and teaching Kayla to climb on the love sack.

Day 3- Wed, July 3rd. We accidentally sleep in, but are the road by 10 a.m. I planned on filling up again in Idaho Falls before jumping off into the great expanse that is Montana. We pass Pocatello, then a small-ish town called Blackfoot. Two minutes north of Blackfoot, I hear a thunk noise, the engine light comes on, and the car begins to decelerate. I'm surprised I didn't panic, because honestly I had no idea what was happening. I pulled the car over to the side of the interstate, and immediately called AAA, which I had never used before. All I know is that I had the card in my wallet and my mom said to use it in case of emergency.

Well this sure felt like an emergency to me! They called me a tow truck, which arrived about 20 minutes later. Not bad! The driver was a super nice guy who felt bad for us two girls stuck in rural Idaho. He was LDS and really helpful, probably not the same experience we would get in AZ :) He took us Danny's auto repair in Blackfoot, and we waited while they looked at the car to figure out what was wrong. Silly me, I thought it was just a simple battery problem. Turns out it was really complicated!! Something about the timing belt, water pump, pistons, all this car stuff that I knew nothing about. Long story short, the car took A WEEK to fix!!

So of course when we find out that it was a long repair, we had to find somewhere to stay until we could figure something out! My parents, bless their hearts, were working on finding us somewhere to stay from 900 miles away. My mom found a Bishop Mattsen (the Church is true, y'all!) and him and his family took us in! There's not much I can say about them because they were honestly nice beyond words. Treated us like their own! So luckily we had a place to stay that night.

Day 4- Thurs, July 4th. Oh, the blessed Independence Day! Here me and Chic thought we would be spending it in Belt, instead we spent it with complete strangers in a small town in Blackfoot. My mom had reserved a rental car for us the night before, and I had to use my credit card in order to get it. However, I hadn't used my card in forever (or made a payment on it) and so there wasn't enough on it to rent the car. I was so sad! I was hoping to get to Belt that night. I debated getting a hotel room for the day until the payment went through on the credit card the next day (dang you holiday!) and me and Chic were just gonna kick it in Pocatello since the Mattsen's were on their way out of town for the day.

However, the Mattsen's said "nope, you're coming with us!"So we ended up spending the day with most of their entire extended family at a lake in eastern Idaho! You would think it would be awkward but we were just grateful to be doing something fun on the 4^th. Their family took us in and treated us like one of their own. It was a super fun day!

Day 5- Friday, July 5^th. The credit card has to work this time. It just has to! I called the credit card company early in the morning and specifically asked them if I made a charge for x amount of dollars, would it go through? They said yes and so we were once again on our way to Pocatello to get our rental car. Luckily my mom was able to find us a cheaper one than the one before, and I was excited to finally be on our way again! I was on edge when the guy ran my card, and when his face fell as he said, “I’m sorry, it declined” I thought I was in nightmare. WHAT. Hands shaking, I quickly called the credit card company again and asked them why my card wasn’t going through. I could barely keep my voice calm because I honestly was about to lose it! Well they fixed the problem in a couple minutes, the card worked, and we GOT THE RENTAL CAR finally! And that takes us to part 2. Also if anyone can think of a good spiritual application for this story, please let me know. I know that breaking down and going through all that stress was supposed to teach me a lesson, I'm just not sure what it is!