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. :)