Big sky country
August 2, 2017

Kalispell, Montana: It's funny how names can take on such connotations that often have little or nothing to do with their reality.  How many times have we (well, me anyway) poked fun at "back East" folks who think Arizona is nothing but hot dry desert filled with rattlesnakes and saguaro cactus, when I have been known to be as ignorant about other locales.

Whenever my mind would conjure thoughts of Montana, it mostly brought up endless prairie-like cattle ranches with high mountains lurking in the background, and winter scenes of hay being airlifted to cattle in danger of freezing and starvation.  There would be a placid river in the scene and wild-west-type street scenes with swinging doors leading to the saloon.  Ridiculous, I know, but movies have a powerful effect.

Now that I have seen something of Montana, I promise never again to sneer at easterners' conceptions of Arizona.  My very limited experience with the "treasure state" includes exceedingly precipitous rocky peaks, glaciers (one anyway), stunningly clear turquoise waters, infinite lakes and cascades of amazing grandeur and beauty, interspersed with wide expanses of delta-flat valleys.

The city's name is said to be of Salish origin meaning "flat land above the lake", and so it is.  Kalispell's metro area is dotted with small towns that run one into the other.  Although there is a lovely cohesive historic district, in general, it sprawls willy-nilly across Flathead Valley, somewhat reminiscent of Mid-spread-out-everywhere-land, our previous thankfully-short-lived home in Texas.

The fly in the ointment for our visit was that the state is on fire.  We learned there are two score or more blazes currently active in Montana, and our atmosphere is smoke-filled.  We see huge plumes of smoke in the distance from various fires.  Our sunlight is filtered through smoke and most distressing, our first foray into Glacier National Park left us viewing every distant sight through a smoky haze.

Access to the park via those steep slopes creates some mighty interesting roads winding and switching back on themselves, narrow and dropped off enough to make me nervous.  In some places, tunnels through the rock were necessary to get vehicles along their way.

The high country's waterfalls dropping thousands of feet in ribbony roaring cascades . . .

. . . . were in stark contrast to the flatland's serene rivers and streams.

It was notable to see the multi-colored pebbles in the clear streambeds that differed strikingly from the mono-volcanic rockscapes we had been seeing in previous locations.

Sunrift Gorge is an amazingly narrow water-carved niche through solid rock.

Here we are at one of the few places we could find a place to get off the road due to extreme traffic congestion throughout the park. 

Although there are shuttles to help ease the situation, they are few and far between.  We were told at the visitor's center there was an hour-and-a-half wait for the next conveyance along the Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier's primary throughway.  I was disinclined to cool my heels for such an extreme amount of time when there were things a'waiting, the result being that some places we wanted to stop and/or hike from were inaccessible to us.

There's lots more up in Glacier than rock, water and snow, although wildlife was elusive while we were there.

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink . . .

Unlike Coleridge's, the water around those parts is not of the salt variety, but there's lots and lots of it.  We wandered by a few lakes - every one as clear as can be and of exceptional turquoise hues.  Actually, it would be difficult to throw a rock in those parts and not hit a lake.

There's Flathead Lake (the largest surface acreage of any natural lake west of the Mississippi; Tahoe is the largest by volume),

Saint Mary Lake (in Glacier National Park),

and Lake McDonald (also in Glacier), to name a few.

In the park, we hiked along several creeks and in to Baring Falls . . .

. . . where the señor balanced on a log and went out on a ledge to have his picture taken while I remained on safer ground.

We met a very pleasant plein-air painter, Mark Ogle, who was capturing on canvas the energy of the stupendous scenery around us.  He is a resident of Kalispell who markets his fine art through his website: www.markogle.com.

The Conrad Mansion . . .

One of the most interesting houses I have ever toured, the former home of Charles & Alicia Conrad was fascinating in many ways.  A multitude of unique design features were intriguing and beautiful both.  My biggest disappointment in the tour was that interior photography was not allowed.

Charles and his brother William Conrad were mid-1800s pioneers in Montana Territory, first at Fort Benton and then in the founding of Kalispell.  Charles' mansion is a marvel of preservation, primarily because his youngest daughter Alicia was a hoarder of monumental proportions.

In her adult life, she managed to fill the 13,000 sq. ft. house with so much paraphernalia that it protected a great deal of the furnishings and rugs.  Apparently, Alicia's obsession was so extreme that she and her husband could no longer reside in the abode and had to move into an eight-foot-wide trailer!  We were told it took the city several years to clear out the mansion after she deeded it to Kalispell.  The result is that most of what remains actually belonged to the family rather than being random period pieces inserted for tours.

The things you see . . .

Tiny houses . . . tiny RVs . . . and now the tiniest ever, cutest ever homemade recreational vehicle.  Yup, it was towed into our park and plugged in, didn't have the opportunity to talk to the occupant.

A blast from the past . . .

Most of you know I cannot help myself: stepping back in time - a habit of long standing.  When Chris opined that our family history might contain some Montanans, a perusal of our ancestry charts determined that he was entirely correct.

Evan Bolin Catron, half-brother of my great grandfather, James Andrew Catron, resided in Kalispell.  His daughter Theresa was married there and his granddaughter Juanita Studt was born there, so it was a short mental hop from determining that to looking for their residences.

In 1920, Evan and his family lived at 93 3rd Ave West N.  The house at that address was constructed in 1908, so it would be the one in which they resided.  At that time, Evan worked for the railroad as a car inspector.  The railroad was a major contributor to Kalispell's existence.  The home of Juanita and her husband Carl Studt has made way for a casino - Lucky Lil's (more in a later posting).

We have a family portrait of them that was taken before they lived in Kalispell.