Horseback Riding in Whitefish, Montana

The next day, May 31st, 2011, we decided to stay in town and explore Whitefish, Montana.

Whitefish is a vibrant western town located in the northern Rocky Mountains of Montana next to Glacier National Park, and it has millions of acres of spectacular unspoiled nature in every direction.

We came here to see Glacier's Rocky Mountains, but the first mountain came to impress us most is Whitefish's Big Mountain, a winter ski and summer resort mountain. It has had a very busy winter ski season due to this year's unexpected number of snowfalls. We even saw local resident walk all the way up to ski down today at the last day of May!

I called Explore Whitefish's toll free number 1-877-862-3548 for ideas of what to do in town. A nice lady gave me two numbers for horseback riding, told me of today's Farmers' Market at downtown Whitefish in front of the historic Whitefish train depot.

Bar W Guest Ranch was the one answered my phone so we scheduled our riding at 1 pm. Since we still had plenty of time before the horseback riding, we decided to drive south and visit the Flathead Lake, the so-called largest natural fresh-water lake in the western United States. What impressed us most is the fried duck drumlets we ordered from the Docks, Lakeside, Montana. $18 for six pieces, perhaps over-priced but it is the most delicious dish. Mac and Cheese from the kids' meal is yummy, too.

So we drove back to Whitefish, and were just in time for our scheduled horseback riding. Our two wranglers were Allan and Raven, both from Tennessee. My horse was Toby. I didn't expect our riding with that much uphill and downhill, it gave me such saddle sores in the end. Still, it has been exciting experience as this is my first time of horseback riding ever.

We located the Whitefish's Post Office in the downtown and mailed two postcards to friends back in Ohio, then we visited Whitefish's Farmers' Market near the Train Depot. Veggies, flowers, arts, music, foods, cookies, the same as farmers' market all around the country. So just we just bought a bag of kettle popcorn and left before the raindrops falling on our heads.

Early Summer Vacation 2011: from Glacier NP to Yellowstone NP

This year Dublin School ended early on Friday right before the Memorial Day weekend. I had been longing for a vacation away from home, so I booked tickets to Glacier National Park after Cindy's recommendation.

Here is the first blog of a series reports on our early summer vacation from Saturday, May 28 to Friday, June 3rd, 2011.

We flew into Kalispell, Montana's Glacier Park Airport, and had stayed at Best Western's Rocky Mountain Lodge in Whitefish, Montana for four nights. We visited Glacier National Park for the following two days, then spent one full day exploring Whitefish, Montana, a ski and summer resort town, and the nearby Flathead Lake, the largest natural fresh-water lake west of Mississippi River.

On June 1st, we drove seven hours to the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park, stopped by to see those thermal features especially geysers, patiently waited over one hour and fifteen minutes for Old Faithful to erupt. Lucky us, we got available room at Grant Village so we drove another 40 minutes to stay there for one night. The next day we visited Fishing Bridge Museum, Canyon Village, Norris Geyser Basin, and Mammoth Hot Springs. By 2:30 pm we were ready to say good bye to Mammoth and headed back to Kalispell.

We drove 89 North then 90 West, took a dinner break in Missoula, Montana, then kept driving along 200 West and 93 North, arrived at America's Best Value Inn at 9:30 pm. It was raining hard that night and the following morning when we left Kalispell and flew back to Columbus, Ohio. It was warm and shining like a real summer day in Ohio!