Montana—Farewell and Homeward Bound

Sadly, we arrived at the day to depart Montana. The hotel check-out was easy. They slipped the receipt under our door overnight. If all was correct we just dropped the keys in a box in the lobby. This place had real keys. The locks were not very good either. Apparently theft is not an issue. My key even had a little squeeze LED light on it to help me find my way to the bathroom at night.

Our plan was to have breakfast at the Park Café when they opened at 7AM. Our 7-day pass to GNP expired overnight. Since we had to leave the park on the hotel road we could either pay the entry fee and use the Going to the Sun Road across the park to get to Kalispell or avoid the fee and drive around the southern end of the park. Since we hadn’t seen the territory to the South that is what we chose. The weather was grey and threatening.

But first—breakfast. We got to the café just before they opened the door. We were amazed when we entered at how organized the place was. Our experience through the week wasn’t one of organization. The first day our server wasn’t sure if the onion rings she was delivering were for us or somebody else. They weren’t for us. We also found that we usually had to ask for silverware. When we got coffe we usually had to ask for spoons. When we walked in this morning, however, all the tables were set and ready to go. We figured that service went downhill as the day progressed and they got real busy.

The menu at the café was full of Montana flavor. Penny got the Montana breakfast of an egg, a pancake and a slab of ham. I say slab because when it came it was big enough for her to give me half and still provide her with plenty. The ham had a different smoky flavor from the ham I was used to but it was good. The menu had pancakes on it. One pancake or two pancakes. This was followed by the warning that they would make you 3 pancakes if you wanted but you had better be hungry! I ordered 1 huckleberry pancake. When it came I understood the warning. The pancake was the size of a dinner plate and about ¾ inch thick. Of course, it was made out of whole grain Montana flour. The pancake was light, flavorful and was full of huckleberries. It also came with a thick huckleberry syrup (compote?) . No need for additional syrup here. It was very good and plenty to fill me up (don’t forget I also had half a slab of ham to eat also).

Again, with heavy heart, we bid farewell to the Park Café. We enjoyed our visits here.

The high point of our drive around the park came early with an extended encounter with rainbows. We now have more pictures of rainbows than we know what to do with but coming from FL we don’t get to see rainbows in front of mountains often.

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The rest of the drive was made in rain. The scenery looked nice but the gray and rain obscured much of it. Our rental car return and trip to the airport were uneventful. The Montana folks were all friendly and helpful.

We didn’t know that our trip back to Florida was going to involve spending the night at Atlanta’s airport. I’m not going to include any details of the trip home. Instead I’ll end this with nothing but good words for the people of Montana. It seemed that everywhere we went we met people who liked being there, enjoyed their jobs and their lives in Big Sky Country. Almost everyone was friendly and helpful. I know we were tourists and came into limited contact with the real Montana but what we saw we liked—a lot.