Montana Love
Last spring, we had been talking a little bit about wanting to make a trip back up to Montana sometime in the fall. When we received the wedding invitation for our Whitefish friends, Mike Black and Dani Crandal, we all but booked our flights that day. We have been looking forward to this trip since that day. Not only will we get to be part of such a great wedding day, but we are also excited to see my family, go on some adventures with friends, and reconnect with our old stomping grounds. We have not been back to Montana outside of the winter months in a long time. Time to hop in the car, head to Chicago, and fly out to the one place that is guaranteed to make us both so happy—Whitefish, Montana! Bonus to this trip is the fact that on this trip we will pass over 70,000 miles of travel since we started our Live Rad & Travel lives!
Mile: 70,822
Quote of the Blog: “My favorite state has not yet been invented. It will be called Montana, and it will be perfect.” - Abraham Lincoln
Song of the Blog: “The Mountains Win Again” - Blue Traveler
Our trip to Montana started right after Amity got off work Thursday night. We had to make it down to Chicago the night before our flight because our flight out to Montana was really early in the morning. The benefit of getting down to Chicago for the night was being able to go to Lou Malnati’s for THE BEST deep dish pizza. The next morning, we had a direct flight to Kalispell. Direct flights to Kalispell are rare, but when they are available, we love them! While flying into the Flathead Valley, we came over some beautiful mountains. Amity and I joked about having been there before. As we came into the following valley and got an understanding of where we were, we realized we had actually been there before—it was the Turquoise Lake area of the Mission Mountains. Once we landed in Kalispell, we knew we were in for a long week.
The first stop after getting our rental car was to go straight to my mom’s house. Driving into Whitefish is always surreal. It’s naturally beautiful with the mountains and scenery. It is also rich in memories and knowledge. Not needing GPS to know where we are driving is a rarity in our lives. Being able to drive without it added to the excitement. Being back home at my mom’s was great! Giving her a big hug and spending some time catching up made us both so happy! After getting the lowdown on what’s going on around town, my mom asked if we wanted to go for a walk. We have not had an opportunity to go on a walk outside with her since she had her knee surgery. Mom, if you are reading this… YOU ARE A ROCKSTAR! Both Amity and I were not only impressed by how much you’ve recovered on a medical level, but we were also so happy for you as your kids! Great work on your PT!
After our walk with my mom, we got our stuff unpacked at the Moore’s house. Craig and Amy are always very welcoming, and reconnecting with them is always as if we never left. We had to make it quick, as the next item was to go catch our niece Cadence’s volleyball game. She did great, and it’s fun to see Tori stressing out as a parent over a sport that she loved playing. After the game, we met back up with Tori and Cadence at The Remington. Shane was working, which made it easy for us all to get together and hang out a little bit with all of the random friends that walked in. That night was dinner with the Moore’s. We love staying there, as they have our favorite cat and dog, Marley and Walley. I had an unfortunately hilarious moment after I dropped my sunglasses into their trash can. On my attempt to get them out of the trash, I nearly fell in and broke my glasses. Craig had it all on camera, which made it even funnier. With such a long day, we were just happy to catch up, have some drinks, and hit the hay pretty early.
The next morning, we got our things together and headed over to “home number two” for the Montana trip—the Seefeldt’s house. Ashley and Brian rival the Moore’s in their hospitality and welcoming nature. Brian is also from Wisconsin, which made for a week’s worth of mutual jokes and sharing of Wisconsin stories and secrets. After getting our things unpacked again, we all piled into the car and headed up to the Jewel Basin to get into the mountains for a hike with their dog, Charlie. We were planning on doing the Birch Lake Trail. We have hiked along the mountains and into different areas of the Jewel in the past but have never done this hike. It was fantastic to get out in the woods with them. It’s been a long time since we have been in a place where we had to keep bear spray on us to be safe. It felt good to be wild again for a moment. Having Charlie around is always an added layer of security. She would have lost her mind if a bear were close by, and she explored more of the woods than any of us. The views are amazing along this hike. There is a saying, “You can’t eat the scenery,” when referring to beautiful views that can’t sustain life alone. In Montana, you truly can eat the scenery! As we were walking, we came across some massive huckleberry patches. We started out just picking a couple here and there and eating them. Charlie was loving it! She would crash through the bushes and then start chewing on the berries like a bear. As the patches got bigger and bigger, we all but stopped hiking and swapped out some sandwich bags to use as containers to pick and keep berries. Being early September, this was not expected at all! We thought we might see a couple of berries holding on here and there—not full, perfectly ripe patches for days. Montana welcomed us back with open arms on this trip! Then we made it to Birch Lake, which was beautiful. Brian knew a spot around the lake that gave us views of not only the tail end of Great Northern Mountain but also Hungry Horse Reservoir. Along this hike, we were able to see every major body of water in the Flathead Valley. Love little gems like this! With purple fingers, we rallied back to the car. It is always a pleasant thought that there are cold beers waiting for us at the car. It was even better to be back at the car taking off our packs and enjoying them! That night, we went out to the Whitefish Lake Restaurant at the golf course. This spot is iconic from our Whitefish days, and the dinner put the cherry on top of an amazing day!
The next day’s plan was to head up to Essex and spend the day there with our Essex family, a.k.a. Michelle and Maggie Conry. They are partially the reason we fell in love with Essex, as they have a cabin up there and we have had many adventures with them in the Essex corridor. We had some soft plans about going up to a hidden golf course at Maria’s Pass. When I say hidden, there are lifelong golfers in the Flathead Valley who have no idea this place exists. When we got up to the Conry’s cabin, Michelle was in his golf clothes and practicing his chipping in the driveway. Our soft plans became firm plans! After catching up with them for a little bit at the cabin, we made the drive up to Marias Pass. The golf course is called Elk Meadows Golf Course. It is built on a guy’s property and has nine holes. He doesn’t have a set fee—he just asks that you give something and be respectful. From there, it’s a very simple and self-maintained course. The Conry’s know him, and he is a good ol’ Montanan! You don’t need your own clubs at this golf course, as there are a bunch of random clubs for you to use, even left-handed ones for me! All the holes are under 125 yards, so you also don’t need nice clubs to play here. The round was fantastic! Amity started the round off with the only par of the day on the first hole. The simplicity of the course actually made things like putting challenging. We had many laughs! No one was out to set a record—we were all there to enjoy the early fall weather, take in the views of Elk Mountain and the surrounding areas at Maria’s Pass, and make unique memories!
Following the round of golf, we headed down to the place where Amity and I started our journey as Marcials together—the Izaak Walton Inn. Unfortunately, the building sold to another company, and they have since changed the name to LOGE Glacier. Kind of a funny name if you ask me, but they did a good job of not changing the lodge too much. They did get rid of a lot of the train memorabilia and made the place feel less cluttered and cleaner. All in all, it was still the same place, with the same group of ragtag Essex locals mixed with some tourists. We all met up with some other members of our Essex family, Sam and Tark. These brothers own a house in Essex and were kind enough to allow Amity to host a wedding event there. We had some good laughs and connected over travel stories. Tark lives in D.C., and Sam travels a lot for work. We have been to many of the same places. We were happy to hear that Gumby is still terrorizing Essex and that in the winter, they are placing a little more focus on backcountry skiing and touring! Essex makes us both so happy! Every time we are here, we try to come up with a plan of attack on how we are going to move here and still make money and afford a house. Someday this plan might become reality, but for now, it’s good to dream!
On Sunday we wanted to keep our plans mellow. Amity and I started our day with a long run. She has her marathon coming up and was able to get out and run a little with some Whitefish friends! I ran one of my old running routes from when we lived here. I went past our old rentals, down the river to the lake, and worked my way back into town. It felt surreal knowing what was coming up along the path and getting to see beautiful views of the ski resort and the lake—things I used to take more for granted than I do now. I was able to meet up with them all after I was done running. We love spending time with Abby, Kenny, Dabney, and Tony. We wish we could have had more time to spend with them, but we know we are coming back in a couple of weeks and will have more time then! We then planned to get together with my family at my mom’s house. We had everyone but Seth and Shane. We had a little household tailgate party. We loved spending some time with Evie, Cadence and Brady! Getting caught up on what’s going on in their life was so exciting! Evie is so tall now! She will soon be taller than her mom and me. Brady is crushing the beginning of his senior year, and we couldn’t be more excited for him and his upcoming college adventures! Cadence is all Rad! I swear she is the most like my dad in all the raddest ways! They all make us laugh and smile so much. We also loved spending some time with Cassie and Tori! Getting to learn about her pizza shop was inspiring! Great work Cassie getting something rad going! Tori’s progress on her ankle is so awesome! She had some great stories about PT, getting back into playing softball and all her progress. I know from my own rehab that getting back to what you love is so huge! Congrats Tori! Following lunch with them, Amity and I headed down to the Great Northern Bar & Grill to watch the Chiefs vs. Eagles game. This is our favorite football bar we have been to, because of all of the diverse fan bases in Whitefish. One of the few perks to having a town made up of transplants! Pretty fun to just walk into a bar and know so many people. We are usually flies on the wall anywhere we go, so this was a refreshing and exciting change of pace. We didn’t do much that night as we knew tomorrow was going to be a day.
The next day was the big day we had planned this trip around—Mike and Dani’s wedding day! The Seefeldt’s were also going to the wedding, which made getting there and back so much easier! We all met back up at their house to get ready and head out to the festivities. The wedding was out at Tally Lake. This is one of my happy places in Montana! I have been coming here since I was a child, and Amity and I have many memories of camping and swimming in the lake. The moment we walked up, we were greeted with so many familiar faces from lives past. The Schumans, Randy and Lee, were among the first. Then we found Emma and Abbie, and we couldn’t have been happier to spend the night with them. Fiorella was happy to have some familiar faces show up, as Bobby was in the wedding and away taking pictures. We all had a great time catching up, telling stories, and celebrating the fact that we were all together again! When I had the first chance to, I headed down to the lake to surprise the groomsmen and Mike with my presence! These are some of my best friends, and getting back together with them was the final piece of this Montana adventure. I couldn’t have been happier! We shared Mike’s last moments before he was a married man at the lake. It was a special moment.
Mike and Dani had an amazing ceremony! They are an amazing couple, and we couldn’t have been prouder to be invited to their biggest day! They balanced authentic humor and deep passion with love and simplicity to make a wedding that was very much them and very much Montana! Even Cooper the dog made his presence known! Once they did the deed and both said “I do,” we got down to business! We properly celebrated the newly established Mike and Dani Black! They have an amazing future of fishing, adventuring, and endless love in front of them. We loved the speeches, and the dance party is one for the Tally Lake books! We don’t think we have seen most of the dance moves displayed that night before. Thank you, Brian, for half of them! It was the kind of night that didn’t want to end. We are so grateful for all of our Montana friends! Congratulations to Mike and Dani! We wish them a lifetime full of love! To be able to come back for a short trip and see so many people was amazing! As with any great trip, we didn’t want it to end, but we did have to get back to Wisconsin.
The next morning hit like a freight train! We didn’t have to fly out until mid-day, so we were able to take my mom out for our traditional last breakfast in town. We’ve made it a tradition to take her to The Buffalo as our final activity in Whitefish. We wish we could spend more time here with her, but we also understand that we’ve made a good decision to make this lifestyle change. We are happy to be coming back to do Thanksgiving with her in less than two months! After breakfast, we had a little extra time to kill, so we went down to Whitefish Lake for some pictures and to take it all in. We were greeted by a man who was using a metal detector while waist-deep in the water. At the same time, a woman walked up with a can of bear spray in her hand. Oh, Whitefish—you will never be the same and will always make me laugh! After one last selfie, we headed to the airport and off to Wisconsin. As much as we spent the week Living Rad, we had to get back so that Amity could Live Rad and complete her first full marathon! See you in Wisco for cheese, beer, and brats!
