Whitefish MT - 1250 Miles Down

January 19, 2009 - Sarah and I drove up from Missoula to Whitefish today. The drive was beautiful but unfortunately for us there has been an inversion in the valley for the past few days so the clouds have sat pretty low and blocked all the views. The drive up the east side of Flathead Lake is pretty cool regardless of views. The closest thing I can compare it to is driving around the Finger Lakes in Central NY. The roads are winding right along the shores of the lake right off the water. I wish more than anything we had a sunny day because the mountain range that surrounds the lake is supposedly amazing, check out some pictures online if you are curious.

My old boss at Hines is from the area and gave me a bunch of names of places Sarah and I needed to stop along the way. Unfortunately the winter season shuts down this place pretty good so some of the bars he recommend along the way were closed since winter working hours are weekends only. From the looks of it this could be one of the better summer places ever. There are bars and restaurants lining the lake that all have docks that you can pull your boat up to in the summer time. From talking with some of the local bartenders it sounds like this place is off the hook in the summer time and especially so July 4th weekend.

We had lunch in the town of Bigfork on the northeast side of Flathead Lake in a great bar called the Garden Bar. If you are ever in the area this place is an absolute must. Here is a picture of the bar sign and Sarah and I just after we finished lunch.

After Bigfork we made a bee-line for Whitefish and the place we are staying at for the next few nights. As I said my old boss Jay made some recommendations of some places to visit while here. He also was nice enough to let us stay at his condo here right on Whitefish Lake. The Lodge is really nice check out the link http://www.lodgeatwhitefishlake.com/. At this point anything would beat the Days Inn in Missoula so we are more than happy to have it. We were going to get dinner tonight in downtown Whitefish but the Lodge was running an all you can eat King Crab Leg special so we got sucked in. 4lbs later I was full.

Tomorrow we are headed up to Big Mountain to get some skiing in so hopefully I will have some nice sunny pictures to share once we break through the inversion.

I am trying to get a song posted to my Blog so you all have some music playing in the background while you read. I don't think Blogger has this function so I did the next best thing. I found a Youtube clip of the song so make sure to click on the new video clip on the right before/after/during reading the post (click the second video box for best results). Thanks to Luj Stash for the inspiration even though I introduced him to Elvis.

Mazeltov Gentleman!