Friday morning I awoke in Kalispell to the smell of pancakes and bacon. I imagine there are few things in the world better than waking up to such a delightful aroma. I discovered that my new canine friends had been taken to be boarded for the weekend but I was plenty entertained by the excitement of the 2-year-old in our presence. We stuffed our backpacks with gear, the coolers with food (most importantly meat and s’more makings), and the car with people and headed towards Glacier National Park. The day, sadly, did not dawn sunny and beautiful. In fact, it was warm and muggy and cloudy. 
It is nearly impossible for me to try and describe the grandeur of Glacier (partly because my computer just deleted the read-to-publish post I just had up when it decided to crash and I’m feeling slighted by technology and upset that I lost what had been a perfect and complete post). The park wasn’t too terribly crowded since we were up there fairly early in the season so Going to the Sun highway was drivable and impressive. Rather than being frustrated by crowds of people trying to drive the narrow, exposed, two lane road we could concentrate on how immense and unreal the park appears. 
We even made it through Logan pass without incident. We found parking and got some decent laughs by watching people slide around in the snow in flip flops. It was pretty incredible to be walking on the paths between snowbanks that were still 5 to 10 feet tall. Although that is nothing in comparison to what the depth of snow was like at the pass last year based on some photos in the visitor’s center. We descended into East Glacier after some quick, off the road hikes and made our way to our cabin for the rest of the weekend. 
As it turned out, our remote little cabin could not have been more idyllic. Tucked away in the woods off a little dirt road in the middle of nowhere we had everything that we needed to just relax, make fires, roast s’mores and simply relax. What had initially been dubbed as an epic vacation turned into a vacation, something I haven’t experienced in a while. We were in no hurry to go anywhere, no reason to do anything, we just got to sit in the woods and enjoy the peace and quiet and solitude. How novel! Saturday ended up being a bit of a dreary day which added to the feeling of being able to sit inside and relax in front of the fire watching the rain and lightening for the day.
Friday and Saturday night passed almost too quickly and it was time to head back to Kalispell on Sunday. As soon as we got away from the park the weather turned perfect again. Instead of thunderstorm clouds the sky turned Big Sky blue and the sun dried anything that was left damp. We stopped off in Whitefish for dinner and then made our way to one of the lakes to soak in some sun and enjoy the water. With the added bonus of the sun not setting until 10:30 at night we got to take our time near the water. 
On Monday morning it was time to get ourselves back to SLC since work on Tuesday was looming over us. We hopped in the truck excited to try a new road with new scenery to start our 8 hours drive back to Utah. The first 150 or so miles were scenic and easy. Then the truck started breaking down. Everything that you don’t want to have happen on a road trip happened: constant unexplained breaking down in the middle of nowhere with little to no cell service miles from any sort of sizable town. We finally puttered into a little town called Deer Lodge where the old Montana state prison is and wandered through the sleepy little town for a few hours while someone worked on the car. When we got back on the road we discovered it had only been a temporary fix and the truck continued to break down. Finally the sun went down and the world cooled off and the truck behaved itself until we got home. It had taken us nearly 15 hours to get home. I guess even the most relaxing of vacations has to have some adventure and excitement! Hey, maybe we’ll laugh about it one day. Until then, I have no desire to return to Deer Lodge, MT.
The excitable crew. There’s nothing quite like the looks and comments you get from people on the trail when you’re laden with skis in July. 
The smoke covered the sun about the same time the ash started to rain down on us.
Allen hikes into hell.
Topping out on Sugarloaf pass while smoke billowed past.
So far my dear Snowbird tram has not been endangered. 
When we decided we weren’t going to burn to death Allen decided to be casual and just hang out for a little bit.
We ran into this beauty on the down hike. This photo captures the only time that he really looked at us. He was mostly interested in eating. Alta in July. Awesome!
Bluebird Days 