Kalispell redux.....

6:48 am - Tuesday - July 21st - Kalispell, MT - 51° F, 96% humidity, wind - CALM.....crystal, clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 86° F......the view this morning.......↴

.....on this day in 2014 I was at Mammoth Mountain riding my Intense 5.5 in their bike park.....

On the way through Valier to the Lake Frances Campground on Saturday afternoon we noticed there was a self serve car wash with a large RV bay.  We haven't been able to wash the Newell for some time, so when we departed Lake Frances Monday morning around 9 am our first stop was that car wash.  It costs 25 cents per minute, but is well worth the cost.  As I was rinsing off the Newell I noticed the water was nice and hot so on the spot I decided to also give the big rear facing radiator a good cleaning.  By 9:45 am we were back on the road heading northwest toward Kalispell, MT on Montana 44 to US-89, which would take us to US-2 in Browning, MT and then around the southern edge of Glacier National Park to Kalispell.  As has been the case the past few driving days the views did not disappoint......

....as we approached Browning, MT the mountains came into full relief once again, and soon we were back in the coniferous forest gliding along beautiful mountain rivers.....

Middle Fork of the Flathead River

.....Browning, MT is in the middle of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, and the eastern gates to Glacier National Park, which are all on Reservation land are closed at the time due to the Wuhan virus.  Our destination for the day was the Elks Lodge in Kalispell, MT located on the north end of Flathead Lake.   There are no reservations at this Elks Lodge, so we arrived not knowing if one of the 10 sites would be vacant, and available......there was just one single site left......it always works out for us......😋 

....these are all 'back in' sites, but we opted to pull in nose first to face the mountains and the local municipal airport.  We were here (Kalispell, not the Elks Lodge) back in July of 2013 for about a week.  Kalispell is a Salish Indian word meaning 'flat land above the lake'.....the lake in this case being Flathead Lake.

Once we were set up we found a local micro brewery, Sunrift Beer Company, at which to take a leisurely late afternoon lunch.  Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on 30 reviews, but we would be right at 4 stars.  As is often our habit, we ordered a flight of brews to sample.  Flights can vary from 4-6 brews, and in this case it was 4.  We sampled (from right to left) their Blonde Bomber, Coconut Heff, Sundown Honey Brown, and Sol-Gravy Stout.....

.......we loved them all, but both settled upon the Sundown Honey Brown to pair with our late lunch choices.....

 Great alfresco dining!

....a spinach salad for TLE, and a Caesar for moi.  We added a plate of sweet potato fries for good measure.....

......they have a lovely covered alfresco dining area, which really sealed the deal when we were trying to decide between three local breweries....we'll check the others out later in the week.  The food, service and atmosphere were top notch....a perfect way to while away a lazy Monday afternoon.  We were home by 4:30 pm thoroughly pleased with our decision to visit Sunrift.

We had a subtle sunset, and a quiet evening spent reading, and watching another Hallmark movie.  Life is good....we'll be here at least 5 days, perhaps a week....time to slow down and smell the roses, or the brews, whatever happens float your boat.....:-)

 Thanks for stopping by!

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