MOUNTAINVIEW HIDEAWAY: Guests

Showing posts with label Guests. Show all posts

Thursday, October 13, 2016

WRAPPING UP

After Dave flew back to Texas, Peggy and I balanced our time with soul talks, drives and work projects. One of our favorite places is the Izzak Walton Inn in Essex which started out as lodging for employees of the Great Northern Railroad and is now open to the public. They have engines, cabooses and hotel rooms available as well as a nice dining room. If you come for a visit, there's a really good chance that Dave and I will bring you here for lunch where you can still see an active train yard; our favorite railroad's, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe!

Stopping at Goat Lick, no mountain goats but beautiful fall colors!

Peggy volunteered for some "dirty jobs" like cleaning out the wood stove, stacking wood and learning how to use the log splitter.

One day we decided to grab some snacks and enjoyed a drive through Glacier, our backyard!

Logan Pass was socked in with fog and clouds but it was still pretty cool!

More Fall colors and raining in the Two Medicine area.

The big project that Peggy and I worked on was surprising Dave by decorating the house for Christmas! I want him to be totally caught off guard when he walks through the door. Except for hanging porch lights and getting a live tree, everything is done! It took a lot longer since this is the first time and I didn't have a reference from previous years on where to put stuff. Here's a sneak peek:

Those three weeks flew by but it won't be long now!

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

BE OUR GUEST (Part Two)

In September we drove the van up to the Mountainview Hideaway, loaded up with boxes but my Dad had also gotten us a generator and a log splitter which we needed to get up there. We were joined by our best friends here in Texas, Randy and Lynette. We were eager to share our home with such special people, near and dear to our hearts. The leaves on the Aspens as well as the needles of the Larch were beginning to turn golden for their annual Autumn ritual which is spectacular to observe!

We drove up to Logan Pass where Dave and Randy took a short jaunt up the Hidden Lake Trail for some overviews of the area.

Naturally, we stopped at "The Huckleberry Patch" on our way back!

Our neighbors had invited all of us to come over for their last cookout for the season and we were more than happy to take them up on their offer and enjoy some tasty elk burgers!

There were nice breakfasts to start our day, both at home and Montana Coffee Traders...

On our way to the Many Glacier area, coming back over Logan Pass, the clouds were making for some really interesting photo ops:

We stopped at the Wild Goose Island turnout, which is a favorite spot for photographs.

We had lunch at the Many Glacier Hotel's Ptarmigan Dining Room before riding the boat across Swiftcurrent Lake.

Besides the gorgeous Aspen trees, we saw bears!

Randy helped Dave assemble the second of the two new rocking chairs we had delivered.

Lynette and I are only 3 days apart and we celebrated turning 55 by going to dinner at The Lodge At Whitefish Lake.

You know you're best friends when you unknowingly get one other the same exact card!!

Wonderful memories made with special friends...

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

BE OUR GUEST (Part One)

One of the things I am anticipating most about being at the Mountainview Hideaway, is having visitors. We have a quiet retreat, tucked away in the beauty of Northwest Montana and we enjoy sharing it with others. A lot of thought and detail has gone into creating a guest bedroom where people can have every possible comfort as well as a peaceful place to just relax and recharge. I've also gathered recipes for hearty breakfasts to start them out for whatever adventure the day might hold.

This summer in particular, the Hideaway saw its most guests yet! In July, our daughter Laura and her boyfriend Jake used it for several days as part of a three week vacation out west.

They left the morning after we arrived but not until after having their photo taken and enjoying a breakfast at one of our favorite spots, Montana Coffee Traders.

Our oldest daughter Jennifer and her family came to Montana after hitting Mount Rushmore on their family vacation. Dave and I wanted them to experience all the reasons why we love this area, so we came up with some ideas to hopefully entice them to come back again. For the grand kids, we set up our 2 backpacking tents and a pup tent so they could "camp" in the safety and comfort of our house. I say safety because there are bears and wolves in the area and we didn't want them to be scared of what might be out there. Everyone SAYS they want to see a bear, it's just that they don't want to see one looking right at them! We also had personalized tee shirts made for them, got them each a stuffed animal "mascot" and little lanterns for them to use at night in their tents.

Dave and I purchased a fire pit from Cabela's which we initiated with hot dog roasting and making "camping cones".

We took them into Glacier National Park and shared one of our favorite hikes, Avalanche Lake.

This past summer saw numerous wildfires and unfortunately, Glacier had one along the Going To The Sun Road which prevented us from going up to Logan Pass where there are mountain goats all over the place. We still had lots of other activities available, one of which was to go to Big Mountain in Whitefish. We rode the chairlift and had lunch at the Summit House Restaurant and rode alpine slides afterwards.