KC Travels Part 1: Montana

I know you’re used to seeing beautiful weddings on my blog, but a personal goal of mine is to share more about my own life with all of you out there. Everyone loves glowing brides in stunning dresses, dreamy venues and all the other magical details that make a wedding special, but I think it’s so important to know the person behind the camera too. I want my couples to feel like we’re old friends, even if we’ve just met. So in that spirit, I’ve decided to share some of my travels on the blog! Hopefully this will help you get a better idea of who I am as a person, while also giving you some fun travel tips for some of my favorite places I’ve visited.

The first stop on our magical mystery tour will be Montana, where we visited last October! This was my first trip up north so I really had no idea what to expect weather-wise. Montana had just had a massive snowstorm, so we bought thermals, packed tons of layers– and it was in the upper 40s the whole time we were there. Don’t get me wrong– that was a welcome surprise for this Southern girl! I am all about comfort when flying, so I bought a new sweatshirt and got so many compliments on it. We flew from Nashville to Salt Lake City to Kalispell, which is literally the cutest, tiniest airport I’ve ever seen. When we flew out, it took us maybe 15 minutes to get from the front door to our seats at the gate, which was one of only FOUR.

We stayed in downtown Whitefish, in an amazing rental from Whitefish Escapes. We had views of Whitefish Mountain from our balcony, and easy access to everything downtown. Whitefish has so many cute shops and amazing restaurants, and everything is within easy walking distance. Loula’s Cafe was about a block from our condo and came highly recommended. We had lunch there twice and had to sample their famous pie, which brings me to my first tip if you’re visiting Montana: try anything huckleberry flavored! The area is famous for them and use them in so many fun ways. The huckleberry peach pie at Loula’s was just one amazing huckleberry treat we sampled.

My next tip if you’re visiting during tourist season is to take a famous Red Bus tour of Glacier National Park. These 1930s vehicles have been restored and are considered the oldest touring fleet in the world– how cool is that? It was the perfect way to get the layout of the park and tons of history before we spent the next several days exploring it by ourselves. By the time we got there in October, Going To The Sun Road which connects West Glacier to East Glacier was closed for the winter so we were only able to tour the West side of the park.

How amazing is this water in Trail of the Cedars?! I’ve never seen a stream so clear and blue in real life. This trail is a super easy walk on a manmade walkway and has some beautiful forest views.

We decided to spend one of our days driving up to Polebridge, Montana– a tiny, off the grid town with a famous (you guessed it!) huckleberry pastry called a bear claw. Polebridge is a bit over an hour from Whitefish, but well worth the drive to check it out. The mercantile is adorable and full of quirky items, but unsurprisingly the food was my favorite part– we got a bear claw as well as some savory pastries that were one of my favorite things I ate on the whole trip. Polebridge is near a closed Canadian border crossing, so we thought why not plug it in the GPS and just drive up to see it? This turned out to be a big mistake, as apparently my GPS had NO clue what it was doing. I would be embarrassed to tell you how long we drove around on muddy, rutty, dirt roads I was sure our rental car wouldn’t make it out of. The road we eventually took up to the border wasn’t much better, but it got us there. Oh and when they say it’s closed– they mean it. Check out the umm…lovely Canadian border.

We did eventually make it to the actual border on another day, and drove up to a little town called Fernie, where we ate at Tim Horton’s and brought back some donuts. I’ll admit I don’t know a lot about Canada, so Tim Horton’s was really the only thing I thought of to do LOL. Fun fact, they do take American money! I assume not all places in Canada do, but since we were so close to the border they took my cash and gave me Canadian currency in exchange. I definitely recommend driving into Canada if you have a passport and some extra time. I would do more research next time, but it’s fun to say I’ve been!

As I mentioned before, the road connecting East and West Glacier was closed, so we had to drive almost two hours to get to the entrance of the other side of the park. But oh. my. goodness. I cannot stress enough– you must see East Glacier. West Glacier is beautiful, but it seemed to be more touristy. We saw very few people in East Glacier, and some of the most breathtaking views of the entire trip. We also drove through Blackfoot Indian territory on our way there and I’ve never seen anything quite like the landscape in that area. I also may have geeked out a bit that the opening sequence of The Shining was filmed in East Glacier, and I spotted Wild Goose Island in St Mary Lake on our drive through.

Overall, we had an amazing time in Montana. So much so that my husband says he wants to retire there and honestly, I have a hard time arguing against it. Whitefish is a beautiful town and everyone we encountered was so friendly. It was amazing to me that in the time it would take me to drive to my local Walmart, I could be in the middle of an awe inspiring mountain range in a national park. Covid may have put a damper on our travel plans for now, but I have no doubt we’ll be back in Montana in the future!