We spent a few days relaxing around the cabin the earlier part of the week. It was really nice to just chill for a bit. Jared and Miguel spent most of their time reading. Mom and I explored the "town" around us, Sarah and Baby Ray rested, and Dad did some work. But on Tuesday the six of us headed out to do a six hour pleasure raft trip. We couldn't do any rapids or anything like that because of Sarah being pregnant. This rafting trip was so beautiful, relaxing, and one of my favorite parts of our trip! The stillness and quite was just wonderful. Even now as I am typing this account up I am so much more aware of the sounds that surround our house... like lawn mowers and sirens.
We woke up early and headed to breakfast at a placed called The Stray Bullet. It was in a town called Ovando which claims to "Have It All". Look at the picture below... that is the town. On Main Street. Ha! The food was REALLY good... they have time to make it that way. One of the best parts of breakfast was when everyone in the restaurant, including us, sang Happy Birthday to a woman named Margaret. It was her 92 birthday. She comes to The Stray Bullet every morning for pancakes and the town pays for them! How sweet and awesome is that! Small towns are so cool!
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| Main Steet, Ovando, MT |
After breakfast we headed to the put-in sight. This is the sign that greeted us: "ATTENTION this is bear country!"... I was scared of bears this entire trip! Everyone wanted to see one... me from a very far distance away.... more about bears in a later post though....
Once we all piled out of the car, the guides and my dad drove the cars to the pick up spot. So the rest of us chilled for about 30 minutes waiting on them to return. Miguel decided to use this time to whittle a walking stick! Haha! I love him so much! He needs to be going, going, going! The Eagle Scout in him just can't be tamed ;)
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| Haha... there are those glasses again! |
Our guide were a man named Shane and his 16 year old son, Josh. Josh was born and raised in Lincoln and Shane had been there for over 25 years. They were definitely mountain men. Shane earns his living through leading fishing tours, pleasure raft tours, hunting, and trapping. You could tell he was a hard working man when you shook his hand. This was Josh's first time doing a raft tour by himself. Though, according to Shane he was paddling a raft before he was walking. You could tell he knew what he was doing and that Shane was really proud of him. We had a girl boat and a guy boat. Josh lead the guys and Shane took us ladies. I really enjoyed listening to Shane. He is completely in his element doing what he does and has a real big heart for taking care of the environment. I really admire that.
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| Shane |
We started out on the Fork River and then headed into the Blackfoot River. The Blackfoot is named after the Blackfeet Indians who are native to the area. And just so we can all be PC, this tribe prefers to be called Indians rather than Native Americans. This was Shane's first time on the river this "summer". It was too dangerous before because of all the snow melt. Over the fourth of July it was still snow covered and frozen. That's another thing we learned about Montana.... they have about a five to six week summer. Though we hardly saw anyone else on the river, and those who we did see were fishing, this time of the year is considered tourist season :)
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| Boys boat: My daddy, Josh, Miguel, and Jared |
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| The boys, well Jared in general, had the camera for the first half of the trip. They obviously entertained themselves. |
One of the great things about this trip was learning about the land and the wildlife. The information didn't feel forced or anything, it was more a question and answer type format. My mom asked a lot of questions and Shane answered. An interesting thing we saw were these birds who nested in these mud nests on the side of the cliff river bank. They were really cute poking their heads in and out and hollering to each other that we were coming.
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| Us ladies floating down stream |
Though we didn't see any bears or elk we did see a bald eagle, who Shane named Hank. We also saw some Merganser ducks with their babies paddling quickly behind. These ducks were one of my favorite things to learn about. Some of the mother ducks have tons and tons of little babies following behind them and some have as little as three. The little ducks sometimes get distracted and separated from their mother and brother and sisters. When this happens they just join the next duck family they see. Adopting ducks! How cute! It was also really fun to see them paddle hard up stream and then stop, turn around, and bobble up and down back down stream! It almost looked as if they were just having a good old time bouncing up and down. =) I also named quite a few of these little guys! They were too cute not to!
After lunch the girls got a turn with the camera. Miguel and I didn't want to risk bringing our Nikon on the boat so we borrowed some time with Jared's point-and-shoot. Sarah and I sat up front in the boat and had a good time handing out with each other, putting our toes in the water, and taking pictures of the scenery.
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| Hank, the Bald Eagle, is perched at the top of the tree |
The weather is Montana is so fickle. It can start out in the morning well below 40° and then get up to the high 80's a few hours later. All of us but Miguel (rolling eyes and smiling) lathered on tons of sunscreen. Miguel instead went for the shirt over the head and the life jacket draped around the neck method.
About half way through the tour we stopped on a little beach and ate our yummy pre-ordered box lunches. The shade felt so nice and after we ate we stuck our feet in the water. The water felt very chilly but so clean. I wish I had had the camera at the beginning of the trip because I would have taken a picture of the river stones under the water. The water was soooo clear it made the river stones just come to life! They were such pretty colors of reds, silvers, and blues. So something about the water being so clear and clean made the temperature of the water not matter so much. I didn't even mind sitting down on the bank because even the sand felt pure and clean.
After lunch the girls got a turn with the camera. Miguel and I didn't want to risk bringing our Nikon on the boat so we borrowed some time with Jared's point-and-shoot. Sarah and I sat up front in the boat and had a good time handing out with each other, putting our toes in the water, and taking pictures of the scenery.
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| The water was so blue and green. Especially the first river we were in. |
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| I love my sister! She is so pretty! And wayyyy too far away! |
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| Big Sky Montana |
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| The boys really would have preferred to have a little faster and rougher ride... they were excited to go over these little ripples! |
Like I previously mentioned, the weather in Montana can be fickle. One second the sun was shining and the sky was a blue as I had ever seen it. The next... the rain clouds are rolling in super fast. We all got covered up in our very fashionable rain gear and prepared for the downfall. It rained for less than five minutes and not even hard at that. Next thing we knew the pretty blue sky was out again!
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| Hi, Mom! Even in a plastic, yellow suit she is beautiful! |
At first before we left for this trip I was anxious that the length would be too long for me. Six hours seemed like a long time to be floating around. However, it seemed to flow by. We traveled 14 river miles and I could have kept going! I did have a little bit of bleacher butt, but my seat spun so I would easily move around. Once we got home, however, we were all pretty exhausted and were happy to jump in the shower. While waiting my turn I snapped some more pictures of the wildflowers outside our cabin. The next day we headed to Kalispell and Glacier National Park... can't wait to post about that!
And I forgot to put it in before... but here is the view from the back deck of the cabin. Breathtaking!
