Well, we had our First Guest from Indiana here for a few days, AND we survived!!!  AND so did our Guest!!!  Laurie, our guest from Cloverdale, Indiana, and a Great Friend, had been to Montana with us on Photography trips that we hosted at Rising Wolf Ranch on the East side of Glacier National Park. Those trips were in late August and early September so she had only seen Glacier National Park in the Summer and wanted to see it in the Winter.  I don't think she was at all disappointed as you will see from the look on her face in the following photos.
My 'excuse' for writing this Blog is to let our friends know what to expect when coming out for a visit.  We are excited for our friends and family to visit us.  We hope this inspires you to think about visiting us in the future.  We hope our house is built and we will be in it by the end of July.  So, make plans!

We picked Laurie up at the Glacier International Airport, (it is a bit smaller than Kennedy International in New York), and headed over to see our lot as they have cleared some trees and poured the footing.  We stopped at the Night Owl restaurant in Columbia Falls for lunch.

Not much to look at, but it IS exciting to us.  As it was well into the evening, we headed over to Glacier for Laurie to get a glimpse of the Snow Covered Mountains!  We did not photograph much, as the weather was overcast and it was getting late, so we just stopped at a neat little stream coming out of the mountains and running under the road.

These places are beautiful to us.  Notice the snow thrown up on the large Western Cedar to the right from the snow plows.  Laurie and Debbie were talking as I interrupted them for a snapshot.

With them becoming occupied taking some snapshots of this stream, I started across the road to see where the stream went from there and somehow my feet were suddenly UP! not down where they should be!  Of course this almost never happens to me!!!  Fortunately, I was able to 'right' myself before they could quit laughing and get their cameras pointed toward me!

One of the things Laurie wanted to try was 'Snowshoeing', so Saturday morning we headed up to Lone Pine State Park to give it a try.  Debbie and I have our own Snowshoes now as we enjoy it so much, but Laurie had not been on Snowshoes and she rented a pair at the Nature Center. We walked several trails and enjoyed the Overlooks of the Flathead Valley.

You can see the whole Flathead Valley from these overlooks, from Flathead Lake by Big Fork to Columbia Falls (the twin smoke stacks in the distant right) and Whitefish (distant left).  The snow-covered trees give you the feeling you are walking through a Christmas Card.

And we had to stop for photos!

Debbie and Laurie at Lone Pine

Laurie inspecting woodpeckers summer homes

Debbie and some old man?

We had a great 'late' lunch at Sykes downtown Kalispell and spent the evening watching the Olympics.
Sunday we headed up to Blacktail Mountain Lodge as it was overcast in Kalispell and we thought we might get above the clouds up on the Mountain.  The scenery was awesome as we went up to the Lodge. Starting up the Mountain and at the top were both overcast but we found some sunshine about three quarters of the way up.

A few of the trees had 'hats' on!

At the top we again had overcast but the scenery was spectacular.

We just could not help ourselves, we took lots of photos.  Debbie and Laurie posed for a few snapshots.  Have you noticed the Smiles!!!

I thought I would put this one in just so you could see the 'road conditions' up here on the Mountain.  It was a tiny bit slick but we were too busy to notice as the scenery was breathtaking.

To keep from making these too long, as few will get to this point anyway, I am writing another Blog for Monday and Tuesday.  We had two beautiful days and took lots of photos, so don't miss the next Blog which I will have up in the next couple of days................  Stay tuned for part II..........