July 31after Swinging Bridge

Having fully explored northwestern Montana we started heading back east towards Glacier NP. Being Friday, we didn’t anticipate getting all the way to Glacier to scope out camping, it would have been too competitive and a really long driving day, instead we were hoping for somewhere along the way between Eureka and Kalispell. As we drove along however, the exciting moving day mood dissipated as the outdoor temperature slowly crept up to 100 degrees. We were shocked, we were likely on some of the northernmost roads in Montana (many jokes about Canada taking us in were floating around in the car), yet no cooler temps to be found anywhere. As we drove back south on the highway past many, most likely available camping spots, we knew we’d had it. It was time to find a hotel. We were in Whitefish at this point and looked for a couple of places there but they wanted close to $300 for one night, sticker shock since that’s what we’ve paid in total for lodging for the whole month of July. We settled for a Hampton Inn in Kalispell which had a more budget friendly price tag. The kids about lost their minds going to a place. We haven’t been to a hotel since….well, I actually can’t remember. We’ve stayed in Airbnb’s for much of our recent travel, and with the pandemic, haven’t stayed anywhere since last fall. So to say this was a treat for them is a huge understatement. Packing for an overnight from a travel trailer was super easy, kids got to swim briefly, we cranked the A/C down to freeze ourselves, slept in a regular sized bed, got our laundry done, and we even gave our vintage fridge the night off to defrost completely and put our food in the hotel mini fridge. This was a reprieve for all and just the break that was needed to face the next month on the road.