Well-Kept Secrets In and Around West Glacier

 We had two nights booked on the west side of Glacier National Park. Since we had been in the park and really did not want to go back with all the traffic and tourists, we chose to explore the nearby communities before we headed west.

Driving Highway 2 on the west side of Glacier National Park. Not nearly as much smokey haze in that area on that day.

The entrance to West Glacier is much more elaborate than the east entrance.

This community is a well kept secret, in my opinion. I love the name.

I had heard of MT huckleberries from a former AZ winter neighbor. I convinced Hubby to stop for lunch. Gift store, cafe, ice cream. They have it all.

We ordered the BBQ pork with caramelized onions and cheese sandwiches for lunch. (There was also a crisp dill pickle on that lettuce leaf.) When we were done, there was no room for pie or ice cream. We would just have to come back the next day. We had some geocaching to do so we headed to Kalispell.

We found some cute, clever and creative geocaches before heading to Flathead Lake for an event.

Two geocachers from the Denver area hosted a gathering. About 12 people attended.  We met a woman cacher who plans to come to SD next month to geocache along the ND/SD border. We shared some tips as we had geocached the same area.

The event was advertised as "catch a beautiful sunset" ~ not with all the smoke rolling in! The CO guys said it had been so bad in some parts of Denver they could not clearly see the houses across the street. 

The following day we geocached in Whitefish and Columbia Falls. And as a treat we stopped in Hungry Horse.

Huckleberry ice cream, single scoop

for later, Huckleberry pie

Both treats were delicious! We also purchased some other Huckleberry products to use later. 

We drove into Glacier NP after 5 PM to get one more geocache along Lake McDonald. I posted a picture of the lake from our east to west tour. This is what the haze did to the view by the end of the week. We had one really good day for viewing mountains out of the five days we were in the area.

The other well kept secret on the west side of Glacier NP is the KOA campground. This one has a restaurant, an ice cream shop, two swimming pools, a basketball court, and other activities too numerous to mention.

We had breakfast at the Lazy Bear Cafe before we headed north for the day. We learned they would be serving steak, salmon and ribs for dinner options that evening. We made plans to be back for dinner.

We had some Huck It, Huckleberry Blonde beer, brewed locally. Hubby ordered a Flatiron steak and I ordered ribs. They were the best meals we had on our June trip and on this trip! Delicious! We would not have even tried the dinner but a couple at the next table at breakfast told us they are not camping in the park, but were told to come for the food. They told us they had eaten at the Lazy Bear Cafe the night before and "I had the best frickin' steak I have ever eaten!" I'm glad we took his advice.

Now we head west. Lots of windshield time until we reach Long Beach WA.