The Van Blog: Lake Tahoe of Montana

Tuesday we drove about 2 hours north of Missoula, which is also about an hour and a half south of the Canadian boarder to Flathead Lake. I guess it's only natural to associate places we visit with places we know from home, but this lake reminded us a lot of Lake Tahoe. It's a huge lake that is longer than it is wide and it's got all kinds of little towns and communities along it's shores. The water is cold and crystal clear, obviously snow run off and the back drop are stunning snow capped mountains. We got a camp site at the second place we tried. The first spot was completely full and the place we ended up, West Shore State Park, only had a spot for 2 nights, but was completely reserved for the weekend starting on Thursday. So we stayed Tuesday and Wednesday and enjoyed the tall pine trees and the noisy squirrels that lived in them, the trails from our site to the water and went into the nearest town, Lakeside, and walked around for a bit. Thursday we tried our luck at a few other campgrounds near by, as well as, visited the towns of Whitefish and Columbia Falls, and after being turned away twice for full capacity we decided to head back south and in the direction of California.