Happy 4th of July!

I love the 4th of July. Chopper had the day off and we decided to go north to Polson. It's a town on the southern tip of the Flathead Lake. So we fixed up a picnic lunch and dressed up Megan and off we went!


It was really pretty up in that area although the day was hazy and humid and you couldn't see the mountains too clearly. You can tell though that they are pretty craggy and impressive.
These are the Mission Mountains. Everything in that area (ok not everything but a lot of stuff) is related to the Catholic Mission that settled in the area early on. Now the whole area is a reservation for the Salash and Kootenai Indian tribes. I have never heard of either of them but all of the signs were in English and then whatever language they speak. Chopper slowed down so I could take a picture of this one -- how in the world do you pronounce that? It looks almost like a cross between Hebrew and Russian except with the Latin alphabet.


Anyway, all of the waterfront parks in Polson were bursting with people swimming, boating, whatever. We stopped at one and unpacked but it was very anty so we packed up and moved on. Megan did well in the car until we decided to do that. She was just starting to get some good kicking in
when we put her back in her carseat so she was not too happy about that.

We ended up at Finley Point -- a long finger of land that juts into Flathead Lake. It looks from here like that's the end of the lake -- its not. There are quite a few islands in Flathead and the Lake is apparently ginormous.
I haven't seen the whole thing but Polson is at the southern tip and Chopper says it takes another hour and a half to get to Kalispell at the northern. We'll probably see it better in August when we (hopefully) go to Glacier National Park.

So we picnicked
but no fishing for Chop. Too many people and boats in the water. Then came home and sang patriotic songs on the way. We watched the DC and Boston fireworks on TV. The DC fireworks are incredible in person but on TV they kept cutting out to whoever their host was. The Boston ones are great on TV because they stay in close and they sync them up to music by the Boston Pops and other songs. Megan went to bed before all this -- maybe she'll see fireworks next year!

The good thing about Montana is that even if you can't make it to the profressional fireworks display almost anything amateur is legal. Fireworks didn't go off here until 10:30 because that's more or less when it's dark enough to see them. We couldn't see the city display from our apartment but there were a number of good ones all over the neighborhood we live in -- you know the ones -- illegal in other states, the kind that set fields on fire (but that's another story actually not related to the 4th of July). But that was really fun to watch and amazingly enough -- Megan slept through the noise.

Chopper and I are really grateful for this country that we live in. It's not perfect by any means but we have so many freedoms and blessings that other's don't have. It's amazing to think that all of this was inspired and set in motion by a small group of men over 200 years ago. We've particularly been blessed to be able to see quite a bit of this country and I have to say that there is beauty wherever you go and friendly, honest people. Happy 4th everyone!!