Western Travels, Day 1

Today I was leaving on a jet plane (does John Denver come to mind?) to head west.  No...not to pan for gold or anything like that.  But, to play in the snow of the mountains!  My sister Cathy and her friend Kathy had mentioned to me a month ago that they thought it would be fun to go to Montana to ride snowmobile and wondered if I would like to join them.  The destination they had in mind was Whitefish, MT.  I was fully on board with that.  So the plan was in motion.  I had to make sure that I could get the necessary days off.  They also had to verify their own time free from work.
We chose the second weekend in March.....the 11th-14th.  They would drive and I'd fly to Spokane, WA where they'd pick me up at the airport.  Perfect.  Southwest Airlines flys to Spokane and I'd go for free, but on standby status.  There has to be a seat open in order for me to get on a flight. 
The drive from there to Whitefish was about 4-5 hours.  My original plan was to fly through Denver for my connection to Spokane.  My whole morning was going according to plan.  I hadn't forgotten to pack anything and I'd gotten to the airport on time to check one bag and made it to the gate with time to relax a while before boarding my flight.  I knew it would be full and I'd probably have to ride in back with the flight attendants.  But it was fine with me as it meant I was still going on that flight!  We were all boarded up and just waiting for the door to close for push back off the gate.  It seemed to be taking a while.  Soon I saw a fellow ramp agent pop his head inside the aircraft and motioned for me to get off the plane.  I should have guessed that the morning had been going just a little too smoothly.  Long story short, because of the baseball team that was flying on the same flight I was going on, they had lots....and I mean lots, of checked baggage.  Thus, there was a weight issue.  My getting off the plane was part of the solution.  (you really need to understand the entire weight/balance concept in order to get all this...) There was a lot of fuel on board as well.  But, there was still one more airplane at another gate scheduled to go to another city a little bit later.  The final plan was to do an aircraft swap.  Move all the bags (about 180 of them) and all the people over to the next gate and put everyone and their stuff on that other plane.  That works but the problem for me was that I only had thirty-five minutes of connection time in Denver.  With all this happening, I didn't stand a chance on making that connection.  I had to find an alternate solution to get to Spokane.  I texted Cathy to let her know I'd be in Spokane four hours later than I originally hoped for; instead of an arrival of 10AM, I was now scheduled in at 2:40PM.  And, now I was flying through Las Vegas.  So, I went to Las Vegas.  The other flight from there to Spokane was pretty full but I was told that it too, had a weight issue.  There was another flight going through Boise leaving in just a few minutes.  It had a few seats left and it was wide open from Boise to Spokane.  Are you with me so far?  So, I jumped on it and I was finally on my way!  Pfwew!!  I didn't even have a chance to let Cathy know the latest developments in all my flight changes.  They were scheduled in only five minutes apart anyway. 
Cathy and Kathy were waiting for me when I finally got through security.  I told them that we would have a good time!!!  It had already been a long day for me. 
We left the airport and found a Starbucks for a coffee and got back on the interstate to head east towards Whitefish.  Along the way, we had all sorts of things to talk about.  When we were getting closer to the mountains, we got the cameras out to take pictures while we rode.  I had been through here in the past but it had been years before.  I think the last time was about 17 years ago.  The scenery was beautiful.  The roads were good but it was obvious just how much snow had been falling previous to our visit.  It was piled up so high along the road that the road signs were partially obscured.



Driving East and nearing the mountains.      



We arrived in Whitefish at roughly 9PM and made our way to Hidden Moose Lodge; a little bed and breakfast just on the northern edge of town.  The sight of it all lit up with holiday lights and tucked into the side of the mountain was breathtaking.  We were very impressed and excited to see more of it.



The main lodge of two buildings.

The temperature was pretty mild as well.  If I remember correctly, it was in the thirties.  But wow, was there snow piled up all around us.  We went inside and found a lady and got checked in.  She sent some wine with us that had been served during happy hour and told us to finish it up.  Okay!!!
Once inside our suite, we were "ooohing" and "aahhhhing" at every little detail that we noticed.  It was decorated in outdoorsy type material such as denim and leather and had different moose items scattered about all over the place.


We were upgraded to a room with a King bed and a pullout due to Brazilian guests that didn't speak English and didn't know that the room was reserved by US!!  So this is the room with a King bed. 

We stayed up for awhile and marveled at our surroundings, discussing our plans for the next day.  The only thing on our agenda for Saturday was our sleigh ride in the late afternoon.  We would have plenty of time to explore before that.  With that, we went to bed pretty late.  It was going to be a fun weekend!