Karla's Blog

June 27, 2021

I’m fascinated by the name and, when we started researching areas to explore, Kalispell was the first that came to our attention. So, what about that name? The name Kalispell is a Salish (Native American Tribe also known as Flathead) word meaning “flat land above the lake”. Kalispell is also the gateway to Glacier National Park.

We reserved a boondocking space at a private ranch on the outskirts of Kalispell. It’s a beautiful area with flat ranches and lovely groves of forest.

The ranch was gorgeous and the roads were great for walking the boys.

There were some other boondockers there when we arrived. We became friends with a fantastic couple, Rick and Judy, and their fur babies Maggie and Molly. After hanging out in the yard it got chilly so they invited us over to their “house”. We left the boys at home due to the limited space and we all had a great evening of stories and laughter. Oh, and Maggie was very welcoming! LOL 

The town of Kalispell is pretty much what you’d expect in a larger small town. They have pretty much anything you could possibly want such as Home Depot, Walmart, etc. It’s a neat town.

One day we went into town to find some comfortable shoes for me. You may not know that I wear a 4E width. I have what I call Fred Flinstone feet. Larry calls them a freak of nature ;-D. He had mentioned to the fellow boondockers what we were looking for and they said “Crocs”. So we found a Famous Footwear and after an exhaustive search, found some sneakers, thongs and a pair of Adidas that look like Crocs. They fit my feet perfectly. I call them my robot shoes LOL.

Wild huh? But oh so comfortable! My toes are happy :-).

Since Kalispell is the gateway to Glacier, we naturally were planning to go there during our stay. Unfortunately, we learned that the park isn’t completely open yet so we decided we would work our way over to see Mount Rushmore (a bucket list item) and then return to Kalispell in a few weeks when the park would likely be opened up. Ron, our boondocking host let us know we were welcome to come back. So glad because he was a really neat guy and we loved staying at his ranch.

We had one hot day while we were there but the rest of the time was really nice. We also had a thunderstorm!!!! It stays light really late in Montana (10:00-11:00pm), which is hard to get used to, but we’re getting in the groove. Got a few pics of the evening sky.

 Next stop . . . Seeley Lake!

To be continued . . .