Portrait & Fine Art Photographer

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A New Adventure - Montana

The last time I traveled was probably the summer of 2019…and that was a road trip. If I’m honest, it felt a little weird when Chris and I boarded a plane for a much needed get away for us, and a much needed visit to our combined youngest Hannah, at college. We were super excited to get out to Missoula to see her new stomping grounds!

I wanted to blog about this trip so I would have a fun record of our adventures, and take anyone else along for the ride if they cared to come along! Yep, it’s my usual overshare and dang it, I would like to share even MORE images…but I’m making myself make selections of my favorites!!

We landed early on a rainy Friday afternoon, and it was quite a bit more chilly than I had planned for. Even though the sun eventually peeked out here and there, we still headed to the book store to get a hoodie so we could rep U of M, stay warm, and explore her campus! Needless to say, I loved it!

Next on the list was dinner, but a stop at a local camera store seemed in order…for me at least!! The store ended up being smack dab in the middle of the local festival that was happening that weekend!! Serious luck as it was how we spent the majority of our evening!

The store in question is called The Dark Room on Main Street, and I took a moment to get lost in the shelves, packed with used film gear, thinking hmmm, do I “need” to pick something up?? I didn’t ;-) It sure was fun to see what they had though!!

We walked to a great local restaurant to have a burger, mac and cheese, and a Rueben with fries, then headed back to the festival to wrap up our evening! It was a really fortunate happenstance, as we were able to enjoy LOOKING at the food truck delicacies (we were STUFFED from dinner so just dreamed about what we could have had lol), and then chill out for a bit to watch the live music they had set up in the streets! SO SO good!! The crowds weren’t too bad for a Friday night. We heard Sol Driven Train followed by Super Chikan. Super Chikan was probably our favorite, a 70 year old Blues artist from the Mississippi Delta with his pretty kick ass band! So enjoyable!

After sleeping in Saturday morning, something Chris and I rarely EVER do, our day was very eventful!!

Hannah introduced us to Veera Donuts, which were, by far, some of the yummiest and largest donuts I’ve ever had!!! If you are ever in Missoula, HIGHLY recommend!!!

We grabbed a donut and a cup of coffee, and headed out to visit Flathead Lake! We had no idea what to expect, but this lake was more than I even realized it would be! It was HUGE, bluer than blue, and not too cold!! We spontaneously decided to rent a boat and head out to explore an island, the river that fed the lake, and as much of the lake that we could in the 4 hours we had! Turns out, we didn’t even get to explore half of it!!

Our first stop, was the island. The water was not too rough, but we were heading into the wind so it felt a little bumpy! We finally made it, 1.5 hours later, and motored around the island to find the one spot we were told that we could pull up to the island to tie off the boat and hop off to look around!

This little island was super cool, full of large trees, some fallen and some reaching to the sky. There was tons of ground cover that made the ground look blanketed in green. We sat down with our cheese and crackers and beef jerky, and wandered around for a bit before pushing off again to head to a different spot to explore.

We made our way back towards the marina but then took a hard right to head down the river that feeds the lake. The water was super calm in there, and there were some pretty cool steep rocks along the banks. Another great stop was a rope swing that would deposit it’s swinger into a deep spot! We saw quite a few kids taking advantage of it!!

This was such a memorable bit of spontaneity that I’m sure none of us will forget!

We headed back to Missoula to enjoy dinner together!

Sunday rolled around and it was time to get back home. One more stop at Hannah’s place, and then off into the wild blue yonder! Click the images below to see full frame!

Good times…

Thanks for coming along on our weekend away! Missoula was great, the lake was great, the company was even greater!!

Until next time….

love and health to all!

<3

Suzanne Lopez2 Comments