you always knew i was all wet...

tuesday, we stopped by the store to get a few things and then headed back to glacier national park. i had called to make a reservation for the afternoon rafting trip at Glacier Raft Company. melissa didn't think she would be able to do it because of the hiking from monday. her back was hurting pretty badly, so we just chilled at the park's apgar village for the morning. we walked through the shops there (no i didn't buy you anything), and ate a packed lunch on the benches by lake mcdonald. by then, it was time to go to the raft co. to suit up.

of course you have to sign a waiver saying that if you die or a bear eats your arm off, you won't hold them responsible. at least i suppose that's what it said. i overcame my obsessive-compulsive tendency to read everything completely before i sign it by telling myself that it didn't matter what it said - if i didn't sign it, i wasn't going rafting. "a nice man in a boat wants to take us down the river. now i'm signing, you're signing, we're all signing." we put our wet suits and neoprene booties on and got on the bus. we rode 8 miles up to the put-in point and strapped on the lifejackets.

our guide's name was dillon/dylan/dylon? and we were in boat number 2. if you've been rafting before or know about the rafting rating system, he told us that we would be going through parts of the river that rated up to level 3. that really didn't mean anything to me because i had no idea what he was talking about. i went rafting in colorado with the scouts one time and all i remember is how much fun it was (and how cold it was). melissa had never been. the wet suits were new for both of us. they keep you warm, so of course, they made me hot.

i took a waterproof camera to shoot some pictures. funny thing - when you're paddling a boat through whitewater rapids, it's not likely that you'll get to take many pictures of stuff that you would want to take a picture of. alot of the time, i ended up shooting the boat in front or behind us. anyway, it's not a digital camera, so i'm not sure when we'll get those pics.

i jumped in the water when the guide said it was ok and floated for a bit. i know the water was cold, but with the wet suit on, you really couldn't tell it was 35 degrees. i give the company we went with a thumbs up. they were all very nice and the whole operation was very professional. if you go, take a towel. they don't give you one at the end. that's the only complaint i had. otherwise, it was super!

we both had fun and melissa said she would do it again - and in more difficult waters. i'm not sure we'll get to go again this trip, but it's definitely an activity we'll plan for next time.

after the rafting, we headed up camas road to north fork road and took it down to columbia falls. melissa wanted to go to whitefish to see about eating at a place that some nice ladies on the airplane had suggested. camas road is paved but north fork road is not paved most of the way. the weird thing about this road is that flathead national forest is spread out all over the area here and it borders glacier national park. i haven't taken the time to figure out who's running what or what the difference is between the two, but i do know that you don't have to pay to day-visit the forest - only the park. (but the park is much nicer) anyway, if you know about such things, feel free to send it to me - because it's way down on my list of things to look up.

once we got back on the beaten path, we went west to whitefish. whitefish reminds me of breckenridge, colorado before all the condos/apartments were built up. they're developing the heck out of the whitefish area and it will eventually be like breckenridge only bigger. the brochures they have for these "luxury communities" have prices that start at around $400,000. this makes me sad. sure the facilities are nice - but what happened to just enjoying the scenery as it is? do you really need a "grand room" to throw a swanky party at where you and your friends can all schmooze each other? why not just sit around the campfire and lie to each other there? it's the same thing - and, at least this way, afterward, you can claim it was just a "campfire story." ick. too bad the fbi dragged the unabomber's cabin away. sometimes i think i'd rather be out there - especially when i see these big sections of land being developed like this.

there were 3 redeeming factors for whitefish:
1. someone at the whitefish chamber of commerce used his/her brain and actually taped up several of the brochures/announcments to the inside of their office windows so that after-5pm visitors could still learn what to see. kudos to them. they also had a box on the wall with an "attractions map" and it was full. i can't count the number of times this would have been useful for other locations. cities that rely on tourism in any way should take a lesson from this. i hate trying to read through those tourism magazines full of 1page and 1/2page ads for this or that. at least if the chamber puts something out, you're more likely to find a more complete listing (since being a member of the local chamber of commerce is not usually very expensive).

2. the "downtown farmers' market" just happened to be going on from 5pm-7:30pm on tuesday. this was a neat little market to walk through. we passed up several bar/casino restaurants and decided to checkout the market to find something to eat. we walked once through the market and stopped at a crepe wagon to eat. this was an old "small school bus" (you know - the kind you used to ride? ;) ) that had been converted into a portable crepe stand. i got the turkey/roasted red pepper/sprouts on blue corn crepe and melissa had the pesto with basil on traditional crepe. they were both good, but she said hers needed turkey and i said mine needed cheese. seems that they could have included more for the money - but i'm picky. for dessert, we got a traditional crepe with cinnamon and sugar. it was ok - but it could be better too. i walked back to one of the vendors and got 2 bottled sodas. i had a huckleberry soda and melissa had a local root beer. i liked both. she said the root beer had some sort of spice in it. i thought it was extra good because it used real cane sugar (a la dublin dr. pepper). the huckleberry was ok but the funny thing was, it was bottled in new jersey "by license" from some local company. seems odd to me.

3. right across from the farmer's market was the great northern brewing company. woo hoo! i had been wanting to visit them for years now. they are/were the makers of black star beer. i haven't figured out what happened, but it seems they might have sold the rights to black star beer to another company. anyway, now they make lots of other brews - several of which i had to try (don't worry - the sample glasses are small). snow ghost is by far the best one i tried - and since it's a winter seasonal brew, they were trying to empty their stock. it was on sale for $19/case. if you know anything about good beer, you know that's a good price. so i got one. i might go back to get another one - but i have to figure out how to get it home. not sure about taking it on the plane. i could ship it back home maybe - but packing it might prove difficult. anyway - we're going back before we leave. i couldn't decide on a tshirt or hat. (besides - it's never bad to "have to go back" to a good brewery" :) i couldn't find anything bad about their place except they were verrry busy (maybe because of the farmers' market?) and the bathroom is upstairs. that's weird. who wants to walk upstairs when they have to pee?

we headed out for kalispell again and stopped to take a few pictures melissa wanted (the old house in front of the mountains) and i got a huckleberry shake. it was ok. i think i might have liked it better if they had put the berries in it. i slept 8 hours tuesday night - that's abnormal for me. i think i might be relaxing. yikes! maybe when i check on shipping the beer, i can see how much they charge to ship kids up here. :)

think we might go around to the other side of glacier national park on wednesday. there's a stopoff point along the way called goat lick. apparently the goats lick the rocks because they have salt in them. that would be funny. some definite photo-chopping possibilities there :)