Montana – Kline Road Trips

We are starting to work our way towards home again. The first day of driving is to get from our campsite in St. Mary’s to a hotel (and a real shower!) in Billings, Montana.

A quick note on a couple organizational things that help on our trips. If we are going from campground to campground, we leave the sleeping bags, pillows, and duffles with our clothes right in the camper. If we have a hotel night, then we just have to grab our duffle bags then. also, Jeff has a neat system so he doesn’t forget to do things with the camper (empty gray and black water, turn off propane tank, turn off the water heater, close the ceiling fan, etc). He has slap bracelets labeled with each one and wraps them around the steering wheel when we are at a campsite. Then he takes them off as each one gets done as we take down the camper. Trying to climb into a closed-up pop up camper on the side of the highway to try to close the ceiling fan is not fun, so this prevents that from happening!

As a quick stretch break on the day’s drive, we stopped at the bridge that was used in the movie, The Untouchables. It looks just like it did in the movie, though the movie portrayed it as at the Canadian border. It was in a very pretty valley with rocks and mountains all around it.

Once we got to the hotel we all took wonderful, hot, long showers. So luxurious! We had stayed at pretty rustic campgrounds and only the last one had a basic shower. We relaxed and all fell asleep early.

The next morning, we stopped at Fiberworks Quilt Shop. Laura Heine is a rockstar pattern and fabric designer in the quilting community and this is her shop and warehouse. She is known for designing collage quilts and I had just bought a couple of her patterns to make this summer with some friends. I was so excited to see that her shop was just a couple minutes away from our hotel!

The shop/warehouse has all her patterns and so many quilts made from her designs. I took a couple close ups of the pattern I just started working on and a couple others I really liked.

Patten is Garden Party and I just started it before we left.

2025

St. Mary’s and Going-to-the-Sun Road

July 17, 2025 Amy Kline

Our first day at the campground in St. Mary’s was very low key. It rained all night long and continued raining all the next day. The rain was definitely more than sprinkling, but not quite pouring. We didn’t really feel like hiking in the rain, so we just hung out in the camper all day, napping and reading. When we looked outside, we couldn’t even see the mountains that we knew were there so figured driving on the Going-to-the-Sun road could wait until the following day.

It was pretty chilly both nights that we camped at St.Mary’s. Thank goodness for the heater in the camper. We were nice and toasty!

The rain finally stopped during the second night there and we woke up to a little fog that burned off as the sun rose. Beautiful mountains in 2 directions!

We sat outside in the sunshine for awhile and went exploring the Going-to-the-Sun road around mid-day. One reason that we chose the St. Mary’s area is because there isn’t timed entry like the other entrances have.

The drive was breathtaking! The east side half of the road is not as scary (meaning hairpin turns and no shoulder) as the west side half that we did in 2019, but had just as awe inspiring vistas.

Well, we made it to the Logan Pass Visitor Center where we were planning to stop and learn about the area and hike around a little bit. The parking lot was full and blocked off. Cars were making their own questionable parking spots on the sides of the road in both directions. Jeff had to keep driving another 5 miles at least before he could get to a turn out that had an opening so he could pull in and turn around. Additionally, there were people walking on the sides of the roads all over near the visitor centers, some of asking on the little stone walls that keep cars from driving off the mountain. We get what they have resorted to timed entries, and think St. Mary entrance will have it in the next year or two also.

As we were driving, we got stopped in an “animal jam”. It is our first grizzly bear sighting! We got a picture as we slowly drove by. A minute later there was a mountain goat that crossed the road. It’s not a popular National Park visit if you don’t get into an “animal jam”!

We decided to go back to the campsite and come back after the peak time is done. We were told that it is less busy after 4, so we went back at 5 and the drive was almost as busy, but the views looked completely different due to the sun being in a different part of the sky. We got in the parking lot of the visitor center at top this time, drove around for 30 minutes and still couldn’t get a spot. So we gave up and drove down with some stops for pictures.

We ate at an outdoor Mexican restaurant and listened to a singer/guitar player that was performing. It was perfect weather and a fun family dinner!

I took lots of wildflower pictures at the campground and also in the Park. I love all the plant diversity as we travel through all the different environments.

There are mountains behind those clouds.

2025

Quilt shops, train depots, book stores, and rain

July 15, 2025 Amy Kline

Today was a driving day to get to our next campsite near the St. Mary Entrance of Glacier National Park. It was only a few hours drive, so we were able to stop at a few places along the way. It was very hot to start the day, sunny and near 90 degrees.

We made it to Kalispell and did some shopping. We normally do not “shop” much on our road trips, preferring to spend most of our time in nature or museums. We stopped at 2 quilt shops, one of them being overwhelmingly huge. I got a few things at each shop. Then we stopped at a really full used bookstore where Jeff found a book about the Civil War that he wanted. Then we found a Barnes & Noble. Spencer is rediscovering his voracious love for reading on this trip and wanted the rest of the books in a Branden Sanderson series he started.

After we stopped for lunch in Whitefish, we visited the train station where Jeff took a few pictures and then headed back into the big mountains.

On the way across the Marias Pass to the east side of Glacier National Park, we made one more stop at the Izaak Walton Inn where you can stay in Cabooses and have beaufutl views of the mountains and trains! Ha! It was built by the railroad to bring summer tourists from the east and to house railroad workers in the winter. It is a stop on the Empire Builder Amtrak train so it would be a fun trip someday. It is close to hiking trails and of course Glacier National Park .

It was still about 80 degrees at the lodge, but by the time we got to our campsite about an hour later, it was 50 degrees and sprinkling out. During the drive, it got pretty foggy so we could not see any mountains in the distance and it felt like we were driving in the clouds.

With teamwork, we all set up the camper in record time, as our warmer clothes were inside the camper. It is so nice to have older kids to help and we were all settled in less than 10 minutes. We made it just before it started down pouring.

After the rain cell went through and it was back to sprinkling, we went to Johnson’s cafe which is at the entrance to the campground. We all had the special, buffalo meatloaf and they served the meal family style. Everything was cooked from scratch: the meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, bread, beef vegetable soup, and a vinegar-based coleslaw. We had warm huckleberry pie a la mode for dessert. It was all so delicious! We definitely recommend this place for anyone that visits the area.