Last weekend Jim and I headed to Kalispell and the Flathead Valley in Montana. It’s not that far from home, and we’d never been. Let me show you a few of the settings that may find their way into my NaNo novel during November. Click on any of these photos to enlarge them.
This is in Kootenai Falls Park. The rock formations are absolutely stupendous! We went for a hike along the river here, what we call the Kootenay River in Canada rather than Kootenai. We’d love to spend more time on some of the other trails in this park sometime.
This ranch country is between Libby and Kalispell. The hills were covered in yellowing larch. Really pretty.
Loon Lake also lies between Libby and Kalispell. We stopped and stretched here.
We had no idea the Flathead Valley surrounding Kalispell was…well, FLAT! it reminded us a lot of home with the farms and ranches, though this valley is wider than ours. Glacier National Park borders the valley to the east. We didn’t make it up there.
We hadn’t done our homework regarding Flathead Lake all that well, so we were shocked to discover cherry orchards along the east shore. It sure isn’t cherry climate on the Canadian end of that valley! Apparently they grow grapes along the west shore, where we didn’t go.
I’ll be printing out a few of these photos for my bulletin board so I can visualize the settings as I write. Maybe we’ll need to plan another trip in spring when I’m revising, to make sure I got the details right!
