Tuesday - Whitefish, Polebridge and Bowman Lake

The girls made us breakfast this morning - eggs, sausage and biscuits from scratch - and it was delicious.  We wanted to do the tourist thing a little bit and check out the town of Whitefish.  We shopped around and found a few souveniers.

Perfect!

We were wanting to visit Polebridge for the afternoon and make the drive up to Bowman Lake.  We were wary because so many people have said that the six mile drive to the lake was treacherous and we should not attempt it in our rental cars.  We checked on Tripadvisor and read mixed reviews.  Our VRBO hosts told us that we would have 8 flat tires if we attempted it.  We decided to go to Polebridge and figure it our from there.  Polebridge was a great little town.  They had a mercantile store with the best homemade pastries.  The town was run on solar power and generators.  

We asked a few folks in Polebridge about the drive up to Bowman Lake.  The cashier said that he blew a tire on the road last night.  Eek!  What to do, what to do????  Of course we decide to go for it. As we approach the bottom of the road there was a sign that said the road was closed to traffic going up and the parking lot was full.  The sign was kinda sorta on the side of the road, so we kinda sorta went around it and kept going!

About half way up, Angie radioed back that all the people that were wary of this road had obviously not grown up in small towns in the Carolinas.  I had just had the exact same thought.  It was no different than some of the backroads in Chapin!  Oh, and the parking lot was empty.

And were we so thankful we made the trip.  It was magnificent.  The wind at the lake was strong and it looked more like an ocean than a lake.  It was also very chilly!

We tried to find a spot away from the wind, without luck, to enjoy our Polebridge pastries.

We stopped back at Polebridge for dinner.  We were hoping to see some animals out on our sunset ride home.

At first this was all we got - some type of bird.  Have I mentioned that I have been desperate to see a moose while on this trip?  Two women had told us they were up at Bowman Lake that morning and had seen a mamma moose with her baby.  I was so hopeful.

Girls getting giddy on these rides!

We did see some beautiful deer and a field full of foxes on our way home.