As you can tell by the blogpost title, we'll be visiting another Montana State Park. If you've noticed there are colored stars at the end of the titles when we're visiting a state park, I'm going to explain what those mean at the end of this post.
We headed another 45-miles west on I-90 today, before turning north on US-93 for the final 75-miles. We don't have any photos of the I-90 stretch of road because quite frankly, there wasn't much to see other than the large college town of Missoula where the University of Montana is located.
TRAVEL DAY PHOTOS
|
||||||||
On US-93 we saw this odd looking bridge. It turns out to be an Animal Bridge crossing.These are also on US-29 in the Everglades, they keep the endangered Florida Panthers safe.
|
||||||||
If you thought the Rockies were only in Colorado you'd be wrong, they're here in Montana too.
|
||||||||
I'm glad we appear to be routing around them, instead of over them.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
When approaching the town of Polson, there was an overlook for Flathead Lake.
|
||||||||
We stopped at the Walmart in Polson to look for new shorts for Tricia,but all she found was a $3 Cape Cod T-shirt. Who knew they sell these in Montana?
|
||||||||
In looks like we're going to be in for a noisey visit here on Flathead Lake.
Flathead Lake State Park has four campgrounds that are spread out all along the shoreline of the 197 sq. mi. Flathead Lake. The eastern shore is known for the abundant cherry orchards, while the western shore is covered in vineyards for wine production. There are also apple, pear and plum orchards around the lake as well.
We've already made one stop on the way to the campground to pick up some local cherries at a roadside fruit stand. Not an easy task to accomplish while towing a 28' trailer.
I'm sure before we leave we'll be purchasing more cherries.
It's 17-miles to the West Shore Unit from where we're camping, but we've got all day to get there and back.
On the way back to our campsite we passed another one of those roadside fruit stands and Tricia asked that we pull over so she could replenish her supply of cherries.
When pulling back out onto the road we noticed the fence in front of the RV park, next to the fruit stand, was completely made up of used bicycles, how clever and resourceful!
We have researched and found five lists on the internet which select their choice for the Top State Park in each state. Rarely do all five lists agree on which is the top state park, which is good for us, because that means we have more parks to visit.
We quickly learned that they are not selecting the best state park campground, rather the entire experience while visiting the park.
Heck, sometimes the park they selected doesn't even have a campground!
Now, what do those colored stars represent?
1) ★ Most Beautiful (author unknown)
2) ★ Reader's Digest
3) ★ Lonely Planet
4) ★ Travel + Leisure
5) ★ Campendium (campground review website)
Occasionally, like today, you'll see a ★ which signifies the park as a National Geographic selection. While Nat Geo doesn't pick the "top park" in each state, it does recommend the top 4 or 5 in each state as submitted by each State Park's commissioners.
For that reason I don't feel the Nat Geo list is as impartial as the others, I could be wrong, but it's just too easy for the commissioners to promote the state parks they want to "advertise", instead of recommending the great parks that everyone already knows about.
Almost forgot what the ★ represents! That's a State Park we visited, even though it wasn't included on any list, that afterwards, we felt was worth the visit.
After National Parks, State Parks are our favorite place to camp, as evidenced by the fact that so far 42% of our nights have been spent in state parks.
We intend to visit as many of the Top State Parks as we can. We won't get to experience them all, but we're off to a good start. In 19 states, we've already visited "All Five" of it's top state parks.
How about our State by State Bucket Lists or Visited Campgrounds List?
If so, click on the sign below to be taken to our other website.
Would you like to be notified of new blog posts?
