Whitefish, Montana—July 3, 2024

We are in Whitefish, Montana staying downtown in a cute condo. Whitefish is a picturesque little town nestled in the mountains of northwestern Montana, with Whitefish Lake, numerous hiking trails and snow skiing in the winter all near by. It’s only about 50 miles from the entrance of Glacier National Park. The town is already packed for the 4th of July, so it’s nice to be within walking distance of restaurants and shopping.

After our ordeal with Vanna in Jackson, Doug called the rental company here last week just to make sure we could park an oversized vehicle easily close to our condo. Jerod, the property manager, said “No problem. There is plenty of parking, and then he went on to name some options.” Au contraire, Jerod. When we arrived here yesterday afternoon, our situation looked bleak. Small town, tons of traffic, and no overnight parking. Not a nice surprise. So, we called the only rental car company in town and rented their last available car, a Toyota Forerunner. After that we called Mountain View RV Park and rented their last available camping spot. Actually, they were booked solid, but they had a last minute cancellation. So Vanna is hanging out several miles away at an RV park while we are enjoying downtown Whitefish.

I have been reading a fascinating book titled “Death in Yellowstone.” Yellowstone National Park has the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles on earth—more than 10,000 hydrothermal features—and it is absolutely amazing how many people are burned in the hot springs every year. In the park’s history, 22 people have actually died from either falling or jumping into one of the springs, but many more have been injured. While large animals might seem a more obvious hazard, the thermal waters are a far more frequent cause of death and injury. Most injuries are due to human error: people going off trail, not heeding warning signs or letting children run ahead without supervision. Some of them are caused by an illegal activity called “hot potting,” or soaking in the hot springs.

There is a cool old train station and museum in Whitefish that was built by the Great Northern Railroad in 1928. The Great Northern Railway was created in September 1889 and eventually stretched from Lake Superior at Duluth and Minneapolis/St. Paul west through North Dakota, Montana and Northern Idaho to Washington State at Everett and Seattle. The original Tudor revival station is still in use and is owned and preserved by the Stumptown Historical Society. An Amtrak passenger train stops at the station and pretty much has the same route as it did in 1889. If you are wondering where the name Stumptown came from, it was the original name for the town because so many trees had to be cleared for the train station and surrounding town, leaving stumps all over the place.