Last Day in Montana

July 21, 2014

A good night's sleep and up at 7:30a without an alarm. I love not having that obnoxious noise wake me up. We finished our packing and went down for breakfast late. Jennifer was kind enough to give us a little leeway in checking out as we loaded our bags, checked our email, printed our boarding passes, and added some pictures to our Facebook page.

It's a short 15 mile drive to Columbia Falls from West Glacier but it puts us lots closer to the airport for our 6am flight. Every little bit helps so we don't have to get up earlier than 4am to get to Kalispell Airport. We had made purchases that had to be shipped so we found the UPS store in Columbia Falls attached to the Super 1 Food Mart.

Our reservations were at the Glacier Inn in Columbia Falls so we thought we'd let them know we were in town. Much to our surprise, the room was already cleaned (1:00p) and they let us check in and camp out for the afternoon until dinner time. A nice clean room but nothing to rave about. We decided to have dinner at the Back Room where they specialize in ribs and chicken. Something we haven't had on this trip so we're happy to try it.

The Night Owl & The Back Room are actually two different restaurants in one. You can enter both through the front or go to just the Back Room through the left side of the building.  We ate at the Back Room and ordered the 1 lb. of BBQ Country Ribs that came with baked beans, cole slaw, red potatoes, and fry bread. We shared this meal and left fully satisfied again with no room for dessert. But wait! There's a Take-Away entrance and they have blueberry pie in the case! Not huckleberry but the next best thing so we took one piece to go and will share it just before bed at 8p. Hopefully we'll fall asleep quickly and get close to 8 hours before the 4am bell.

Tomorrow morning will be our 6am flight (2.5 hours) to Minneapolis with a 49 minute layover and the final leg to Tampa lasting 3 hours. It won't be pretty but we'll be up at 4a and out the door by 4:30a so we can park the rental car and drop the keys before heading to the gate.

It's always good to get home even though the weather is so much more oppressive with the heat and humidity. Family is the reason that home is called "home" and I can't wait to be back there! Thanks for following this blog...until next year's adventure.