Rendezvous Revisited... A Great Montana Adventure!

Almost there! The woods opened up into a lovely expanse of green........

Avalanche lake was just beautiful. It's still waters reflected the surrounding mountains perfectly, and there was plenty of driftwood on the side to make the perfect place to rest and enjoy it.....

Steve was dreaming about turning this lovely mountainside into a spectacularly terraced garden. After all, Mother Nature had already started it.....

All sorts of waterfalls came down the sides of the mountiain to fill the lake...

The water was crystal clear......

A zoom shot of one of the waterfalls......

I made a new friend and he really seemed to like me. He sat on my hand and arm for the longest time....

He even posed for a close up.....

Steve came well prepared with wine and cheese for our rest....

We got back to the car pleasantly tired and moved on to see a couple other things in the park that involved a bit less exertion. This was another wonderful creek... McDonald creek.... with a scenic overlook.

This message was edited Jun 24, 2010 2:22 PM

Don't the rocks look like an absolutely wonderful place to lay in the sun and enjoy the scenery?

It was such a thrill to have our own personal tour guides! I could say thank you over and over to Steve and Karen, and it would still not be enough....

Our last stop in Glacier was McDonald Lake and lodge. I think that Steve was just pretending to take a picture here and was really washing his boots off after the hike.....

The lake was another breathtaking vista....

This was looking the other direction down the lake....

There was a lot to see in the lodge itself as well.....

It was time to head back to the house, and as we still hadn't had a chance to walk through the garden which of course we were DYING to do after seeing such beauty out every window, Steve told us to take an unguided tour while he and Karen got things ready to start the dinner process.

All of us loved these flowers, but both Steve and Karen stressed that they were invasive. Nobody could come up with the name off of the top of their heads, but they were really really cool in the shade garden!

McKenzie is an adorable little dog, and I think that she enjoyed having Gigit and Henri visit. I was very tempted to smuggle her out in my bag when we left! Here she is pointing out something of note in the garden for us.....

Henri was not any surer what to make of the chickens than Gigit had been....

McKenzie tried to fill him in.....

Gwen's group arrived to enjoy the gardens before dinner as well.....

Persicaria . . .

The vista out the front window was lovely, with Steve's bird tree as a focal point. We were lucky enough to get to see a Downy woodpecker enjoying the suet one morning. Steve says that there are usually lots of visitors, but because he had been gone for a month, the feeders had gone empty and Karen had not had time to fill them so the birds were elsewhere. Let me tell you...they are about 20 feet up in the air... I wouldn't have filled them myself even if I wasn't too busy trying to get the garden looking wonderful!

Carey was put in charge of building the fire, and he did an excellent job!

I thought those leaves looked familiar, but I have only grown the varieties with the colorful leaves, and they have never bloomed for me. Thanks for solving the mystery! I am still thinking that in my back woods area they would be awfully nice....

Steve and Karen went to a lot of effort to put together a nummy main course of batter fried cod and seafood soup (sorry guys, not much of a seafood fan so I can't for the life of me remember the "technical" name of the soup).

The living room was a wonderful place to relax and enjoy looking out over the beautiful garden and into the valley beyond.... Gwen and Jim took the opportunity to enjoy what those of us who stayed at the house had been spoiled with two mornings in a row.

Gwen humorously speculated if there were more dogs or people at the party..... they had brought three with their group as well. Wrangell was wondering the same thing... and wanted to know why no one though to bring a cat or two...

It was a wonderful evening, and I would have loved to spend more time around the fire because the company was so good. Unfortunately, the long day had taken it's toll and when the sun went down, so did Mom and I.

Although I had cheated and taken a lovely walk through the garden with Karen on Saturday night, Sunday morning it was time for our "official" garden tour. You would not believe how much work and creative energies have gone into their beautiful yard. Steve spent a lot of time lamenting what was NOT there after the horrible winter last year, while all we could do was Ooohhh and Aaahhh over what was there. The combination of their garden styles has made Steve and Karen's garden one to truely drool over.


McKenzie explained to Gigit the rules of trying to stay on the path....

Henri was scoping out the site of the future greenhouse/lounge area that Steve is planing...

This is the full location. Karen said that in years past they had had a "waterfall" coming down the rocks there with blue and white annual flowers, and it was pretty easy to imagine how lovely that would have been.

Beautiful three times over anything I've ever seen. WoW!

Steve showing off the annual bed that is left mostly empty of perennials so Karen can change it each year as the mood dictates....

Wow doesn't even describe it when you see it in person Willow! There is fabulous rockwork everywhere...all of the gardens are surrounded with a flagstone type edge and the talent Steve has for hardscape is unbelievable.

This is the house from the back side... you can see the sunroom that overlooks their world and out into the valley beyond.

Wrangell walked with us as well, and although it was not catmint, the mint seemed to smell pretty good to her...

In the lower "wild" area that they have left treed and natural, their property butts up to acerage that houses a herd of elk. We were lucky enough to find a cow elk hanging with the real cows fairly close to the fence....

She was also curious, and came over to see who had come to visit her....

She was beautiful....

She sniffed me a bit... I am pretty sure that she was looking for food.....

I sooooo wished I had had an apple or carrot or something. She forgave me though, and my new friend settled for nose scritches instead.

We had to stop playing with the elk after Henri decided to squeeze through the fence and visit her as well. He didn't know any different, but the elk immediately tried to stomp him and it was a few moments of panic while Steve diverted the elk's attention and I dragged poor Henri back through the fence by the tail. Needless to say, he got carried until we moved away from the area!