Christmas in February

Little behind getting this post up, needless to say it’s been a busy start to the new year!  We postponed our Christmas trip to MT in order to be with our family out in NC, so this past weekend (Valentine’s) we took out holiday pilgrimage to MT.

Re-booking flights isn’t always easy, but this time around we got lucky.   You normally have to ATLEAST pay a fee to rebook a flight you cancel.  Typically it’s about $100 per ticket, but SJ called to talk to to the good peeps at Alaska Airlines and after a little shuffling of the paperwork managed to get the fee waived and get us upgraded to first class with out even having to pay a re-booking fee (I know, amazing right?!).

We certainly enjoyed our First class trip, and as luck would have Sienna was in Seattle on a week long work trip when we stopped through.  We met her for a pint at the revered Alaskan  Lodge at Sea Tac and then shared the flight from Seattle to MT.  Safely on the ground, Butch and Kathy picked us all up and then took us out to eat at the Lewis & Clark Brewery.  Don’t let the name fool you, they do brew fine barley beverage but they also make some pretty tasty food!  After dinner we went downstairs to enjoy a night cap and hear out good friend The Clintons Band do an acoustic set.  Strangely enough, brewery rules in MT only allow them to serve 3 finely brewed beverages per guest (they give you a fun little punch card to make sure you are observing the rules) and they aren’t allowed to serve after 8:30pm.   After the show, we drove the hour home and were happy to have our heads on a pillow to catch a good night sleep.

The next morning we g0t up and rolling after some coffee talk and breakfast and were out the door headed to Big Sky to see Craig & Amy.  Luckily Amy’s parents have a time share up there, but weren’t able to make it out this year so they had an extra bedroom with our name on it.  Travel was a bit slow with the icy roads through Gallatin canyon, and we finally arrived at the Moonlight Basin lodge at 12:45.  We had been looking forward to the day on the slopes, but our slow travel and late start had put us behind the gun a bit.  We met Craig & Amy for lunch, and quickly found out that they weren’t all that excited about the afternoon run either after Amy had taken a hefty spill and busted her helmet on a tree on the last run of the morning (ouch!!).  Instead, we opted to take a quick tour of the lodge, enjoy some lunch and soak up some of the winter Olympics.

After lunch, we did some more site seeing (the stone fireplace at the lodge is pretty sweet – see pic below) and ended up finding some live bluegrass to keep us company through the afternoon while the snow piled up (2′ worth!).  Back to the house, we cleaned up, made some dinner and soaked up the an evening by the fireside with the Olympics before caching in to catch some much deserved sleep.

The following morning left us cleaning up and hustling to get out of the building before the cleaning crew came through at 11am, then we boogied down to Bozeman and grabbed lunch at Mackenzie River in Belgrade before cruising back to Whitehall for a fun filled Valentines dinner!

Monday, we packed up the last of our gear and headed up to Helena to see Sienna and Erik’s newly completed house (no idea why I don’t have pics of that!), then grabbed lunch at the Macaroni Grill before saying our goodbyes and jumping the bird home to SoCal.

Tags: Big Sky, Bozeman, Christmas, Craig and Amy Moore, Helena, Montana, Sienna Meredith, Whitehall