As the road reached its peak on the mountain, we entered Montana.
Once again, the states surprise you with their relatively distinct characteristics. The boundaries aren't as arbitrary as you might think. Going from Idaho to Montana the landscape is quite suddenly greener and (at least this part) feels a little more touristy - probably because it's a popular route up to Glacier National Park, where we're headed.
As we continued driving we started following a new river, the Flathead River. This too is a gorgeous river, wide, clear, not too cold, with dramatic canyons other interesting features all along it. I was tempted to pull over and take a swim nearly around every turn. My favorite scene is poorly captured by this photo, but a train was running along the ridge above the river:
We hadn't been paying attention to the maps for a while when suddenly we reached the crest of a hill and a huge lake appeared before of us. Almost looked like the ocean - this turned out to be Flathead Lake, the largest natural fresh water lake West of the Mississippi River in the U.S.
Finally we arrived in Hungry Horse, Montana, where we were able to secure a campsite right along the river for the night.
This will probably be our base as we explore Glacier National Park tomorrow - it's only about 20 miles away.
Random Fact of the Day: During some of the more desolate stretches of our drive today not a single AM or FM radio station was in range.