What Is With This Weather?

For several weekends now I have been trying to travel by roadways here in Montana from one city -- Great Falls -- to another -- Kalispell.



The first reason for not accomplishing my goal was SNOW! Go figure. It is after all in the middle of winter and I do find myself watching more and more of the weather channel for parts of this continent where I have friends and relatives nesting. Again, what is with this weather?!



Now my area is in the upper 40's, but the second reason for not accomplishing my goal or travel destination is WIND! After going over half the distance (almost 2 hours of driving one way), in winds up to 50 mph, my van reached a town called Browning, MT. The winds picked up to 70+ mph and the driver's door was literally moving in and out (like it was breathing) because the wind was so bad.



Then I get to my turn off for the last leg of the journey to find a Montana Department of Roads utility truck barricading the road -- Highway 2. We were defeated and by then the children in the middle and back seats were calling for lunch. So a turn around was made and travel back 100 miles down the road found us at Shelby, Montana in a Chinese restaurant as an alternate adventure.



The food was good and everyone satisfied to make the additional 85 miles home to Great Falls, Montana.



Phone calls have been made and relatives have been located in Kalispell since I have arrived home. They know we made an effort and I hope they know we are thinking about them. Another endeavor will be made in the future for this goal of visiting in Kalispell, but now I know to not even start if SNOW and now high WINDS are mentioned in the weather forecast.



Hope you like the pictures in this posting. They are from our local paper submissions from readers with the topic of Montana in Winter. I picked these, because I thought they were the best!