Our motto: Always packed!

@ 2011 Lydia Hinshaw

Beautiful Bowman Lake

 BOWMAN LAKE, MT --  Here's the great thing about living in a van:  You never have to pack for a weekend trip.

 Well, we did pack some firewood and our camp chairs, which are about our only possession that normally stay outside the vehicle.

 Saturday morning, the first day of a three-day weekend, Prince Charming and I set out to get some breakfast in the village of West Glacier, just outside the National Park.

 We had no firm plans beyond blueberry pancakes and coffee.

 And from this innocent beginning evolved an overnight trip to Bowman Lake, a remote spot 35 miles away, on off-again, on-again pavement.

 We'd heard good things about Polebridge, a tiny community in the Flathead National Forest, 28 miles up from West Glacier.  The Polebridge Mercantile, an ancient store, does its own baking and has racks full of tempting treats.  We stocked up, and then decided to brave the next seven miles, to Bowman Lake, which we'd heard many good things about.  We'd also heard a lot about the road, none of it encouraging.

 Past Polebridge, pavement becomes a happy memory.  The road rises and falls, twists and turns narrowly between walls of weeds and wildflowers, their colors muted by the dust that rises and then settles with each passing vehicle.  (We need rain here, badly.)

 If you can managed to reach the Bowman Lake campground, you will not find yourself overnighting between motor homes with humming generators. There's a reason why the Park Service has no plans to improve the road.

 We didn't intend to to spend the night, but then, our home was with us, complete with food for a day or two.  As mentioned earlier, we really didn't plan to go here at all.  But here we were, the campground looked nice and the lake enticing.  We found a site between a couple of tents, paid $7.50 and hauled our camp chairs and our fresh baked goods down to the pebbled beach.

 After lunch, we both fell asleep, in spite of the noisy fun being had by families and complaining fishermen.  Later, we cooked noodles at our campsite and turned in early, chased into the Magic Bus by mosquitoes.

 Sunday morning we took a washboard of a back road to civilization, to Columbia Falls, where we bought groceries, and then on to Whitefish, where we gave the Magic Bus a much-needed washing.

 Sunday was a big day for the Magic Bus -- as it turned over 100,000 miles.  We can only claim 34,000 of them since it joined our family 27 months ago.

 It's been a good van for us, and this summer a good home too.