On our way home from our three week family vacation, we asked the kids to name some of their favorite activities or days spent together and without fail almost all of them talked about our day out on flathead lake!
I remember as a 12 year old girl coming here with my family on our way to Banff. I remember taking a raft out to what felt like the middle of the lake and just being in awe at how CLEAR the water was. I remember being able to see the bottom no matter how far out we went. This lake just really impressed me as a child and so you can imagine how excited I was to be able to take my own kids here and to hopefully fill them with the same awe and amazement.
Luckily I was able to talk my wonderful husband into renting a ski boat for the day too so that we could sufficiently EXPLORE the lake even further. We both really love boating, but its just so dang expensive to buy a boat and then license and insure it, and store it, and keep it maintained etc., that we just have never bought one. But we finally decided that we really do need to get more “boating time” in our family and so the plan now is to rent a boat and or jet skii’s once or twice every summer so that we can still enjoy time out boating but without all the expense and hassle of owning one.
And after this trip, I think we are both totally sold on the idea! We ended up taking the boat out for about 4 hours (which was just about the right length of time) and we paid $400 for the boat, gas, and tube rental. We figure w would have spent that to register and insure a boat in one year.
We also had Katie and Eks drive all the way from Jackson and Yellowstone up to Flathead Lake to spend one more night with us at the condo which meant we got to have them join us on the boat as well! So that was even doubly more fun! đ Below are some pictures from our fun day out on the lake.
Harry and Ady taking a very slow first ride on the tube.
Ady ended up pretty scared and wanted off within just a few minutes.
Please forgive the weird looking coloring in several of these pictures. It was either lighten up the faces and be able to SEE the people in them, or have peoples faces so dark that you really couldn’t see much of them.
I think you can tell from the grin on Adam’s face that he was enjoying our little boat renting splurge quite a bit. ha ha!
Oh how I just love this little guy! He was so cute all squished up in his life vest!
Since Ady’s turn only lasted a few minutes. Brans got on with Harry to take a turn. These two LOVED being on the tube and probably were out for 30+ minutes. They didn’t like going too fast, but loved just being towed behind the boat.
Dawson also took a turn early on as well, but had the same reaction Ady did of utter terror and dislike! So Adam went out with him to try to help him see that it really was fun.
Don’t let the pictures fool you though. His grin is because his tube ride was OVER not because he enjoyed it. He had the look of sheer fright on his face the moment I put the boat in gear.
The Andersons ended up coming into town about an hour after we had rented the boat and so we were able to just drive the boat over to a little dock across the street from our condo to pick them up. I ended up going back to the condo with Katie and Eks so that they could change into their swimsuits and figured since I was there that I would make up some sandwiches for lunch. Then we all headed back to the boat to enjoy some more time out on the lake.
We sure do love these friends! Here we have little Eks, Big Eks, Katie, and Aria.
The older kids took the front bough. From left to right: Chloe, Dawson, Ady, Brans, & Harry.
We ended up going out to some “islands” out in the middle of the lake to find a good spot to stop for our picnic lunch.
We saw some beautiful views as we cascaded across the lake.
Here we are showing the kids that you can see down really far into the water.
All the little kids really enjoyed taking turns driving with Uncle Ad.
Looking at the rocks under the water.
In these next two pictures you can see the underwater rocks and cliffs.
After a little exploring we were finally able to find a nice spot to stop and everyone had fun jumping off the back of the boat and then swimming over to a little rock island.
Then Adam kicked the boat into high speed and we decided to take a drive over to Wild Horse Island State Park where we hoped to eat our lunch. Unfortunately it ended up being pretty packed full of boats and so we just sort of stopped the boat in a calm area of water and sat and eat for a minute.
Then Adam, Eks, and Chloe took turns out on the tubes. I loved getting a little crazy with Adam and taking him outside the wake into some pretty rough water where he biffed it pretty good. He loves that kind of thing tough.
For Chloe we took things really easy.
It sure was a WONDERFUL day out on the lake! Katie commented how being out on the water just FILLS her and makes her so happy and I couldn’t agree more. There is just something awesome about being out in the sun on a boat in the water that is really magical. We were so glad to been able to rent the boat for the day and especially to have been able to have our amazing friends join us! đ We sure do love them!
