Glacier National Park~ Polebridge & Hidden Meadow- July 14, 2012

I think we would all agree that one of the best days of our entire vacation was the day we went to Polebridge-- a tiny little speck of a town in the north-east portion of Glacier Park, not too far from the Canadian border.  Here is the road to Polebridge.

The road near Polebridge

This is the road approaching Polebridge.

Approaching Polebridge

There were signs along the road that said "Slow Down!  People breathing" and "DUST is a four letter word!"  In the distance of the above photo you can see our destination-- the Polebridge Mercantile, or just "The Merc" as it's known to the locals.

The Polebridge Mercantile- could you guess?

What is it about this place that made it so special?  Impossible to describe in words.  You have to be there.  The old west charm, the out-of-the-way-ness about it, but most of course THE BAKERY!

Yum!

Here I am, inhaling the aromas of the freshly baked bread behind me and enjoying my morning coffee, daydreaming about how we could transport the merc into our neighborhood.

Andy and Richard enjoying breakfast

We all enjoyed pastries.  I had a cinnamon roll with pecans, Andy had one with lots of frosting, and Richard's had huckleberries.  It was so good we didn't want to leave, but we weren't hungry anymore, either.  We sort of hung around until lunch, checking out the cool antiques and stuff inside while we waited.

Inside the Polebridge Mercantile

For lunch they make these sandwiches that have filling totally enclosed by their delicious bread.  It's sort of like a hot pocket, only a trillion zillion times better, baked by cute girls in Montana with love.  We took them to go, along with a loaf of their  Parmesan garlic pull-apart bread.  We had that for dinner with spaghetti.  Yes, it was so good we had Polebridge baked good for breakfast, lunch and dinner and would have taken up residence there if they'd let us.

When we reluctantly left the Polebrige merc, we headed past the ranger station, to a road that went above the valley and the town, to the Hidden Meadow trail.  Seeing how we were in the thick of bear country and there were no other people around, we though it wise to eat our delicious sandwiches in the car before our hike, rather than tempt the bears.  Yum yum yum!  They were SOOO good!

The Hidden Meadow trail was very pretty.  We passed by a lot of wildflowers and butterflies on the way to the meadow.

Not so Hidden Meadow

It was a very nice hike, despite the mosquitoes-- which there were a lot of!
We ended up back at Lake McDonald, near our campsite, to end the day.