This is my third visit to Lakeside, Montana in as many years. Located a hop, skip, and jump from Kalispell, this mountain-lake (lake-mountain?) town has got my number.

If you know me, you know I’m a borderline-OCD creature of habit. This trip has been no different. Every morning, I wake up ridiculously early to watch the sun peek up over the mountain ridge.

My friends have a stunning condo that overlooks Flathead Lake. (I’m pretty sure they rob banks for a living.) It’s tucked high up and way back in a bay, so my level of morning serenity is at (mountain) peak Zen.

First order of business? Make a literal vat of coffee for myself. My friends have a penchant for choosing an extreme dark roast. (I think the brand name is DeathSlap Coffee. Or maybe DeathPunch Coffee? I know violence is involved in their bean-roasting process.) I’ll doctor it up and go outside where — even in August — you can almost see your breath before the sun comes up.

If I time it correctly, I will have plopped down on the patio just as the birds wake up and furiously start serenading everyone on the ridge. The first time I turned on my Merlin app to decipher bird sounds, it nearly short-circuited my phone.

In the span of sixty seconds of recording, the app picked up: a house finch, a yellow warbler, a spotted towhee, a violet-green swallow, a red-breasted nuthatch, Swainson’s thrush, western wood-pewee, a warbling vireo, a mountain chickadee, a MacGillivray’s warbler, a gray catbird, and a Northern flicker. (Flicker?! I don’t even know her!)

Next order of business? Toast an English muffin and slather an obscene amount of chunky peanut butter and huckleberry jam together. Eat voraciously. If my meal doesn’t have some a huckleberry-forward menu item, I don’t want it.

Not gonna lie, I could spend my entire day on the patio (provided the retractable awning is providing shade). I’m trying my best to bond with the 13,074 hummingbirds darting to the patio’s nearby feeder.

The thing about Montanans is they have a “no hurries, no worries” mentality. And it’s infectious. I am never lazier than when I’m in this state. (Uh, it doesn’t help that there’s a weed dispensary approximately every .05 miles. I mean, I think there’s three dispensaries in this teeny Lakeside village alone.)

And there’s a shocking — truly unbelievable — amount of wealth out here. Many celebs have quietly set up shop in/near/around Flathead Lake. (I see you, Maury Povich. Hiya, Wayne Newton. Shalom, John Lithgow. Lea Thompson, hey, gurl, hey!) If I win the lottery, I’m buying real estate out here.

Glacier National Park is maybe 45 minutes away. The surreal beauty is unmatched. And even though I didn’t see any bears or elk (dammit!), I did have a run-in with some persistent wild turkeys. Oh, and there was an entire herd of big horned sheep happily munching away on the riverbank’s foliage while we were boating by. I waved. They seemed non-plussed. Fun fact — 26 sheep were released (or relocated) to the Flathead Lake area back in 2021. They’re clearly doing what sheep do best — grazing and reproducing. There were a handful of young juvenile sheep in the mix.

So, cheers to you, Big Sky Country. You’ve, once again, won my heart over with your pristine air, random wildlife sightings, and abundance of tart-astic huckleberries. If you’ll have me, I’ll be back next summer with bells on …

… and not much else.