Double the fun at boat festival
If you liked dragon boat racing last year, there’s twice as much this weekend.
The second Montana Dragon Boat Festival hits the water Saturday and Sunday at Flathead Lake Lodge on the east side of Flathead Lake.
There will be two days of racing rather than the single day last year, with championship races slated to begin at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. And there are 93 boats registered, a big increase from 56 a year ago.
The dragon boats were a big hit with participants and spectators alike during the inaugural event in 2012, and this year’s festival promises to be even more popular.
Visitors should take note that there’s a shuttle system operating this year: Park at the junction of Montana 35 and 82 and shuttles will take people to the race site.
Traffic mayhem short-lived
If you haven’t figured it out already (by getting stuck in traffic at the north end of Kalispell) you might want to avoid driving around the U.S. 93/West Reserve Drive intersection for the next couple of weeks.
Or at least figure out a way to get around the vortex of construction at the busy intersection.
Schellinger Construction is rolling along swiftly on the $6.7 million north segment of the U.S. 93 bypass, which includes massive changes at the main intersection.
There will be some inconveniences during the big construction job, but it looks like the intersection congestion will only last around 20 days and that stretch of the bypass might be completed and open by the end of this year.
Tourists give us feedback
It was interesting (but not really surprising) to see that visitors give rave reviews to Montana.
Comments submitted by out-of-state visitors to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research were overwhelmingly positive, with 89 percent giving the state high marks.
Visitors liked everything from the scenery to the open space to microbreweries.
One of the few discordant notes came from tourists who complained about the lack of recycling opportunities and poor road conditions. Perhaps those are areas we need to improve.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.