Lakeshore Cabins and Campground Will Give You the "Don't-Wanna-Go Blues"

My mom has always loved Lakeshore Cabins and Campgrounds. She remembers swimming and sailing on Ennis Lake with her mother and father, my grandparents. Staying at the Lakeshore Cabins and Campground is the closest thing to being able to go back with her parents, now passed. Now she treasures the week she spends there with her husband, my stepfather, nearly every summer.

When I told her that Lakeshore was being renovated, her reaction was at best bittersweet. She didn't want it to change too much, she said. She wanted it to feel still like the Montana she knew as a young person, and which she and so many other Montanans worry is disappearing fast.

So when my significant other and I booked the Lakeshore as a long weekend getaway for us and our kids, we were almost enacting a ritual. Spending time with family on Ennis Lake is a tradition. If the Lakeshore had become too trendy, or too stylish, catered too much to tourists, and lost the essential hominess that defined it for us—we would be crestfallen.

What we found was that the Lakeshore Cabins and Campground is, in every way, thoughtfully improved without any compromise to its essential nature.

We arrived in the early afternoon and found the grounds tranquil and inviting. A carpet of thick green grass made us want to kick off our shoes and sandals and scrunch our toes into the verdant mat (and we did). The lake, as pretty and shining as a sheet of glimmering quartz, can be seen almost anywhere you stand. Later, we looked up, and right there in a tree whose branches extend over the water's edge, we watched a golden eagle for several minutes as it spied fishes swimming under the surface of the lake. We all agreed it was a heck of a welcoming committee.

First, we went to the office to check in and found a store that, in addition to any sundry necessities you might need, is also stocked with tempting treats. There was meat from the ranch next door. Over the course of our stay, we liked it so well that we would go on to try the beef sticks, the jalapeño ground hamburger, summer sausage, and some steaks. We were told by the friendly staff that almost everything sold in the store was made in Montana. In addition to the steaks, which had to travel less than a mile from where they were raised to reach our plate, there were shampoos and soaps by Rock Creek Soaps in Billings (which smelled so good that I ordered more online), and fresh roasted beans from Dark Timber Coffee right there in Ennis.

There was also, it must be pointed out, an absolutely top-notch slushy machine. My kids and I know from slushies, and we all agreed that these were good.

Lakeshore has dry cabins and cabins with attached restrooms. The former share a very clean and comfortable common shower and restroom space in the center of the campground.

Perhaps you've been unlucky enough to stay at one of those dreary, dingy RV campgrounds—you know the ones, where you might want to wear flip-flops over your shower shoes. Please rest assured that these are shiny, spotless bathhouses. In fact, they're more appealing and inviting than most hotel rooms. If you're anything like me, you'll have to tear yourself away.

Every cabin is named for an animal. We selected the Bison cabin, which had an amazing view of the water and a big fire ring with Adirondack chairs around it. Inside, we were delighted by what we found. While retaining every bit of its Montana-ness, it was also full of modern conveniences: the restroom contained another fantastic shower, while the kitchen had everything you could possibly need to cook anything short of a goose. The fire ring was lovely; we sat around it and toasted s’mores.

The thoughtfulness of the decoration went beyond mere show. Books on local history and Western interests waited on the shelves and tables for us to pick them up and start reading. On the wall, as if watching over the comfortable couch and big kitchen, hangs a bison's head. The kids named him Gruff, but I thought he was very friendly.

We immediately helped ourselves to a cutting board so we could slice off chunks of the local summer sausage, and then we went outside to play in the lake, but not before the grown-ups cracked open a beer and wine respectively.

A convenient paddle board and kayak rental service on-site made for an afternoon of tooling around the lake and reading books on the water's edge. I may have fallen asleep and taken a very relaxing nap.

That evening we collected around one of the pits, which had been pre-supplied with wood and lighter fluid, and started a roaring fire. At the edge of the firelight, as it grew dark and we began to get sleepy, a few bats flitted and darted at the caddisflies before they, too, settled down. Soon sleep tugged at the kids’ eyes, and we carried them inside and put them to bed under big piles of blankets and pillows. They looked like nothing so much as happy sausages wrapped in batter.

Anytime that I write about a hotel, by the way, I have to call out the bed. My significant other does not feel the same way I do. To her, any bed is comfortable, however stiff or pillowy. It must be her all-around good health because I certainly don't feel the same way. The difference between a good stay and a bad stay for me is razor-thin, and balances on whether the hotel in question has a good bed and a good shower. I am happy to report that the bed in the Bison cabin was perfect, so comfortable that I almost wished I hadn't slept as well as I did so that I could have lay there and appreciated how comfortable it was. The shower, by the way, was every bit as exceptional, especially when you're lathering up with Pine Creek soaps.

In the morning we woke to find animals walking or flying around the grounds. I sat up in bed and, glancing out the window, watched a little deer right outside, munching on some grass and staring back at me. We saw ducks, geese, pelicans, herons and, higher in the sky, eagles swooping and circling.

Days proceed there in a happy blur. We went into Virginia City for an old-timey family photo and the next day had lunch at Tavern 287, a local eatery with, I kid you not, the most delicious tomato soup we've ever had (the kids agree). The grown-ups snagged an hour at Willie's Distillery and tried Devil's Brigade Whiskey. We shopped at every store at Ennis that caught our eye and had a lot of fun doing it.

But always I felt the temptation to simply return to the Bison cabin and enjoy all of the comfort and relaxation of Lakeshore.

One evening, a storm gathered over the opposite shore of the lake, and we watched the darkening sky. The once-calm water developed into choppy waves that splashed the rocks while sheets of rain battered the grass. Then, all at once it stopped, and tranquility was restored to the waterside. We watched it all from inside while we sipped on hot cocoa, warm and comfortable, ignoring the HD TV mounted on the wall in favor of nature's own sublime entertainment.

I called my mom on the final night that we were staying there and reassured her in no uncertain terms.

"It's wonderful," I said. "You're still going to love it. In fact, you might love it even more than you did before."

For me, a really nice, relaxing getaway inevitably invites a sense of melancholy. Usually, it's after I get home and I start thinking about all of the stuff that I presumably went on a getaway to get away from—bills to pay, offices to sit in all day, responsibilities to mind. If you're like me, you get a sort of hangdog feeling a few days after coming back, as if in mourning for your dear departed excursion. I call it the "don't-wanna-go blues."

Well, you should consider it high praise for Lakeshore when I tell you that a bittersweet feeling set in around noon of the last day when I realized that I would have to vacate these gorgeous and oh-so-so-comfortableenvirons in less than 24 hours. Do I really have to leave, I asked myself in the same tone that my seven-year-old son laments having to leave the video arcade.

The new-and-improved Lakeshore is destined to give you the "don't-wanna-go blues," that's for sure. If the acute melancholy which is the symptom of that ailment is too much for you to bear, I have just one recommendation: book a longer stay.

Mom, if you're reading this and I haven't already called to ask, do you mind if we and the kids tag along this year? One week a year isn't enough.

Call it a new family tradition.