8-22-12 to 8-23-12
On Wednesday the 22nd we drove from Lewistown, MT to St Mary, MT which is the east entrance to Glacier National Park.
After crossing the seemingly endless expanses of Montana, we got our first look of the Rocky Mountains before we got to Browning, MT.
This time we decided to stay at a KOA campground in St Mary, MT on the east side of Glacier NP. I won’t mention how much it cost to stay here per night, but we could have stayed in the last campground for 2 weeks. We will be staying here for 3 nights to explore the area on the motorcycle.
Here is the trike, trailer and motorhome at the KOA.
Today, Thursday the 23rd,we rode the trike over and back on the “Going-to-the-Sun-Road” in Glacier National Park. This is a 50 mile road that runs from St Mary on the east to West Glacier on the west side. Glacier National park was established in 1910.
This is a view as we traveled west along St Mary Lake in the morning.
Sandy quote- “One thing about riding on the motorcycle is you can smell the fresh clean pine- scented air while you ride through the forests”. I won’t make a lot of commentary on the pictures of the mountains as it would get boring when I keep repeating how “Grand and Magnificent” these Rocky Mountains are…. not that our Blog is earth shatteringly stimulating to begin with.
If you want your children and grandchildren to see any glaciers like this, you better tell them to get on the road now. There were approximately 150 glaciers here in 1850, now only about 26 remain. These glaciers are predicted to be gone by 2030. I won’t get into the politics of “global warming” as I believe in global climate change because this area had 5,000 foot thick glaciers 12,000 years ago.
Logan Pass can get up to 80 feet of snow over winter and it may take 10 weeks to clear the road for traffic.
Now how far did you say this path goes? You could only go 1.5 miles to the Hidden Lake Lookout at Logan Pass. After that, the trail was closed because of grizzly bear sightings. The boardwalk has been installed to keep people from tramping across the fragile alpine landscape.
So far this Columbian Ground Squirrel has been the only wildlife we have seen in the park.
“Going-to-the-Sun Road” was originally completed in 1932 and was built to accommodate vehicles of that era. Vehicles over 21 feet long are prohibited. A portion of the road is undergoing major renovation. We had to wait over half an hour for the pilot car. While waiting we met a couple (Noel and Sandy) from Mountain View, Alberta, Canada, which is just north of the park. They were headed to Kalispell where they have a cabin. While Sandy took this picture of Sandy I was getting advice from Noel about driving along the east side of Flathead Lake south of Kalispell. He said it’s like driving through an area in 1950. He said they still put the hay up in round stacks rather than using a baler.
We started today’s excursion at 8:40 and it still took us until noon to get to the Lake McDonald Lodge where we had lunch. This view of the beautiful lodge is from the street side. The historic lodge was built in 1913 and at that time the only way to get to it was by boat until the “Going-To-The-Sun-Road” was completed. While inside eating lunch Sandy said this place reminded her of the movie “The Shining”.
This picture is from inside the lobby.
And this is a view from the lake side.
This view looks east on Lake McDonald with the tour boat leaving port.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
August 20th and 21st.
I must apologize for editing mistakes because we are going to try and post close to “real time” as opposed to writing, then re-reading the blog for a couple days before posting. This morning I noticed on our previous post I had us leaving on the 19th instead of the 18th.
This is the scene we woke up to on Monday morning the 20th. Kind of nice for $5 at night (with a senior pass).
Sandy and I are getting suited up for a trip to the North Unit and then north a little further, then west so we can come down the west side of the Park and National Grasslands. We ended up putting on about 230 miles.
The Visitor Center has some Roosevelt memorabilia plus an interesting 17 minute film.
This is a Fracking (a somewhat controversial method of oil drilling) site north of Belfield, ND. We probably saw 20 of these in the 67 miles from Belfield to Watford City.
The North Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park is 52 miles north of I-94. With all the road damage in the park from the spring rains we were only able to drive 7 of the 15 miles into the park.
Here is the Little Missouri River. The water in the river is more like thin mud than water. Roosevelt’s ranch, Elkhorn Ranch was along this river and about 2/3’s up from Medora to the north unit. Elkhorn Ranch is on a back road that I did not want to take the trike on and only the foundation ruins are left.
After going through the park we continued north to Watford City before turning west. Here you can really start to see the buildup of people with the temporary housing and new business going up due to the oil boom around Williston, ND.About all you see around here are pick-up trucks, water and oil tankers. Most of the housing is small camper trailers with skirts around the foundations. I think you might be able to buy a cheap camper in a few years after the boom busts.
There are also a lot of small parks with just a few trailers parked.
It seemed that everyone was adding on more units for rent.
A new truck stop under construction.
I wonder how long this will last as the last oil boom in the 80’s only made it about 5 years.
Today, Tuesday 8-21, we worked our way west taking I-40 56 miles to Glendive, MT. There, I’ve had my fill of freeways for the month, too bad we’ll probably have to get on them all too soon. Out of Glendive we picked up MT 200 and continued west to Lewiston, MT where we are spending the night.
We sure saw lots of hay bales and grain fields.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
June 29, 2012
It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of June already so we figured it was time for a short update. Our full time motor homing friends Chuck and Lorraine were in South Dakota to renew their drivers license’s and came to visit us. They arrived at Mystic Lake campground (Dakotah Meadows RV Park) in the afternoon of June 12th.
The next day Chuck and Lorraine came to our house for supper and we spent time getting caught up on what has been going on in our lives since we had last seen them in July, 2010.
Here are Chuck, Lorraine and Misty.
On Thursday Sandy and I moved our motorhome over there and spent the next week with them. Lorraine had supper for us that night as she knew that after traveling it is sometimes difficult to get into the mood to make supper. I was sure glad I didn’t have to drive more than 16 miles as we might have been too tired to eat.
On Friday night we went out to eat at the Tin Shed with our friends Pat, John and Jerry. Donna didn’t make it as she was not feeling well. Chuck and Lorraine had met them all when they were here two years ago over 4th of July 2010.
While Chuck and Lorraine were here we had storms go through every day. On Father’s day night we had a storm come thru a little after 11:00PM. The fireman came knocking on everyone’s door and suggested they to go to the storm shelter which our friends Chuck and Lorraine did. BUT, Sandy and I slept through it which is very unusual as Sandy can hear a storm when it crosses the South Dakota border. The good thing was at least we did not get soaked by the rain like everyone else. We got 1.28 inches of precipitation and the water was running 3-4 inches deep in the streets.
Sandy and Lorraine went on a couple of shopping trips while Chuck and I relaxed. They also taught us a new dice game called 10,000 which we played a lot since the weather was usually too rainy to be outside. I seemed to have the luck of catching up and passing the scoring leader on the last round of several games. Chuck thought there was something fishy going on. Chuck, all I can say is, they were your dice…..
Here we are enjoying some apple pie that they picked up at Costco while grocery shopping. It was big enough that we were able to get 2 servings each, not at the same time, of course. We might have to get a Costco membership just for the pie.
On Thursday the 21st we said good bye to Chuck and Lorraine and headed for home to get ready to leave for Staples the next day to attend the wedding of my niece Dana and her fiancée Greg.
Upon our arrival at my brother Glen’s house we found he had cleared out a spot so we could overlook the Crow Wing River that runs behind their home. This is as good as it gets. Thanks Glen and all who helped. Now, a 35 amp RV electric hookup……. No, just kidding.
Dana and Greg got married on Saturday. After the ceremony at the church we all headed to the pavilion and tents at the golf course where the reception was held.
Here is my niece Dana and her husband Greg.
And here are the proud (and glad it’s almost over) parents of the bride, Becky and Glen.
After supper a DJ played music and one of the highlights was Tuff and Brad having a rematch of the “Cotton Eye Joe” dance showdown that started 4 years ago at Tuff and Mary’s wedding. If you want to see the video, on the right side is a list of blogs we follow. Go to “Tuff and Mary” and look at the “Royal Wedding”. It was quite hilarious.
While Sandy and I were visiting my Dad, my niece, Mary, and her husband, Tuff, came by to show Dad his newest great granddaughter, Grace. He has 5 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. Not bad for only one of his three sons having had any kids.
Until next time,
Dave and Sandy
