It's a party!

May your birthday be filled with

bears and bison,

elk and moose,

bighorns and pronghorns,

and every furry thing your heart desires!!

With love and best wishes from all of your blog followers!

Great Falls, Montana

Saturday, Sept. 11 - This morning we left our  remaining travel buddies, Marilyn and Collins, as well as Jerry and Judy, and headed on our own toward Yellowstone.  Marilyn made me a lemon pie for my birthday next Tuesday, and they gave me a puzzle of Glacier National Park as a birthday present.  Judy and Jerry presented us with some homegrown honey from the ranch, so we were sent off on our own in grand style.  We had driven through Babb, Montana, the other day but I didn't get a picture, so Eric, this one is for you.

Just so you know, there really is a Babb, Montana.  We drove about 175 miles today, across the Big Sky Country of Montana.  We had always heard it called that, and we were excited to get to see it.  And it certainly is Big Sky Country.  You can see for miles and miles!

The Rockies were a constant companion on the west side of us, and they are always breath-taking.  It was a nice, sunny day for a change -- a little windy, but we could live with that.  Although last night the wind really blew hard all night long, and we had to pull our slides in just so the vinyl covers over them would quit flapping.

We saw lots of cattle (some right beside the road), and horses.  But we also saw a small herd of antelope, maybe a dozen.  One place we passed two fenced pens of animals, and I said to Joe, "is that elk"?  He said, "no, they're camels."  (I really thought I could tell the difference.)  It turned out that we were looking at two different pens, and this ranch had both camels and elk.  We saw some llama too,

and a grouse right beside the road. 

We have a new repair issue to the RV, so we are heading to Great Falls to find an RV supply store.  I got locked in the bathroom yesterday morning, and had to wake Joe up to open the door because the knob wouldn't turn from the inside.  About midnight last night, the same thing happened to Joe, and I had to get up to let him out.  And then today, when we stopped for lunch, he couldn't get in to the bathroom.  He had to find a screwdriver to get the door open.  So as soon as we got checked into the campground, which is very nice, we headed out to the RV store.  We found what we needed, and Joe switched out the doorknob on the bathroom door so we don't have to be rescued any more.  We found an Albertson's on our way back to the campground, so we restocked on groceries too. 

We know we are missing exciting things at home.  Cody scored his first high-school extra-point in his football game this week, and Kaylee scored her first goal today in her first soccer game of the season.  We hate missing out on these exciting events, but Yellowstone is just ahead, then we'll see how long it takes us to get home.

Glacier National Park - Going to the Sun Road

Friday, Sept. 10 - Joe and I were planning on driving the "Going to the Sun Road" today, so we took off by ourselves.  Collins, Marilyn, Judy and Jerry drove part-way, to Logan Pass, because they had all been here before, but since it was our first time, we were going to drive it both ways.  It's 53 miles to Apgar, the west entrance, and it was just a spectacular drive -- as pretty as any we have been on during this trip.  The great views began as soon as we started out, and continued the whole way, although the terrain changed dramatically from high rocky mountains to hemlock-cedar forests.

One mountain here is called a triple divide peak -- which forms part of the Continental Divide.  Water from this peak flows in three different directions -- Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Out in St. Mary's Lake is a tiny island, called Wild Goose Island, the only island on the uninterrupted surface of this lake.

Jackson Glacier is one of the 25+ glaciers in the park, and one of the few you can view from the road.  Most of the glaciers here have receded to the point that they are about to be reclassified as snow fields, a result of the global warming that has been going on for the last 10-12,000 years.

Waterfalls were abundant throughout this drive, from small trickles to gushers, some far away on distant mountains, and some right beside the road we were driving on.

It rained off and on the whole morning, and even sleeted on us for a while, and clouds came in and around the mountains continually.  The temperature got down to 38 degrees at one point.  As we headed up Logan Pass, we encountered heavy fog on our road.

The mountain views were continually changing, and one minute they would be clouded in, and the next minute the clouds would blow out and we could see. You can see in this next picture how this cloud was moving right in to the mountain wall (and our road).

When we topped Logan's Pass (elevation 6,646 - the pinnacle of this drive) we speeded up, deciding to stop on the way back at the viewpoints on this side.  We drove alongside Lake McDonald as we neared the West Glacier entrance.

We exited the park and drove over to Whitefish to refill prescriptions and have lunch.  We did see one deer on this part of the drive, but we had not seen any wildlife in the park.  When we came back into the park, we stopped at Lake McDonald Lodge.  All these lodges have lovely, warm fireplaces with roaring fires right now, which was very welcome.

Joe is waving from the back patio, which goes right down to Lake McDonald.  The red buses were coming in here, and we met several of them on the drive, as well as several antique cars that were out for a drive.  We left there and took a little side road (just to see where it went).

The forest is really thick here, and lush, with lots of undergrowth. 

We stopped by the McDonald Falls and walked across the people/horse bridge (there was a sign that said horses have the right of way, and no person is allowed on the bridge if horses are crossing).

Our next stop was at the Trail of the Cedars, and we walked the 3/4 mile boardwalk among the cedars.  Some of these trees are huge, and we took a picture of the red cedar.

 

 

One of the trees was uprooted and the dirt had fallen out from the roots, so we could really see how extensive a root system they have.  But it is so wet here that the roots don't grow deep, so they are sometimes blown over by the strong winds.  The second picture below shows the red showing through the bark of this red cedar tree.

 

We came upon one big tree that had been hollowed out.  After checking it out for residents (varmints) inside, Joe climbed inside.

Just before we got back to the parking lot, we came upon Avalanche Creek, and I thought I should stick my toe in it, since it had been a while since I had done that.  Unfortunately, my buddy Mazie was not with me to share this.

We tried to make all the stops we had passed by in the morning, and there were spectacular views all along.  I would recommend this drive to anyone coming to this area.

 

This waterfall below is called Birdwoman Falls, and it's just beneath the Garden Wall.  

We had to stop for road construction a few times, but the views were so beautiful that we didn't mind having a few extra minutes just to look.  It didn't rain on our return trip, and most of the clouds had cleared so we got to see things that had been obscured on the morning drive.  And just about 2 miles from camp, Joe spotted two huge bull elk that we got to watch for several minutes.

We weren't close enough for their racks to really show up, but they were probably the biggest racks we had ever seen.  A small muley, buck, ran over toward the elk, then pulled up short.  The elk were bugling, so we never did figure out what that deer was thinking, but it ran toward the elk, then on past.  The wind was blowing about 50 mph by now, and it was really cold, but we stood outside the car and watched them for 15 minutes or so.  We never saw any bear, or any other wildlife, but these 2 elk were beautiful.  This turned out to be a 10-hour day for us, and we were beat when we got back to camp.

From Waterton to Glacier National Park

Thursday, Sept. 9 - Joe and I had breakfast in town this morning, then drove up to the Prince of Wales Hotel to look around before we left the area.

Then we broke camp and headed to Glacier National Park, in the rain, of course.

Seeing the border crossing into the U.S. was a welcome sight, and this time we are back in the states for good this trip (we have crossed in and out a couple of times during our trip).  We got through the border guards without incident -- they just cut my tomatoes in two.  They took Judy's and Marilyn's tomatoes and green onions.  But we made it across safely.

It was only about an hour and a half drive, and we had to watch the highway for range cattle that were roaming freely along the roadside.  We got checked in at the St. Mary's campground at Glacier National Park.    St. Mary's Lake is right along the road in and it is very pretty.

After we got settled, we drove over to Many Glaciers, to the hotel there, and had a drink (I had hot chocolate, it is still cold and rainy).  The red buses shuttle between Glacier and Waterton, and between the East and West sides of Glacier Nat'l Park, so we saw them often.

On nice days, they can open the top for the great views.  Inside the lodge is a lovely lobby with a wonderful fireplace.

This hotel is right on Lake Sherburne, and there were wonderful views right off the back terrace.

They were getting the dining room set up for the evening, and it was very elegant looking.

We went for drinks inthe lounge, then returned to the campground.

The campground was not as nice as the Waterton Townsite Campground, it was more like a provincial park.  We did not have any hook-ups and they would only allow the generators to run at certain times (8:00 - 10:00 a.m.; 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m.; 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.) and they enforced that rule.  But we did have nice views from the campsite.