Monday, June 24, 2024

First Day Exploring the Park

Our temperature range today is 42-61.  The wind melted a lot of snow off the mountains yesterday, but there is still some out there, especially on the north side.  Wednesday, we are supposed to hit 70 degrees, but Thursday our high is forecast at 52, with a low Thursday morning of 39, and rain.

Fed, fueled, windows washed, ice in the cooler, and at 10:30 we are ready to go.  We paid $4.49 for fuel in St. Mary’s  for the jeep, but only $4.04 in West Glacier.  (He only took 3 gallons, but he likes to keep the tank full on our drives). 

We entered the park free with our senior pass and stopped at the visitor center. Then we headed on in. We’re a bit disappointed that the only road to drive from our entrance is the Road to the Sun. We were hoping for side roads to drive, especially dirt roads.  We had not planned on driving the Road to the Sun today, at least not all of it, but that's what we ended up doing since there were no side roads.  

The road starts out following the very pretty St. Mary Lake.  It even has a boat ramp, and we saw a tour boat on it later.

At this lower elevation, we saw lots of pretty wildflowers.  My picture doesn't do this justice, but they were bright blue and orange.

Although yesterday's sun and wind melted a lot of the snow on the mountains, there is still a lot out there.  One of the mountains further back in this range seemed to be completely snow-covered.

 

This became the Day of Waterfalls.  We saw more waterfalls today than we had ever seen in one day before.  With the warmer temperature and the recent snow, practically every mountain had a waterfall of melting snow pouring off of it.  Some were far away but still easy enough to see, some were really close to the road, some were so close it kept the road wet.  

There were also beautiful valleys in the canyons here.  

Joe is loving it here.

I caught sight of one waterfall right beside me just as we passed it, so Joe turned around twice and we came back and got a picture. 

 Just as we left it with the photo, I saw another waterfall that he didn’t see, so we turned around again twice (same places)  and we got picture of that one.

This rock wall is just dripping with water.  I had my window down and got splashed in one spot.

 There’s two tunnels on this road, lots and lots of pull offs. 

There was another visitor center at Logan’s Pass. Lots of snow still on the ground, even at our elevation. I got out here to use the restroom and Joe took a picture of me by the snow.  Elevation of 6,656.

We saw a few areas that we thought could have glaciers, but we don’t know for sure,  There is supposed to be 25 glaciers in the park but only one you can see from the road.  We did see this one on the way back.  All the glaciers here have receded a lot in the last decade.

 You can drive the Road to the Sun from the east side at any time, but to come back from the west side between the hours of 10 and 3, you have to make a reservation for a timeslot.  There is more traffic from the west side, and they try to control the number of cars between those busy hours.  Originally, we thought we would just go partway to Logan‘s Pass and turn around, but then we decided we would go all the way out on the west side, have lunch, and that should bring us back after 3:00 so we shouldn’t have any problem with needing reservations. Traffic was heavy, especially the further west we got.

This drive is not for the faint of heart.  Joe got to exercise his excellent driving skills today.  Not only is the road crooked and narrow, there are often rock overhangs right above us.

We got to West Glacier about 2:30, had lunch and then headed back about 3:20 -- shortly after the timeframe that you needed a reservation.  It’s it was a beautiful day for this drive -- sunny, temperatures in the mid 60s 

The west end of the lake has beautiful Lake McDonald that we drove next to for several miles.  It is as pretty as Saint Mary Lake on the east end.  

Before we reached Lake McDonald, we drove alongside a roaring river for quite a while.  It was beautiful, bouncing over rocks, clear water.  We finally stopped at a pull-off named Red Rock and walked around a little.  This was my favorite spot.

On our return trip, we stopped at Cascading Falls. That’s a very beautiful strip of falls, one after another. We didn’t walk down to the second viewpoint because it looked like a pretty hard to walk back up.  I'm sure we would have gotten a better view.

It was going on 5:00 before we ever saw any wildlife.  But we saw 3 bighorn rams from a pretty close range and they stayed right there. One of them got up and then laid down again, but they posed for us until we just finally left.  This was right across from a pull-off, and there were tons of people watching them but it didn't bother them one bit.  

Also, the Gunsight Trail was another spot we missed heading west.  I think I figured out the "gunsight" is on the right side, where the 2 little points stick up.

And last but not least is Wild Goose Island.  This is actually one of the early highlights of this drive  but there were too many cars in the way on our way west, so we didn't stop.  It is a tiny speck of land that dots the waters of St. Mary Lake.  The island rises only 14 feet from the surface of water yet is in the center of one of the most often photographed locations along the Going to the Sun Road. The story goes that when warriors arrived on the island, they found not a man and a woman, but two lovely geese walking among the small trees and bracken.  At the sight of the warriors, the two geese stroked their necks together lovingly and then flew away, never to return.  

I have literally worked all day trying to get this blog to post.  I have redone it 2 1/2 times, so I am done!!  If it doesn't make sense, just ignore it.

 Sunday, June 23, 2024

Happy 11th birthday to our grandson, Andrew Thomas Froeschke.

After fueling, we were on the road to Glacier National Park by 10 AM. We started out on Interstate 15 but then went off on US 89 to St. Mary, right outside one of the entrances to the Park.  We’re seeing snow-covered mountains in the distance and lots of planted fields on both sides of the road. We passed the brightest yellow field I’ve ever seen. Don’t know if it’s mustard or canola or something else. 

As we entered the little town of Fairfield, we were met with double rows of grain elevators, and as we left the town, maybe two blocks later, there was another row. They are irrigating the fields here, although it rained several times while we were in Great Falls.  These grain fields here are huge.

We just passed a "crosswinds" sign. Joe said the closer we get to Glacier National Park, the harder the wind is blowing and with going up and down the hills, he’s guessing we’re getting about 2 miles to the gallon. He has fought the wind all day, and it is rough.  Gusts up to about 40 mph, and they are pretty constant.  There are lots of cattle being pastured in Montana.  I don't know what they do with them in the winter, but now that it's summer, they dot the landscape.  There are also a lot of horses up here.  

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This is a pretty drive, and we have been in view of snow-covered mountains all day.  I assume this is some of the snow they got last week.  I don't know if there is always snow on these mountains, but one area looks like it could be a glacier.

We are now on Indian Reservation, and just outside of Browning. Joe looked out his side and he saw 3 teepees. I looked out my side and I had a herd of buffalo. Way cool.

We got to the park about 1:00 so it was a 3 hour drive.  It is very, very windy but the temperature is 64°. Our campsite is a premium one and we paid dearly, but we have a view of the mountains and the Park just right out our front windshield, with Lower St. Mary Lake just to the right.  The girl at the office said she saw 6 bears last week at one of the other entrances, so we have high hopes..

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This is the view out the front windshield of our campsite.   We had reserved 5 nights but were able to extend to 7 upon check-in.  But it doesn't look like there are that many roads through the park, so we may have over-extended ourselves.

After Joe's hard work on the ladder yesterday getting the bugs off the big, front windshield, his knees are really bothering him today and he can hardly walk.  My help washing below the windshield made my arm and shoulder sore and it has been sore ever since I fell.  We are both a mess.  But I think this week will be mostly driving the Jeep, which comes with its own set of issues, but we are probably not doing any hiking.

There is a restaurant "world famous" on-site, so we had lunch/dinner there.  Their fried chicken Sunday special, $22/person.  We have not explored the little town to see what our options are here.  We were low on propane, and Joe had wanted to fill up in Great Falls -- they had it on-site -- but they didn't have anyone to fill us on the weekend, and Joe didn't want to "de-camp" before we were leaving, so we didn't get that taken care of.  After we checked in here, on the way to our campsite, Joe spotted a propane tank so we called back to the office and they sent someone out.  $6.00/gallon!

After our meal, we finished setting up, and were in for the night.  The wind continued to pound the RV, sounding like thunder.  That went on until about 3:00 a.m., then it settled into just a strong breeze.  

We were afraid we weren't going to have internet or phone signal here, but we have both so that worked out.  We are up on top of a hill, that may have helped with those issues.  We are looking forward to finding some wildlife here!

 Saturday, June 22, 2024

Last Day in Great Falls

We have really enjoyed our week-long stay in Great Falls. We had some much-needed downtime early in the week, but we also saw and did a lot of things. Great Falls is a pretty little town, not too big, easy enough to get around in, and follows the pretty Missouri River.  And ------ WE SAW A BEAR!  We don’t think it was a grizzly, although it was brown. Joe suggested it was a new breed of polar bear, brown instead of white, and known only to be in this area.  Not long after he said that, we went by a building with a polar bear on the roof.  I thought I would get a photo on our way back, but we didn't come back that way.

We got our chores done, but it took all day.  Got the mud from our Bear day washed off the Jeep, picked up a few groceries, got the laundry done, and finally got the bugs washed off the windshield.  We finished that about 7:00 p.m.  Our laundry run took up most of our time, and the day got away from us.  I had hoped to do laundry at the campground, but those machines (4) were all busy, so Joe did a search on the GPS and we headed to it.  Well, the GPS took us some crazy way, across the river, and across town.  We ended up in some residential area and never did see a building that looked like a business, much less a laundromat.  Joe was about ready to go knock on a door and see if they did laundry for people.  Anyhow, I googled it again and found the one we went to last week.  We just made a big circle around town, but we got it done.  One the way back to the RV, I took my only picture of the day -- the white geese we have been seeing.  I enlarged it so it's a little fuzzy.  We don't know if these are snow geese or something else, but we have seen them a few times.

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Joe lost his sense of direction here so that complicated things a bit.  Any town that has a river by it or through it seems to be difficult to drive through because everything ends at the river.  Our whole time here, Joe has been confused about what direction we are headed, even if we are out of town.  I hope that improves as we head out to Glacier National Park.

I made a list of what we needed to do here, both chores and sights to see, and we checked them all off.  The only thing I didn't finish was the trail of the buffalo statues.  I really wanted to chase more of them down, but we ran out of time.  If we ever come through here again, that will be something to do. Oh, and of course, there was another road Joe wanted to drive.

 It is 64 here now (8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning), headed to a high of 90, so it's definitely time to leave.  We have about 150 miles to go to Glacier, where it is currently 55, headed to 65 today, 60 tomorrow.  Thursday's forecasted high is 54, then 52 Friday.  That should be nice.  And Paul Croxton has requested that all the wildlife be ready to show themselves to us, so we are excited for this next stop.

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 Friday, June 21, 2024

Charles M. Russell Museum

We haven’t recovered from yesterday’s hard day, so we took it easy this morning. But eventually we got our day started, and toured the Charles Russell Museum. I have always liked his work, his paintings are breath-taking, and I especially like the bronzes, of which there were several on display. I took pictures of both but photos just don’t do them justice.  And I did not know that he used all mediums -- bronze, oil, watercolor, and pen and ink.  There were also some items in his studio that he whittled.  He was a very talented man!

The grounds outside of the Museum are very nice, park-like, with several huge animal statues in front.  We love these.  I didn't take a picture of all of them, but these were some of our favorites (especially the bears).  We are hoping to see these in real life in the next few days.

The same with his paintings.  I didn't take pictures of all of them, but these were some of our favorites.  The photos don't do justice to the paintings or the bronzes.

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 Although not a Charlie Russell, this was Joe's favorite.

There were paintings and drawings by other artists on display, as well and exhibits and artifacts of that time period.

We really liked this display of carriages.  We thought Collins could expand his talents in this direction after he finishes all of his woodwork on construction equipment.

There were two buffalo artworks here, and the plaque on one stated that this project that been started by this Museum.  So I looked that up.

"For the Plains Indians of Montana, the buffalo was more than a food source; it was sacred. Many since have come to regard the animal as an icon of the West, including cowboy artist Charlie Russell, who regularly depicted bison in his works and even adopted a buffalo skull as his insignia. For these reasons, in 2003, the C.M. Russell Museum launched the Buffalo Hunt Project—a celebration of art, history, and culture. More than two dozen fiberglass bison were brought to life by local artists to create unique three- dimensional artworks.

To this day, most of the Buffalo Hunt Project sculptures (including the following) can be found throughout Great Falls, each one serving as a reminder of our Western heritage and of the artistic talents that can be found beneath the Big Sky."

I love these kinds of things, and still hope to chase them all down.  But here are the two at the Museum.

 This the other side of Pishkun.  I don't know why the color is so different (I guess the light changed when I moved around).  But anyway, this depicts the buffalo jump.  I thought it was awesome.

His home and studio were also on the grounds.  The wood cabin was his studio.

This was his home, a very nice residence for the time which was restored a few years ago.  They tried to match everything as best they could.  There was a buffet with drawers to you could pull out and see the various floor coverings and wallpapers that had been used over the years.  

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We probably spent about 2 hours here.  My knee was so bad that I could hardly walk to the Jeep. I did get a picture of another one of the buffalo around town.  That's still on our to-do list (at least my to-do list, and Joe is my driver.)

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We went out for pizza tonight and Joe thought we deserved dessert, so we risked ordering something we were unfamiliar with -- a slice of huckleberry cheesecake.

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It was almost too pretty to eat, but it was delicious.  

Another day in the books.  Tomorrow.will be our "get ready to travel" day so we have some work to do.  The temperature was 79 today, with a chance of thunderstorms tonight.  Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 82, but Sunday is forecast at 92, so it is definitely time to move on.  Glacier National Park is forecast at 66 the next two days, and 60 on Monday.  Nanner nanner!!!

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