Sunday, June 30, 2024
From St. Mary to Columbia Falls
Today was moving-on day, and Joe had to hook us up in the rain. We got on the road just after 10:00. Clouds hung below the top of the mountains and fog filled the canyons.
Even though we paid a premium rate of $66 a night (weekly rate with discounts) this was not the greatest campground. The road up the hill to our site was full of potholes. Our campsite was very small, no extra room either in front and back or on the sides, the picnic table was so close to the motorhome that you really couldn’t sit at it, and there was no room to move it, their Wi-Fi was only good at the laundromat and the office, and they didn’t keep the grass cut as much as they should have. But it worked for the week and now we are off to the other side of the mountain. One of my pet peeves with campgrounds is that they all say they have WiFi, but when we get there, it either doesn't work (they always have someone coming "this week" to fix it), or it only works at the office. But yet, they all advertise "free WiFi."
An hour after we left, we fueled in East Glacier for $3.65 -- a real bargain. It had stopped raining by now. I went inside the convenience store and got Joe his diet soda (had to settle for Diet Pepsi today). They had packages of no bake cookies which are my kids' favorites. They even had peanut butter ones, in addition to chocolate, and they came in two sizes. I didn't buy any but I probably should have.
There was another one of those railroad fences here in East Glacier over the bridge so we got a better look at it today.
We did not see the wolf and the deer today. Joe has decided that was a wolf. (I told him so.). He researched it and confirmed there are wolves in Glacier National Park, so he decided I was right.
We met a train right beside us just passed the Continental Divide. It had five engines pulling and at least one engine pushing (we couldn’t see the end of the train very well, so there might have been more). The train was loaded with several cars full of lumber.
The drive across the bottom of the park on Highway 2 was quite stunning (Joe's words). There are lots of low clouds hanging in the mountains. A forest of tall trees lined the road. on both sides, with occasional glimpses of a river or creek babbling along with us.
We saw several stretches along the railroad track where they had built an overhang above the tracks. Joe assumed it was either for snow or avalanches. We came up on the Goat Lick turn-off that Paul told us about. If he hadn’t informed us, we would never have pullws off here because we actually had to drive off of the highway down to the viewing area and we couldn't see it from the highway, but like he told us, it is big enough for us to turn around. It had stopped raining, which was a real blessing. We had a short walk to the viewing area. There were 8 goats on the ledge that looked like blobs of snow, but then we spotted a big dad, mom, and baby through the trees and eventually near the water. Awesome.
The west side of Glacier Park is a lot more commercialized than the east side. In addition to numerous places to stay, cabins, motels, etc., they have a lot of things geared for kids -- waterpark, miniature golf, zip lines, and the towns are close together. Just a few miles separate the town of West Glacier from Hungry Horse, from Columbia Falls, and from Whitefish.
We got to our campground about 1:30, 119 miles today. We got checked into our new campground which is much nicer than the last one. It’s right on highway 40, halfway between Whitefish and Columbia Falls. Joe hooked up the electricity and water, and we drove across the street to have some lunch. In addition to a little grill or deli, miniature golf, possibly pickle ball, and corn hole were available right there, as well as a mercantile store. It was an open air restaurant with open barn doors on both sides, and tables inside and out.
It had stopped raining but a couple hours later, a thunderstorm came through. That quit, but a bit later, it started raining again, and continued off and on the rest of the evening. I tried to talk myself into going for a walk through the campground but decided I would probably get rained on. It wasn't too hard to talk myself out of that idea anyhow. On our travel days, once we get set up and eat, we tend to stay inside the rest of the day.
The goats were the highlight of the day, but the beautiful drive across the bottom of Glacier National Park was very enjoyable. We look forward to exploring this side of the Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment