Glacier National Park

Well, we have been here for 9 days so I guess it's time to take the official tour of Glacier, Judy and the rest of the troops rode the free shuttle bus across the park last week but it doesn't stop to view the park or have an commentary.  We went to the Sinclair Gas Station's cafe with all the rest of our HH friends for lunch first, we ate there last week and I had one of the best BLT's ever so we all went back for more and they were good.  Now that the crowds have decreased and Labor Day is over it's time for the Going To The Sun road trip.

This is Lake McDonald (there are 130 named lakes in the park) and the tour boat, which we did not take,

Here's a picture of the 17 passenger Red Bus at one of the stops.  The buses were built by White in

the late 1930s and restored by Ford in the 1990s.  The drivers are called "jammers" because the buses use to have manual transmissions and you could hear them grinding the gears when they shifted.

A happy happy Judy on the bus.

The canvas top is rolled back so you can stand up to get a better view or picture when the bus stops 

These pictures were on the way up, the tour took 4 hours, from the visitor center to Logan Pass and back.

Here's a couple pictures of the road, there were pretty steep drops on the outside with very little to stop you from going over.  There was only one short tunnel.

                                                          Your hosts!

                                  And the Going To The Sun road continues to go up.

This little fellow, to me a ground squirrel, is called a Whistle Pig for some reason by the locals.

We saw 4 or 5 mountain goats at Logan Pass (~6200 feet) and they are not afraid of people, many were within a couple hundred feet of them.

We saw one black bear, he popped out of the woods near several people who were at a viewing stop, wonder if they pooped their pants?

On the way back down we stopped at this pool.  The water gets it's color from the stones that are ground to powder by the glaciers as they travel.

And finally, here's one of the 25 remaining glaciers, when Glacier National Park opened in 1910 there were 150 glaciers.

Relaxing in Kalispell

                               This was truck wash (and wax for Roy) day for all of us.

              The following day all the HitchHikers were washed.  Roy then waxed his cap and Mels.

   Roy has so much fun washing and waxing he even eats his BLT sandwich up on the ladder.

                       We even have helicopters landing on a stone island in the Flathead River.

                           Here's the planning committee trying to determine where we go next.

Surprise, Dave & Jane are next to us again!

We arrived in Kalispell on Monday and lo and behold Dave and Jane showed up on Tuesday next to us!  On Wednesday we drove into Glacier National Park to McDonald Lake.  We stopped at a distillery on the way back, Judy liked the chicken on the sign.

For a few bucks you can sample four of the distillery's products, Judy and Dave took advantage of the opportunity.

                                           Dave was happy with his bottle of gin.

                                       Here's Roy and Craig enjoying the afternoon.....

                                                    .....and more of the gang.

                                         And here's some of the entertainment.

Glacier National Park & Kalispell, MT

We made the 130 mile trip through Glacier to Kalispell after breakfast at McDonalds and a leisurely morning arriving about 1:30.  Here's some of the sights.......

As you can see in these two pictures some of MT is pretty desolate.

                                    Stay tuned, more pictures of mountains to come.

This is the Flathead River located across the CG street in front of us.  We watched several boats quickly floating downriver, most were fishing.  Jenny & Craig have been here almost a month and we spent some time visiting.  After we went out for dinner with Dave & Jane.

Cut Bank, MT

We really didn't know what to do.....go or stay in Wolf Point.  The weather is crappy with lots of rain but the wind has died down.  Tomorrow there should be no rain.  Stay or go?  If we go, go where?  I want paved or gravel CGs, no driving on saturated grass or dirt and getting stuck.  We were up before 7am but at 9:45am the rain almost stopped and this CG is depressing so we rushed and packed up and split.  It rained almost all the way all day.  We thought with such a late start we'd go ~200 miles to Havre.  I guess we got use to driving in the ran and we passed through Harve and went another 120 miles to Cut Back, MT; a 333 mile day.  The most miles towed with the latest start time and in the worst weather.  We arrived in Cut Bank about 5pm and were happy.

    

                                           Along the way................on a rainy day....

We have been seeing lots of these, rolling oil lines, wouldn't a pipeline that doesn't move be safer?  Why would the federal government want to do something that was intelligent?

It has been raining hard and steady for over a day and a half.

We saw a couple folks standing beside the road, we assumed they lived here.

Rain, rain, rain.

We saw a couple groups of farmers with tractors powering pumps trying to drain their fields and crops.  These farmers and ranchers will have to wait many days before they can get back into their fields.

Small grain silos must be cheaper by the dozen.

Trains. we have been seeing lots of long trains.  I'll bet the shipping container trains are full of Christmas stuff from China.

The Cut Bank river behind us.

Judy and a friend.

What a shock....I'm sitting here updating the blog and Dave (Bahnmiller) walks in the door!  We had talked back in July of meeting here and HERE HE IS!

Jean, we are thinking of you.

Too wet and windy to travel

We had very sad news last night that Judy's nice Kristen died last night due to the cancer she has been fighting for many months.  We pray that she is in a pain free and much better place now.  We will continue to keep Jean, Steve, Garret and Cole in our thoughts and prayers.

The rain and wind stated at 2am and has been non stop since, it's 7pm as I write this post.  We easily decided to stay put today and inside.  I did stick my head out the door to take a picture.  We hope to escape in the morning although rain and flooding we main in the forecast but the winds decrease to 10 to 20mph.

Wet ride to MT & through SD oil fields

It was a very wet 285 miles to Wolf Point, MT but we enjoyed going through the SD oil fields.  It is difficult to find decent CGs along route 2, tonight's has 6 or 8 long term trailers surrounding 3 1/2 pull troughs.  We do have 30a and FHU (full hook ups....electricity, water and sewer).  The area is in an Indian reservation and the owner is one.

It was a wet ride with lots of fog in the morning.  We got a kick out of the windmills, we could see the blades only at the bottom, we knew there were two more blades up in the haze.

Unfortunately the rain and an inexperienced photographer curtailed our SD oil field pics.

We saw lots of the things above but don't know what they are.  We were impressed with the activity for miles and miles along route 2.  Construction of all kinds all over the place, we wondered how busy it is if we got off route 2.  Some housing consisted of what looked like 2 story shipping containers, single wide trailers, RV scattered all over and in clusters, hundreds of gray single story units with huge parking lots beside them, and new no name multiple story motels.  There are thousands of trucks of all shapes and sizes running up and down the road and sitting everywhere. Two new railroad tracks are under construction and we saw long trains of oil cars.  Oh......LOTS of oil wells too!  There are hundreds of support and logistical support companies and building too.

Our 3 traveling companions have left us.  We wanted to see the SD oil fields and they wanted to avoid them and travel further south so we split up this morning.