johnboystravelblog

I wanna be an Airborne Ranger, I wanna lead a life of danger….

 

I have never seen this plant before, and only saw it a handful of places today (although I was only seeing stuff from the road).  The young lady at the Visitor Center called it beargrass.  It apparently has several other names.

It only blooms every 5-7 years.  Evidently this year there is a bumper crop.  She said a ranger told her that in all the years he has worked at Glacier he has never seen so many.

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Only saw one mountain goat today and wasn’t able to get a picture.  Saw some Moo Cows on the way home after I left the park.

I had huckleberry pie for dessert tonight.  Huckleberries are real big in this part of the country and are in season.  I also bought some at a roadside stand (the guy said they were locally grown).  They look like blueberries but are smaller.  The ones I bought plain are kind of tart, whereas the pie was sweet (though it probably had sugar added).

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I’m going to post a bunch of pictures of the Park and just let them speak for themselves.

You’ll probably be seeing lots of mountain-only pictures the next day or two so I thought I’d start with some that have water as well.  I saw two big lakes today, one on the east side (Saint Mary Lake) and one on the west side (Lake McDonald).

I am staying in Kalispell, a little town about 30 miles west of the west entrance.  Thursday I head over to Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho for 4 nights.

I arrived at the east entrance of Glacier about 5 PM local time.  I drove through the park east to west on “Going to the Sun Road”.  The road was only fully opened to traffic about 3 weeks ago (when I checked the Park website in late June they were still plowing snow at the highest point!).  I’m going to stop tomorrow to ask exactly what date it reopened.  It took me a little over two hours to drive the 50 miles to the west entrance.  I did stop to take a bunch of pictures, though, so a non-stop drive should take less time.  Not as much traffic disruption with people (myself included) stopping to gawk at animals as there was in Yellowstone.  The big problem here is that the parking lots fill up early in the day (largely with hikers who leave their car all day).  There is a free shuttle which I may use tomorrow afternoon depending on how things look traffic and parking-wise in the morning.  I’m hoping my being here during the week will help keep the crowds down.

There are not as many wildlife spotting opportunities at this park due to the size of the mountains and the placement of the road.  Typical, curvy mountain road with very narrow lanes.  The driver must really pay attention as rocks jut out very close to the travel lane.  There are lots and lots of places to pull over and admire the view.  I actually put my “Safety Sam” vest on because I had on a dark shirt and sometimes walked along the road to get to a good photo vantage point.

My first impression of Glacier is… WOW!  I only spent a little over two hours in the Park and already have enough blogworthy pictures to last over a week.  And I’m here two more days!  I plan to go in early tomorrow and get back over to the east entrance, then turn right around and drive it westward again – this time with the sun behind me.  I’ll be stopping a lot to take pictures, use my binoculars, and just take in the views.  Anyone who enjoys beautiful places needs to put this not only on their bucket list, but on their short list.

I was driving down a scenic road near Darby, MT the other day and from the opposite direction came a parade of 8 Volkswagen “Things”, each a different color.  I thought “How cool is that” and actually considered turning around to follow them to see if they were going to a car show or something.

Well this afternoon on my way to Glacier, here they all were lined up in an ice cream drive-in parking lot in Choteau, MT.  I spoke with the woman standing next the green Thing and she said they are from Boise, ID (where I’ll be in a few weeks) but do road trips en masse from time to time.

The VW Thing, as it was called in this country, was sold in the early 70’s.  I saw one last year in a city somewhere (I forget which one) but rarely see them on the road.  In Germany they were sold as the VW Type 181 (oh, those wacky Germans….).

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Also on the road today I stopped in the little town of White Sulphur Springs to refill my water bottles (again). My friends Eric and Shawn gave me a plug-in cooler which sits on the floor on the passenger side of the car.  I keep 12 bottles of water in it and it keeps them cool as I drive.  My brother David, who lived in Salt Lake City for several years, taught me the importance of staying hydrated in the desert and/or at high elevation.  I buy big bottles of water at the dollar store and refill the little bottles with that.  I know you aren’t supposed to reuse bottles indefinitely.  I usually start each trip with a new set.  Given the length of this trip I will probably replace them about halfway through my journey.  Having the cooler sure beats buying ice for my Igloo every third day.

The only critter I came across today was a Moo Cow which was crossing the road in the mountains leading up to Glacier.  She was crossing the road as I came around a turn, but there was a car in front of me and we were already going pretty slow so it was no problem.

Which may be any day now….

This is a mountain range northeast of Bozeman.  I drove past it on my way up to Glacier National Park in northwest Montana.

So when I do decide to become a hermit and live in the woods, this is where you’ll find me.

Meet my new best buddy Regan.  I am staying at his house while in Bozeman.  Regan LOVES to play fetch with a tennis ball.  He will do it non-stop if you let him.  His next favorite thing to do is play tug-o-war with the yellow thingie on the porch step, or an old blue frisbee (and he’s very good at it).  I’ll miss his wanting me to go outside to play.  I got up about 5 this morning to get a drink of water and he came padding out into the kitchen with his tennis ball.  Too early, Regan!