Montana is also Big Wheat country, and here it is safely gathered in.
We believe it is a Golden Eagle overseeing the harvest.
Our trek across the vast plains is over as the Rockies come into sight.
We get our first look of Glacier National Park at Two Medicine Lake.
And come to find that the lakes are the parks most endearing features.
As I think you will agree.
The still lakes are fed by rushing rivers.
The rivers are fed by snow melt.
We begin our west to east journey through the middle of Glacier NP on the "Going to the Sun Road."
This 40 mile stretch of road cut through the mountains in the 1930s takes two hours to cross.
About the half way point we are in the deep snow.
At the Visitors Center we stop to frolic in the snow with everyone else. The days have been very hot as we have crossed the very northern part of the USA and into Canada, but the nights have cooled down to good sleeping temperatures!
We see five mountain sheep -
Here are the other two!
The Going to the Sun Road, or Sun Road, is a National Landmark in itself,
and continues to go through extensive repair work.
We pass through the Sun Road and continue on to Many Glaciers. This is the Many Glaciers Hotel, built by the railroad to entice passengers to the park. The railroad also built lodges throughout the park that are "carriage rides" apart.
Rather than a hotel on a lake, we opted for a tent in the shadow of the
mountains at Many Glaciers campground. State and National Parks have a first come, first served policy for tenters, and we got the last site here! They don't always have shower facilities but there is someone outside the park capitalizing on that. Private campgrounds take reservations. We have paid as low as $8 at a private camp ground in Michigan, and as high as $37 at a private campground in Ontario. We usually pay about $20 a night plus $1 for a hot shower!
9 July 2012: We venture out of Glacier National Park and enter Alberta, Canada, to visit Waterton Lakes National Park. We go the long way round so that we can see a little bit of Alberta, and drive via Cardston.
We enter Alberta, Canada
Cattle...
Horses...
Farming hay and wheat... everything you think of when you think of rural Canada.
Does anyone know what this crop is?
As we enter Cardston, the very wide streets and LDS chapels, yes, still horses, alert us to this being a town settled by Mormon Pioneers and the home of Cardston Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, built by church member volunteers during 1915-1923.
The walls are 3 feet thick local granite, and the footprint is a Maltese Cross. Designers were influenced by Mayan architecture. The Cardston Temple is on the Canadian Historical Register.
As we head west to Waterton Lakes National Park we pass a ranch that we think has been "staged"
by the Canadian Tourist Board to captivate first time visitors to Alberta.
Our first and finest glance is of the Prince of Wales Hotel, built in the 1930s.
Book us a room...
And set us on their bench...
or take us out for an occasional sightseeing trip in the original 1930's tour buses
when we are too old for this tenting and hiking and biking stuff.
And we can reminisce about our previous trip to the park when we were "young." By then, we will have forgotten the many mosquitoes that have plagued us since Maine, and the pesky flies that have bothered us for the last couple of days.
After all, we have been in the wilderness and we have to take the little with the big.
Glacier National Park (USA) and Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada)
are joined to form and International Peace Park.
After driving to Lake Cameron at the end of one of the longest roads into the park,
we plan to hike from Alberta to British Columbia!
We take a walk up, and it was UP, a trail for over a mile. It is hot, but Sheila has to protect her arms from the insects. She found that if she lathers her arms, legs, and neck with insect repellent, they will just bite her ears instead!
It is worth it to say we have set foot in British Columbia, Canada!
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We are impressed with all the wild flowers we see on the roadsides
and banks in Alberta and the Park.
We see bison at the Bison Paddock before we leave the area (note the fence).
Thom is disappointed that this is the only bear he got to see.
We leave the Canadian side of the park and head back to Glacier to travel the Sun Road east to west.
It is just as stunning from the other direction!
And this time we are on the mountain side of the road. Fortunately for us,
they have made the road one way for a while so that vehicles can safely pass.
Leaving Glacier National Park in Montana marks the turning point of our trip.
We head south from here and are looking forward to being in SLC for our son Lee's presentation of completion of training at the Air Traffic Control Center there. He called us in Montana (part of his air space) during a brief spell of cell service we had to give us the good news that he had successfully completed his final certification. It has been almost 3 years of training with the FAA in the complex ATC Center.
We spent the night at an excellent RV/Campground that has an agreement for great rates for the military through the Air Base at Great Falls. It is called Timber Wolf and is located in Hungry Horse, just south of Glacier in Montana.
10 July 2012: We left Hungry Horse and took Rt 2, Rt 83, and then an 11-mile stretch of unpaved road to Garnet Ghost Town, Montana. Gold was mined there from 1866 to 1932, though the town never recovered from a fire in 1905. The town had a few residents until the 1960s.
Kelly's Saloon and some of the miner's cabins; Garston Ghost Town, Montana.
The bike reminded us of the upcoming cycling trip across the USA southern tier for Thom. We are sorry to report that his biking companion, Stuart, has had a cycling accident. Broke several ribs resulting in a collapsed lung, collar bone, finger bone, and a bone that connects to the neck. He spent five nights in the hospital, but is home now (12 July) and although he is seeing how things go, we think the result will be a delay until November for the trip to start. We wish him a speedy recovery!
Sheila outside the out house of the town's hotel.
Thom in the doorway of Kelly's Saloon, which operated through prohibition
due to its remote location.
We walked a 20-minute trail that showed evidence of the placer and lode mining of the past. There were water-filled vertical wood lined mine shafts, prospecting pits (to check for ore), windlasses, and above are the hand-stacked rock walls as a result of placer mining in the creek.
We decided to drive the 11 mile dirt road south out of Garnet rather than backtrack north.
This is the road they used to haul out the ore.
Don't think they had an Internet 90 waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain!
Before we leave Montana, there should be mention of the many gambling establishments we passed, on and off Indian Reservations. They ranged from large casinos to parts of bars, and even rooms at gas stations. We leave it behind as we enter Idaho.
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