Glacier National Park, Montana

Now we have arrived in Glacier National Park at the St Mary's campground!  This park is huge and well maintained.  The Visitors center at St Mary's is really well done.  This year marked the 100th anniversary of the National Park System and the ranger's explanation was top notch.  The park rangers seem to be college kids or retired teachers who want to keep on teaching!  They do a wonderful job.  Our campground is full so reservations good idea--we are here for 4 nights. There is a "first come first served" Rising Sun campground about 6 miles up "Going to the the Sun Highway".

Picture out the car window


We went on a guided mini-bus tour of the first third of "Going to the Sun Highway" with Sun tours.  After July first, this road is served by a shuttle bus since it is so narrow and crowded.    It is hard to believe they built these roads hanging onto the sides of the mountains over 100 years ago. Our guide, Mary, was an American Indian and told us stories of what the mountains mean to her tribe.  They buried their dead in trees after they made them a complete set of new beaded clothes and moccasins and wrapped them in antelope skins.  Their spirits had a chance to escape from their bodies and then later they were buried.  Modern regulations no longer permit this type of escape!

Mary explaining Indian medicinal plants

We are in St Mary's campground and about 5 miles away there was a large forest fire that was deliberately set by a pyromaniac last July 2015.   She is now in federal prison. 

The burn area near mountain stream

The scenery is magnificent!  The glacier melt makes the lakes a gorgeous blue and there are lots of waterfalls along the way.  The mountain glaciers and peaks are beautiful.  We stopped at Logan Pass Visitor Center and watched people walking up the mountain with snowboards and skis.  If you zoom in the snowy mountain picture you can see the skiers.  It doesn't get dark until 10pm here...good training for the LONG daylight in Alaska!

Fact---The RED car tours up the Highway to the Sun are a better tour but you need to book these in advance--sold out for a week ahead.  We think tours are better than shuttle buses because you are provided commentary.
Glacier doesn't even open the Going to the Sun Highway until mid June due to snow and avalanches so their busy season starts July 4th.
St Mary's campground Loop A has the most trees--request if you book ahead.

Today we drove 20 easy miles to Many Glaciers campground and trails.  I am running out of superlatives for this scenery. Everywhere you look is a postcard view.  There are no burn areas in this part of the park so our hike on the Grinnel Glacier trail was through beautiful pine forest and along beautiful glacial lakes.   The weather has been PERFECT since the day we left home!

We stopped to hike to a beautiful falls right off the road.  Pictures tell it all!

Pete's neck and arm haven't been getting much better and really bothers him off and on.  I've never seen this man take an Advil in 37 years until this flared up.  We called my brother in law Tim Gray in Oregon.  He is a D.O. and very knowledgeable about musculoskeletal disorders.  He had some great advice and so we think we are on the right track now.   Thank you Tim!

We  drove the Highway to the Sun on our way out of the park.  Pete found it to be the most challenging driving he has ever done--one wrong turn of the wheel and we would be DONE!
The views were something else but the road had rocks jutting out on our ride side threatening to take off the side mirrors.  He did a great job and we lived!  Now off to join up with our Caravan to Canadian Rockies and Alaska!

Going to the sun highway

Click on the link to see some video of Glacier --- https://youtu.be/ZQy5dkuXjZ0

Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone

Drove to Red Lodge a cute little town then to another National Forest camp ground as we started up the Beartooth Highway.  We were very happy to get the last site there because there were great bursts of wind up to 50 miles an hour blowing dirt everywhere.  Beautiful spot with another unusual tent on top of a car! 

Tent on top of car

Continuing up the Beartooth highway which is mainly in Wyoming.  Huge vistas everywhere.  This road was not for the faint of heart!  Another beautiful campground appeared for us.  The camp host went to the Naval Academy with Roger Staubach and shared stories about him.  This campground was adjacent to a huge ranch owned by the Quaker Oats family.  Gorgeous ranch home!

Ranch in valley below campground--Quaker Oats founder

There were lots of hairpin turns as we climbed up to the Rock Creek Vista ranger station that had a beautiful walkway to view the mountains.  This antique vehicle was one of the original Yellowstone touring cars that brought guests up to see the sights.  It has been refurbished and is back in business! We stopped and hiked up to a beautiful falls.

Over the highest pass (it was very cold and windy up there) and then on our way down into North Yellowstone.  This was the most beautiful part of the drive with mountain lakes and pine trees.

I was thinking how very friendly people are--smiling at us all the time.  Then I realized it was Bailey they were looking at!  She is always a big hit.

Driving through Yellowstone, we have seen 4 bear, several antelope and a thousand buffalo!  We had to stop twice for horses loose on the road and a man riding a unicycle along the highway with no civilization for miles!


 

On to Great Falls Montana to stop at an ER to check out Pete's left arm pain and numbness which was made worse by turning his head.  After convincing the ER staff that his heart was fine, they did a  neck Xray which showed arthritis.  Armed with muscle relaxers, steroids and arthritis medication we were on our way again.  Just a little worse for wear!

More on video at:    https://youtu.be/aAtLLVe_oek

On to Yellowstone

The Black Hills of South Dakota

Off to the Black Hills--- about a three hour drive on a beautiful day.  We realized we’d spent the longest day of the year in 98 degree weather so the cooler temperature of higher elevation was perfect.   The Black Hills are called that because they are covered with pine trees that appear dark in color from a distance.  The smell is wonderful!  We stopped and ate brunch in a pine forest with that wonderful pine aroma—first great memory of the day.

The winding drive was so beautiful (second great memory) and soon we were stopped on the road by a herd of about 100 buffalo that were crossing the road and weaving in and out of the vehicles (third great memory).  There were lots of babies in the herd.  At one point, they had our van surrounded but they were very calm and slow moving.  We could have touched them out the window.  

Custer State Park in the Black Hills

We could have touched him from the window

This beautiful scenic highway continued up the mountain through a tunnel and as we emerged from the tunnel there was Mt Rushmore right in front of us.  We stopped at a little park up there that had outstanding views of Mt Rushmore.  The roads, the tunnels, the 360 degree turns in the road called “pinwheels” and Mt Rushmore are all engineering marvels.  We drove down off the mountain right by Mt Rushmore park and were able to get a closer look.  Number 4 great memory.  Also passed Crazy Horse carved in rock and saw him in profile.

We are camped for one night at a National Forest Roubaix Lake.  Didn’t need reservations and the campsites are lovely.  A hike (remember that I use this word loosely—any walking that requires tennis shoes is a hike!)  half way around the lake, a campfire and some Bush’s baked beans and brisket made for a happy ending to a perfect day!

In case anyone wants to duplicate this journey, here are the roads we took.

Rt 44 west out of the Badlands to Rt Truck 16 south (left) to Rt 79 toward Hermosa,  right turn on to Rt 36, right turn onto 16A toward Keystone, left onto Rt 244 then right onto Rt 385 towards Lead.  There are a number of National Forest campgrounds on #385 ---Roubaix is closer to Lead.

Continuing westward and vertically up to 8,000 feet we are now in the Bighorn Wilderness area five hours later.  It is a stupendous drive!  All pine trees, cliffs and a winding road to Prune Creek  Campground.  We cannot imagine a more perfect place to camp.  Our large wooded site overlooks a big rushing creek .  We sat in our chairs thinking this is what dreams are made of !    

Check out our recent video at:    https://youtu.be/paAhyhC48WE

The Bad Lands are really Good!

We're on our way and ready to take our first photos for the blog.   We discovered the screen on our camera was cracked!  Oh no!  Well, on to Plan B. Our cell phone cameras will work fine.  But it seems that being grandparents requires quite a lot of photo memory and we were both out.  Oh no again!  We found a Verizon store and purchased another 32 gigs of memory so now we're back in business.     

Photo ready we  zoomed through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.  First stop was Ames, Iowa to visit Iowa State where Pete went to college.  It was right on the way.  We parked at his old fraternity house (TKE) and took a walk about the beautiful campus while Pete told me stories of his college days.

TKE house Iowa State University

Pete is always on the quest for "small town family owned restaurants" where we will get amazing food.  The first town was too little and all boarded up but we continued the search to Early, Iowa where we ate lunch at the Outlaw.  Since we were the only customers, we visited with Keeley the 25 year old new owner.  She told us she seems to be having a bit of trouble with the locals after she changed the name from Crossroads to the Outlaw--some customers worry over attracting a wild biker crowd.  It turns out that the lovely Keeley is a tough competitor in big tractor pulls--the term "Outlaw" refers to that!  Who knew!

Owner Keeley at the newly named Outlaw Bar and Grill

Next up is Mitchell, SD,  the home of The Corn Palace!  This was quite the tourist attraction with tours and a video running until 9 pm.  The whole outside of this very large onion dome building is covered with murals made of ten different colors of corn.  Every year they tear the corn off and new murals are created after being designed by some local and some more famous artists.  The inside has a basketball arena and concert area with corn murals that are re-done every 8-10 years. The local high school basketball team plays in the arena. The Mitchel KERNELS strike fear in the hearts of opposing teams.

Corn Palace

One of many murals made of corn

Another day of driving (about 1200 miles so far) and we are in Wall, South Dakota.  For the last 220 miles there have been signs singing the wonders of Wall Drugstore.  We took the bait and ended up in a big tourist trap.  It advertised great ice cream sodas--Pete's weakness--so he stepped up to the counter.  His hopeful face fell when he ordered his chocolate soda and the teenager turned to another worker and asked "how do you make a soda?"  The sodas were NOT as advertised!    Oh well, another tourist bites the dust.

The Bad Lands are beautiful.  We are camped in the National Park and have electricity which came in handy with the 91 degrees today.  The AC felt good! 

 There are many nice hikes off the main scenic road through the Bad Lands.  Unlike most National Parks they have no restrictions on climbing or walking anywhere.  Now there are the rattlesnakes ---but  that doesn't slow young people from climbing up and sliding down these formations.  They are eroding from wind and rain and are supposed to be flat by 500,000 more years so I guess they're not worried about the climbers and sliders!

 Pete is having a great time with his new
GoPro camera.  What gorgeous scenery to
practice on.  The Visitor's Center has a nice
movie and wonderful programs running during
the day and evening.  The park is busy but
not too crowded.

We climbed up 200 feet to get this picture--great view.  Another nap and we're we ready go again!

This is our campground with a great view.

We got up early to get tickets for a tour of the Minuteman Missile Control Center.  They opened at 8am and by 8:04 the tickets were gone.  There was a nice display there with information about the Cold War.  The missiles were underground and could launch within minutes and be at their target in Russia in 30 min.  Once fired, there was no "abort plan".  These were deterrent missiles and the plan seemed to work.  They were much more powerful than Hiroshima bombs.  The ranger giving our tour was an actual missileer who commanded at the site for 4 years and had the power with another man to start the missile launch (if the president ordered of course). It was a sobering tour.  All of the missile sites have been removed from South Dakota but there are 450 upgraded Minuteman 3 sites remaining in surrounding states.

Jim the Missileer

Walking along the road

We drove up scenic route 240 through the Bad Lands park and took a recommended gravel road to see more wildlife.  The road was so rough and "washboarded" that it practically shook our teeth out at 10 miles an hour!  It turned out to be worth it.  Beautiful cactus were in bloom and there was a big-horned sheep eating right by the road along with prong-horn antelope walking through the grasslands.  We came upon two buffalo near the road but didn't stop to pet them!

Grazing along the road

Robert's Prairie Dog town was next.  It was a grassland field that had been taken over with burrows of prairie dogs.  They are so cute sitting on their hind legs looking all around...about the size of a small squirrel but they are related to dogs!   The only downside it that they apparently carry the PLAGUE--now isn't that an attractive feature!

1000's of prairie dogs

Check out our short video on YouTube at:   https://youtu.be/QuysrLrK80g

Tomorrow we leave for the Black Hills of South Dakota!  Bailey is excited!

Getting packed

We are nearly packed Thursday evening June 16. Leaving tomorrow morning with Bailey psyched for her international adventure. We will make it to Iowa on Friday, then on to Sioux Falls, SD on Saturday, and then to the Badlands National Park in SD Sunday for three days. There won't likely be any blogs until the Badlands as there won't be much excitement till then.

We are adding some video on this trip with a GoPro. There may be some shots of scenery along the way and anything interesting either along the road or on hikes. I am thinking there will be some spectacular scenery along the way. I will upload short clips to YouTube and add the link to the blog for you to see if you wish. You will need the links I supply as the videos will not be searchable, at least until we get back. This is still experimental so not sure how it will work out. While in Canada we are extremely limited in bandwidth so may not be able to upload anything there (which will be most of July).

Check in early next week for the first substantial post.