Tuesday, June 17, 2014
RAIN!!!
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
RAIN!!!!!
Thursday, June 19, 2014
After two and a half days shut up in the motorhome with rain pouring down, we were anxious to see better weather and get outside. The only good thing about being shut in for two days is I almost have the sweater finished that I started last summer. Computer weather reports said we would have sun by ten a.m. This didn't happen but it did finally stop raining so we could pack up and get on the move. Ted got a call early this morning saying that the campground in the national park where we had reservations was closed due to flooding and they would refund our money. He called a private park in the area and was told they had openings but lost the connection before he could reserve a site. We decided to take our chances and set out in cloudy weather.
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| Low Clouds When We Started This Morning |
Streams and rivers were really rushing everywhere we looked and there were streams in places that we had not seen streams on our way west. There was fresh snow on the mountain tops and we even saw some on the side of the road as we passed. Ted pulled over to let some cars pass us and there were two waterfalls right beside us.
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| Fresh Snow Beside the Road |
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| Fresh Snow on the Mountains and New Brook |
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| Two Waterfalls Beside Road |
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| Better View of Larger Waterfall |
It is about 70 miles from West Glacier east to Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. From there the road turns northwest to St. Mary, also on the reservation and the east entrance to Glacier National Park. Route 89 from Browning was much narrower and more winding so the travel was slower. The views, however, were spectacular. Passing by meadows with wildflowers and areas of aspens, the snow topped mountains in front of us were incredible. The sun was finally starting to peak through in places so there were glowing areas in the white snow. I took some not so good photos of the wildflowers. The mountain lupines were so tiny compared to what we had on our front bank in Wiscasset.
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| Sun Starting to Peak Through |
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| Getting Brighter |
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| Mini Lupines |
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| Curvy Road Ahead but not the Worst |
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| Blue Sky at Last |
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| Aspen |
Closer to St. Mary, the hills had evidence of a forest fire. When you hear about forest fires out west on the news, it is hard to fathom just how much land is involved. Hillside after hillside had green undergrowth with bare poles rising up out of it.
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| Edge of Fire Zone with 1930s Red Buses |
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| More Fire Zone |
Coming down into St. Mary, we could see both upper and lower Saint Mary Lake. They are both a beautiful turquoise blue although one end of the lower lake was muddy looking from the rain runoff. We had stopped for gas in Browning and paid $3.55/gal. When we got to St. Mary, the price of gas was $4.11/gal. Ted made me take a picture of the prices. We were glad we had stopped when we did.
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| Lower Saint Mary Lake |
We set up at Johnsons of St. Mary Campground which is on a hill looking toward the national park and the huge cliffs near the entrance. We drove into the park and chatted with the guy at the entrance gate as there was no one behind us. He said that up in the pass that they are trying to free of snow and ice so it can be opened for tourists they had between one to two feet of new snow. Besides that, someone had told us that there had been a landslide onto the road that needs to be cleared. The new estimate for when the Going-to-the-Sun Road will be opened is the middle of July. Looks like we will need to come back once we are done in the Canadian Rockies if we are to enjoy to center of the park. Only two miles of road are open past the entrance. We drove to the end and took a few pictures before returning to the visitors' center which was only open a few more minutes after we arrived.
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| East Entrance With Visitors' Center Behind |
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| Upper Saint Mary Lake |
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| Two Miles into the Park |
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| Beautiful Stone Bridge on River Between the Lakes |
We decided to eat dinner at the Johnsons of St. Mary Cafe which is near the campground. I am so stuffed that I may never walk again. For $9.75 you get a hearty bowl of homemade soup with homemade croutons and a huge sandwich or burger. I had the Bear Attack which was whatever the chef had in the kitchen on a sandwich. It turned out to be barbecue pork with fried onions, banana peppers, green peppers and pickles on homemade bread. It may not sound very good but was delicious. Ted had a burger with Swiss, bacon, fried onions and onion sauce which he couldn't say enough good about. To top it all off, we split a piece of huckleberry ice cream pie which must have been a whole pint of ice cream with whipped cream and butterscotch and chocolate drizzled down the side. I can't believe we ate the whole thing. Our waiter was the great grandson of the founder of this family restaurant and looked just like Aston Kutcher.
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