Day 11 ~ Driving to Glacier National Park

Day 11 ~ Driving to Glacier National Park

We got up super early today because we knew this was going to be a tough driving day.  Google said 9 hours and so far, Google has been short on their time by at least 2 hours each day.  Blah!  We were up at 5:00AM and pulled out of the Grand Teton Campground at 7:02AM.  We felt like we were really on top of this.  Mike decided that he probably knew better than Google and choose to head up through Teton and Yellowstone, coming out on the north side of Yellowstone. Then we would head up to the Canadian/Montana border. 

Sunrise as we were leaving Grand Teton National Park

First glitch was that the storm last night that ripped our tarp off our camper also put down electric lines.  So when we got well into Teton National Park, they made us turn around and go back another way……so much for the early start.  Plus, Yellowstone slowed us down because the traffic through there in the late morning is a nightmare……Mike had hoped to take us past the part of the park we had missed due to road construction blocking the ability to drive the entire loop……alas it was so foggy that we didn’t see anything! 

We had also planned to get groceries in Helena, MT on our way up to Glacier, but I still had a few meals left because we ate out on our anniversary and unexpectedly at McDonalds the night of the KOA disaster.  However we didn’t have any fresh fruit.  We did have a bag of dried prunes……Harrison was going to love that!  I hated to stop today because restocking groceries was going to be time consuming and an organizing nightmare, that would force us to arrive well after dark.

When we got to Helena, we saw a Walmart right on the road, so we changed our mind again and pulled in despite our earlier conviction.   We had also snapped all the tent stakes for the tarp and really needed some more.  I gathered everything up in an hour because I had premade grocery lists for Walmart in the order that the items are in the store for all of our carefully orchestrated meals.  This store was a little different.  J  But everyone ran around and gathered stuff up, so we did it in an hour.  Then, of course, it started to rain again.  We can’t have a day without rain! So we got everything wet as we were trying to cram everything into the back of the car. 

On this long drive, I asked everyone in the car which experience they would do again if they could.  Mike said, “All of them.  Every single thing.” 

I said, “Even the Snake River KOA?” 

He said, “Yep.”

 I said, “Really?!!!” 

He said, “Yep, only this time I would take a can of gasoline and a match.”

 Ha ha ha.

At another point in the drive we saw this barn with this message.  Mike found it confusing.  Was it “Stop Meth”? Or stop Here for Meth?

 

We finally got to Glacier KOA at 8:00 PM.  Lots of road construction and twisty turny roads just made it an impossible drive.  Montana’s road construction is a matter of tearing out the road then the cars just drive on the dirt……and it was raining.  Our car and camper look like we have gone mudding.

Set up camp again in the rain.  I made tuna scroodle casserole inside the camper tonight, which the kids love.  We got to bed at midnight.  This KOA is practically empty and little more wild than the other ones we have stayed at.  That is a good thing to us. 
 This is what the mountains looked like to us when we arrived at Glacier.  They look dark and ominous.  Kind of Harry-Potter-Scary looking.  We felt kind of disappointed we drove all the way up here.