Day 12 ~ Glacier National Park

Day 12  ~ Glacier National Park

Well, you could say that I didn’t plan this park very well.  I guess I wasn’t able to get enough information about when parts of this park were going to open for the summer before we made our reservations.  After the reservations were made, we felt like we needed to honor them because KOA doesn’t give you your money back. 

The crapbag here….by the way, Natalie supplied this synonym for me on our second day out.  I didn’t want to use “bummer” and this often fits the situation…..is that The Road Going to the Sun isn’t open until June 15.  The red tour buses don’t start to run until July.  They are still clearing the snow off the road in June.  It is winter here.

Tour Buses
 

 

So we don’t get to drive The Road Going to the Sun, which to me, is the biggest attraction.  Also, after slogging through all that road construction on the way here, it looks like we will have to take it back out of here because The Road Going to the Sun is the road we need to go over the mountains to get to the other side.  (The Continental Divide)  Now our next stop is at Spokane, which was just an in between stop. But now we will have to go a different way and still stop at Spokane because we have reservations there.  Blah. 

On the upside…..this is the spectacular views we saw today.  There really isn't too much to complain about.  Plus we had fun:

 

 

These mountains are higher than the Tetons, but since we are at a higher elevation they seem smaller.  They were all black and scary last night, but today with the sun shining on them, they are majestic.

 

We stopped at a trailhead called Apikuni Falls.  It was straight up the mountain.  I mean really straight up the mountain.  Here we are hiking this trail:

 

This is Mike Yodeling: Ricola!  And the yodeling song from Sound of Music…..He likes to sing.  J

 

 

The climb was worth it.  It was a lovely large waterfall.  I have seen more waterfalls in the past week than I have ever seen in my life.  I love it! We packed a picnic to eat at the Falls, but when we got there is was starting to rain a little, and we weren’t really hungry yet, so we headed back down and ate at the car.

 

 

 

 

We came back to camp early, which was a good thing because it is so windy up here on the mountain that our tarp whipped loose and needed to be fixed.  Our camper rocked considerably all night.  Like I felt as if we might go for an air born ride…..Mike said it wouldn’t.   Maybe…..

Dinner tonight was delicious Santa Fe soup, which is made from ingredients from all cans and packets.  Super easy and shelf stable.  Mike found a bottle of unopened  Smirnoff vodka or something or other while we were stopped taking pictures.  I told him it was probably poisoned, but he drank it anyway.  He probably ate the candy from the scary lady up the street on Halloween too!  He told me that I should try it.  I would love it.  I said that if it was poison, then how would the kids ever make it back home with no parents.  Harrison and Natalie agreed that they would call Anita.  Mike said, “Ha!  You better tell her to bring Kenny’s big credit card because it takes a lot of gas to get here!”  I have a funny feeling that the kids wouldn’t miss us if she was spoiling them with ice-cream all the way back to Indiana.  So I did take one drink, and it tasted like 7-Up.  The End.

View from our Campsite

 

 

P.S.  Natalie and I got our jogging in tonight!  This is only the second time in 12 days.....kind of bad!  Maybe we are on an upswing.