More Montana than Anyone Needs to See

We woke up and were ready to leave our hotel by 10:30 am. We made stop at one of Dad’s favorite stores, Walmart, to restock on a few supplies. After that, we started the long drive to Glacier National Park. As we drove down the two lane highway, it became quite apparent that Montana is an empty state. For the few hundred miles we driven in the state, there’s pretty much nothing here, excluding the occasional small town every fifty miles or so. Along the way, we saw empty fields, some livestock, and a Ford F-150 driving the opposite way. The majority of the drive was accompanied by rain and the sky was a consistent grey when no precipitation was present. Though the weather and scenery were unspectacular, we continued the long drive to the hopefully blue-skied national park.

The middle of nowhere

Still the middle of nowhere

We were only about an hour away from Glacier when we saw the roadblock on the highway. We stopped and worker informed us the road was closed due to construction and the overwhelming presence of mud. So we turned the car around and figured out an alternative route to the west entrance to Glacier National Park. The detour took about an hour and a half, but we made it to Browning, the town right outside of the park. We filled up Mom’s Honda Fit and were planning to drive through the east side of the park via the Going to the Sun Road. This idea was immediately scrapped once a gas station employee said it’d be crazy to drive the mountainous road in the heavy cloud cover. We decided to take the less treacherous, fifty-five mile highway to the west entrance of Glacier and just get to our cabin. As we drove the cloud cover receded to reveal some patches of blue which brightened the trip to the west entrance. After roughly seven hours of driving, we arrived at Glacier National Park and checked into our cabin. 

Just a bit of cloud cover on the mountain

We ate dinner at the local diner and looked at the gift shop. I bought a souvenir for my friend DeRon which has been a tradition on each road trip (I’m sure he’ll love what I got him). Mom also bought a couple items and then we headed back to our cabin. Our cabin is right by a river and Mom decided we had to do at least some walking since we had driven the whole day, so we hiked down the river for a bit. It’s up for debate whether we actually followed an approved trail or not, but we trudge along despite the trail being questionable. Along the way we saw a beaver and Mom attempted on two occasions to snap a picture, but the beaver was camera shy. We headed back to cabin and Mom I tried to skip a few rocks on the river. After about twenty tries, I finally got one to skip three times. By then, we were ready for bed. We will start early tomorrow in order to see as much of Glacier Park as we can and then drive to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho to visit our friends, the Staples for a couple days.

For a different perspective, you can read my Mom’s blog here and my brother Joe’s blog here.