Author: Mary

Original Saturday post: I have some photos and information about our day today, but haven’t downloaded any photos yet so that will have to wait until Sunday night.

Currently I am sitting in a laundromat in Kalispell – with good internet coverage! – so I was able to post the past few day’s blog post.

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Continued Saturday post:

First thing this morning we took a hike on the Trail of Cedars in the Avalanche Creek area. It was an easy hike and a great way to start the day.

After that we followed Avalanche Creek back towards Lake McDonald and took several turn offs that revealed beautiful cascades over large rocks.

As we were viewing one of the locations along Avalanche Creek where there was a bridge across the creek, I was thinking to myself, “this is where we saw a horse riding group going across this bridge.”

Well, today again, “right on cue” the horse back riders came around the bend and across the bridge!

The last stop was the McDonald waterfall.

One last thing we couldn’t miss this visit to West Glacier was to build a stone tower on the beach of Lake McDonald. In 2002 when we visited Glacier NP with our daughter Lisa the first thing we did when we arrived was to walk down to the shore and build a stone tower. We repeated the tradition on our 2015 visit also.

This afternoon we decided to drive to Kalispell (about 30 miles away) and get some errands accomplished. Jim needed to make a stop to Lowes (an electrical connector to reconnect one of our cabin batteries) and to Auto Zone (a new bulb for one of the Jetta headlights) and he was then able to complete those two repairs today. Then we stopped to a laundromat to take care of our overflowing hamper. While waiting for the laundry to go through the machines I was able to bring my laptop in and connect to my phone hot spot and get the last two days of blogs uploaded. Then we swung into a Walmart and picked up a few groceries to get us through the next week. So it turned out to be a very productive afternoon!

We got up very early this morning (5:00 am) and headed out just after 6:00 to drive the Going to the Sun Road to Logan Pass. We wanted to assure that we would get a parking space and also to get the hiking in during the cooler hours of the day. We arrived there just after 7:00.

Logans Pass has a 3 hour parking limit. Once we got our pass from the kiosk we had a 10:08 am deadline to return to the car.

The hike was pretty strenuous but definitely worth it!

The wildflowers all along the way are amazing! We were also able to see the sun rise over the mountains as we started our hike.

It took us a little over an hour to reach our destination of Hidden Lake. We did not see any mountain goats this time as we have our past two visits to Glacier (back in 2002 and then in 2015). We did see some long horn sheep up on the mountain ridge both on our way up and again coming back down. Plus a lot of ground squirrels posing for us and some marmots.

Here are some other shots that Jim took (just a few of many, many, great ones!)

I couldn’t really compete with Jim’s photos, but I did try 🙂

The destination of our hike was Hidden Lake.

We arrived back at the parking lot with about 15 minutes to spare. Then we drove a bit farther east to the Jackson Glacier Overlook and took a coffee break with some absolutely gorgeous scenery all around.

We turned around there and headed back west because we had seen everything east of that point on Tuesday. One the way back we stopped at many turn outs to take pictures of one of the most beautiful roads we have ever been on (Going to the Sun). We found a couple of beautiful spots that I don’t remember seeing on past trips.

We looked for a picnic spot for lunch back in the Lake McDonald area however everything was getting extremely busy so we headed back to the camper to have lunch there and take advantage of the allowed generator hours to get batteries charged up again since this is a rustic campground.

This afternoon we drove to West Glacier Village to see if we could get any internet access but were not successful. We did find an ice cream stop though 🙂 On our way back to the camper we stopped at the Apgar Visitor Center to check on weather predictions for tomorrow (very hot again as it was today in the valley) and we did find that there was limited public wi-fi there but not enough to really do much with.

We headed back to the camper for supper and decided to make it an early to bed, early to rise plan so as to again take advantage of the cooler morning hours tomorrow.

Today was Jim’s birthday.

We packed up the motor home and loaded the Jetta back on the dolly and headed out of the St. Mary area. We drove to East Glacier and visited the Glacier Park Lodge there. I enjoyed the beautiful flower gardens in front of the lodge and a we had a coffee break inside.

We then drove Hwy 2 around the south side of the park. We arrived around noon and had lunch in a cafe in Apgar Village and then set up camp in the Apgar Campground.

We drove to Lake McDonald Lodge to see if that would be a good place for Jim’s birthday dinner. Their menu options looked great so we decided to stay in the Lodge area for a couple hours until the restaurant opened.

We walked around the grounds and then sat by the lake and watched the activity on the lake.

We left this morning at 6:45 to head to Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge for breakfast. Today is my birthday so a day off from cooking 🙂 Getting there early insured beating the crowds for breakfast and also a parking spot for the hike we planned to do next.

We spent the morning taking a 4 mile hike (out and back) to Red Rock Falls.

The scenery all morning was spectacular so there were many photo stops along the way.

We first passed Fishercamp Lake and were so glad we took the trail down to the lake to see the moose (mother and young one) feeding in the shallow lake!

We continued on to Red Rock Lake and I took advantage of the opportunity to continue my long tradition of getting my feet in the water (my family humors me with this quirk 🙂 )

Then a bit more hiking around the lake to the waterfall(s). That was our morning break location (sans the coffee because of hiking).

We returned back the way we came and were treated to another moose sighting right on the trail ahead.

Back at Swiftcurrent we drove up the road to a picnic area for lunch but no parking was open so we continued to Many Glacier Lodge (1 mile away) and decided to park there and stay for the rest of the day. Parking was scarce there also but finally we spotted some people leaving and just waited for that spot.

We found a great lunch location on the back deck of the lodge with an awesome view of Swiftcurrent Lake. We considered taking a canoe on the lake but the wind was picking up quite a bit so we decided against it.

We walked around the lodge area for awhile and took a few more photos.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, drinking coffee, people watching in the lobby and a tiny bit of napping thrown in.

At 4:30 we joined the wait line for the Ptarmigan Dining Room in the Lodge which opened at 5:00 and by being close to the front of the line we were able to get a wonderful window seat. The dinner was great and my dessert was a cheese cake with huckleberry topping that was “on the house” because of it being my birthday.

All around I had a wonderful day and am so thankful that God answered my prayers for weather that allowed us to see some fantastic examples of His creation!!

This morning we covered the last miles to reach our first major destination of this trip: Glacier National Park.

We stopped for a morning coffee break in Chester, MT. This was also a repeat stop from our 2015 trip.

We made it to our campground for the next two days (just a mile from the St. Mary entrance) about 12:15. We were able to set up and have lunch and then switch to driving the Jetta for the rest of the day.

First things first — a trip to the Curley Bear Caffe for some ice cream. Jim remembered right where that was located!

We took a short hike to see the original 1913 Ranger Station (this is one of the restored buildings on the site) …

Then we drove part of the way up the Going to the Sun Road. We were paralleling a boat on the St. Mary’s Lake below us.

On the way back we saw the boat launch for these tour boats.

We stopped to view the Sunrift Gorge area with many beautiful waterfalls along the way.

Then it was back to campground for some preparations for tomorrow’s visit to the Many Glacier area. Jim also had to make a repair to the tow dolly to secure a fender that was getting loose.

Jim says “Don’t leave home without your navigator” and I say “Don’t leave home without your mechanic” 🙂

Before we left our campsite this morning we took a walk to see Patterson Lake. I am amazed that this beautiful park was so empty, at least while we were there.

Once we were on the road we soon crossed into Montana.

We were able to find a nice rest area in Wibaux, MT and we enjoyed warm homemade cinnamon rolls for our break.

Our lunch stop was a little harder to find. For a couple of hours we were traveling pretty remote areas with no rest areas to be found. I finally located one on my “Rest Stops” app near Glasgow MT that we would could reach a little after 1:00. I was concerned when the sign said “closed” however the area was open enough for us since all we really needed was a parking lot to pull aside in.

Here are a couple of photos of what the scenery looked like most of the time today …

My electrician husband got a “charge” out of this kind of scenery …

We revisited a spot in Malta, MT for our afternoon break that we had stopped at on our 2015 trip. Nearby was this old abandoned bridge …

We are camped for the night just east of Havre, MT and are finally within striking distance of Glacier National Park. We hope to arrive there about noon tomorrow.

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise this morning (a treat I don’t see often at home).

We traveled across most of North Dakota today ending up in Dickinson and now on Mountain time. We saw many miles of hay fields along the way …

and discovered they grow cows big out here …

We set up camp at Patterson Lake Recreation Area in Dickinson and this afternoon we drove the Jetta to Theodore Roosevelt National Park so we could take in the Scenic Drive in the South Unit. Some rain was threatening however we only had to contend with a few raindrops several times so we were thankful for that.

We saw a couple of bison along the drive …

… and many prairie dogs …

On the way back to the campground we saw a beautiful rainbow …

We have traveled in four different states today. We started in the west end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, drove through upper Wisconsin, all across Minnesota and a little way into North Dakota. This is the longest miles per day I planned for this trip and I am thankful for my great driver!

We found a nice location to stop for morning coffee right on the Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior in Ashland, Wisconsin.

The first part of our trip from Michigan to Glacier National Park is following the same route we took on a longer trip i n 2015 (we went all the way to the West Coast on that trip). We stopped at this same place on that trip.

We drove the rest of the way through Wisconsin and then up around Lake Superior to Duluth.

The rest of day was spent crossing Minnesota. We tried to find rest areas or roadside parks but could not.

We crossed into North Dakota around 4:30 and then had about an hour drive to our campground for tonight. We are at the Mel Rieman Recreation Area just north of Valley City ND. The campground is on the shoreline of Lake Ashtabula. The lake was created by the construction of the Baldhill Dam on the Sheyenne River. We walked over and saw the Dam and also took some photos of the fields (including a herd of cows) behind our campsite.

We left Interlochen State Park about 7:45 this morning and drove to Mackinaw City for our first stop. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed our first coffee break of the trip at the beach with a bridge view.

We crossed the bridge and headed west on Hwy 2 and then north on 77 to Germfast and stopped there at the Manistique River Roadside Park for our lunch spot.

We continued north until we connected with Hwy 28 and drove that through Munising, continuing south of Marquette on 41 through Ishpeming and then farther west until that route turned north toward L’Anse. After a few miles we came to the Canyon Falls Roadside Park which was our afternoon break location. We took a delightful hike to see Canyon Falls.

We are camping at Lake Gogebic State Park tonight and plan to set out early tomorrow because our next camping location is in North Dakota.

Welcome to my Travel Blog!

Jim and I are setting out on a three week trip to visit Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

We are leaving on August 12 but making a stop to the Buckley Old Engine Show on August 13 before heading north and then west through the UP on August 14.

We plan to make a stop to visit the Theodore Roosevelt National Park on the way out west (a short 1/2 day stop) and arrive at Glacier on the 18th.

I will try to post daily starting 8/14, however there may be some days that I cannot get a strong enough cell signal to post that day so I will have to send those posts as soon as we have better signal.

I am so thankful that God has allowed us to travel one more time to these locations that have become favorites of ours. The last time we were at Glacier was in 2015 and Yellowstone in 2013 so I am excited to return on this trip.

– Mary Bustraan