Icing on the Cake

Trip Start Jun 18, 2008

Trip End Aug 17, 2008

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Where I stayed

Mountain Meadow Campground

(Hungry Horse hotels)

Flag of United States Hungry Horse, Montana, United States
Monday, July 28, 2008

The drive to Glacier NP from Spokane was long, and strange. In Spokane we were staying on US2, a route to the Park, but I dithered. US2 was marked scenic, and my map[ping program had us going east on I-90 and then north on MT 83 to Hungry Horse. Not only did I dither my way out of taking US2, but I took a different exit off off I90 - as directed to by a State highway sign. The State of Montanna had put me on to a secondary highway with narrow lanes, curves grades, no shoulders and scenic drop offs that appeared to My Precious to go down forever. We turned on to another secondary road which had a bit of a shoulder, but had to turn down a narrow village lane to avoid a house being moved down the middle of the wighway. We then turned on to MT 93, a primary road with wide lanes, shoulders and softer curves. We drove along the western banks of Flathead Lake, which was absoliutely gorgeous, into Kalispel, MT whcih seems to be a year round tourist town and very pretty. With close to 4000 towing miles we hit a come to a stop, get out of your car, go back to the trailer for a sandwich and a beer, traffic jam

. In the middle of B F Montanna I'm parked in the middle of a highway with my engine off, for a good 45 minutes.

We arrived in Hungry Horse and found the prettiest rv park we have ever stayed at. The people were very friendly, and the rv sites were the best. This is all gravel, but it is tucked into the side of a mountain in B F Montanna, but they are long and level. You park in between giant Christmas Trees, and you are a comfortable distance from your neighbor. Some of the sites would have no neighbors because of the layout of the property. To top it all offf they had real wireless, not the pretend crap most of the parks lure you to stay with them and charge more for weak to nonexistant wireless. The park is Mountain Meadow Camppground and Cabins. If anyone, ever stays there because of this and doesn't like it I'll buy them a bottle of Moose Drool.

I was beat from 3 driving days, and this one that was really a hard tow for me. We did fo into the NP to look around because everything was just so beautiful. All kinds of gian Christmas trees, the bluest rivers and lakes, and mountains with snow on their tops. There were also giant red cedar trees that were very impressive. The fact that most of these trees were juniper, fir, or cedar of some sort didn't mean anything to me until our last day there when I became congested to the point I thought I was coming down with a cold

. I've got allergies. The strongest of which involves trees and mountain cedar is the worst, but is trailed closely by firs and junipers of the Texas variety. Now we have been driving amongst most of these trees for several weeks now. So surprise, I was having an allergic reaction to the Great Northwest. I realized this when we left and got to Butte where there weren't many of these trees. I started to feel better and clear up until the wind kicked up from the NW and blew the pollen in.

Anyhow, we drove over to the park to check things out. We went to Appgar Village which is on Lake Macdonald. We walked around and signed up for a Red Bus Tour on one of the Parks 1930-ish touring busses. We then drove over to the lodge at Lake Macdonald and signed up for their boat tour of the Lake. The Red Bus Tour will drive us on the Going to the Sun Hwy - a road my Excursion was to long to ride on. We went back and decided to go into town for supper. We ate at the only cafe in Hungry Horse and had a Buffalo steak. Buffalo, it turns out, is a very beef tasting meat that is much leaner than beef. Then we went across the road to the local Huckleberry everything place for dessert. My Precious had Huckleberry ice cream and I had vanilla. I like my ice cream, and I can get pretty picky about it. I always try vanilla first figuring that if they can't get vanilla right you damn sure know they're not going to get any of the rest right

. It tasted like the stuff you get 5 gallons for !.50 at Wal-Mart. I still ate the rest - it is still ice cream you know - but didn't enjoy it.

The next day we went to the NP for the Lake Macdonald tour. Everyone wanted to sit on top, and then the captain - a 20 something guide - said that it would only take 12. My Precious and I opted for the bow section to avoid the manic crush that was going to happen above us. This was nice and cozy with us and a family from the Dallas/Ft Worth area, small world. The guide hadn't done this much, and read from a script, but we enjoyed it anyway.

We did learn that the mountains are made of sedimentary rocks which made it easy for the glaciers to carve out gouges in the mountains and lakes. As the glaciers moved along the soft sedimentary rocks would either be crushed underneath or moved ahead of the glacier. When the glacier stopped moving, so did the rocks it had been pushing in front of it. These rocks formed a natural dam for the lake that was going to be created by the glacier melting. Sedimentary rocks are very porous, so, as snow melted each year, the water filtered through the layers of rocks and picked up the crushed rocks - called glacial dust - and flowed to the river and lake. This glacial dust is suspended 5' below the lake surface

. It is this dust, just underneath the surface, that causes the dramatic reflections, the water's color, and the lake's calmness. The pictures will attest to this, or I hope they will.

My Precious was set on seeing a bear. Something similar to the pink bird thing in Morro Bay, so I was determined to really put my foot dow for real this time. The Red Bus tour of Going to the Sun Road was over 6 hours of oohs, aahs, and an occasional oh my god. The road is narrow, down to one lane in places, and is restricted to vehicles under 21' long and less than 8' wide. The Excursion is close to 26' and is almost 8' wide so a self guided tour was out. This tour guide knew his job, and conducted a great tour. The guard rails were built by the CCC, but were hardly over 2' tall and couldn't guard more than a Model T. The road itself was built with private funds. Towards the middle of September snowfall will close the road down until May when they will go and dig the road out from under up to 96' of snow. Yes that's 96 feet. We were able to see three glaciers, and just acres of just plain snow. Did not see a bear, yea, but did see some mountain goats. We also missed out on Elk and Big Horn Sheep. This was a great tour.

I'm sure My Precious will have a much better thread on this because she has the memory. Our trip's been a long one, and we have to get to San Angelo to help my Moter-in-Law move into an apartment. We decided to eliminate our stay in Colorado Springs so we can get to Angelo early for a visit, go home, and return with a trailer on moving day. This has meant 7 back to back travel days. Not much fun, but necessary.