We woke up on Thursday morning at the West Glacier KOA RV Park. The thermometer read 37 degrees. Lisa hates the cold.
Every trip has a day that just doesn’t go as planned or doesn’t come easy. We’ve all experienced it. Sometimes it’s a major medical issue like the time Lisa broke her wrist on a remote doctor-less island in the British Virgin Islands. Sometimes it’s a major inconvenience like Brad being detained by Chilean Security for having an apple in his backpack and being interrogated so long that we missed our flight to the Atacama Desert. Other times it’s nothing major. You just have a day where nothing seems to go right.
Our first day in Glacier National Park was the latter.
It all started early in the morning with a text and a photo of a Covid test. Our youngest daughter, Stephanie, had just tested positive for Covid. She took a few more tests and indeed, she had the dreaded virus. She wasn’t feeling too badly but, nonetheless, we were concerned.
While Lisa was texting with Steph, we got the early morning breaking news alerts informing us that the Supreme Court had reversed Roe v Wade. We felt punched in the gut and the news immediately put us in foul moods and we went on a few expletive-laden rants. Lisa suggested we turn the RV around and head back to Canada, find a nice place to live and send for the kids and grandkids. We pondered that idea as we headed off to Glacier National Park.
We arrived at the West Entrance of Glacier and were confronted with electronic signs that told us to have our vehicle passes and ID ready. We had no idea what that meant. As we pulled up to the nice but official looking park official, Brad asked, “We don’t know what a vehicle reservation is.” She smiled and succinctly ushered us off to an area for cars without park reservations. There, a lovely woman explained to us that we could not go into the west entrance of the park without a reservation. That reservation needed to be made months ago. She did say we could see the park from the East side without a reservation and enthusiastically explained some of the sights we could see along the way. She also gave us hope by saying that we could come back at 4:00 and enter the west side without a reservation, This woman has a hard job telling people who didn’t do their research (like us) that they can’t visit the park yet she handled it with a lovely attitude.
A few other things she mentioned ever so nicely were: 1) Our dogs weren’t allowed on any of the trails in the park except one short paved one. 2) We couldn’t’ take our RV on the infamous Going-to-the-Sun-Road because it was too long. 3) It didn’t matter anyway because most of the road was closed because of ice and snow. 4) Have a Great Day! Things she forgot to mention: 1) The two east entrances to the park are an hour-and-a-half away.
As we turned around, Lisa mentioned that there is an old wives tale that bad things happen in threes so we had just had our three bad things for the day. Again, off we went with hope of seeing the sights the park ranger had suggested. As we drove along, we watched the temperature drop to 45 degrees and it started to rain. It had warmed to 60 degrees on the west side. OK, well, maybe four things and then we were good to go.
The day continued to confound us. We did see the cool sight at Goat Lick Overlook. — a family of mountain goats rock-climbing and yes, licking rocks. That was cool. We think our luck is changing.
We got to the Glacier’s Two Medicine Lake entrance at noon. Great! We can have a nice lunch at the lake. We pulled up to the gate and the ranger said sternly, “This entrance is closed. Come back at 2:30” Really?!?
Ugh. This is becoming a very bad day.
As we drove away we found a pullout and stopped to have lunch. As we pulled in a guy had stopped to pee. I’m sure we embarrassed him. He was also having a bad day. There was, however, a nice little waterfall and the view of the mountains was pretty good. So we stayed and ate lunch.
The drive to the other east entrance — St. Mary — was a slow winding road. It took us a while to get there.
We got to the St. Mary entrance and were allowed into the park. Yes! But, we only got six miles in before a sign informed us that only vehicles under 21 feet could continue. The Winona Rider is 24 feet long. We stopped to walk along the lake a bit but because it was 45 and raining we didn’t stay long. We took a few pictures, saw some bear poop, we think, and figured we could at least check off Glacier National Park on our map at home.
The St. Mary entrance was about a hundred miles from our campsite and it was now 4:30. We decided it had been a long day and we should head home. There was a lot of road construction on the way up so we decided to go home on a different route. About 20 miles in, we came upon a very serious accident that blocked both lanes of the road. We sat for a while but realized it could be closed for a long time so we turned around and back tracked to the winding road with the heavy construction. It took us another two hours to get home. We were tired and in bad moods. Even the gnocchi dinner we made was mushy and not too good.
We went to bed vowing that our second day would be a better day.
Day 2: Our Wonderful, Beautiful, Not Bad, Very Good Day
We woke up on Day 2 and the sun was shining with a forecast of 73 degrees. It was already a better morning than the day before. Daughter Stephanie, although having Covid was feeling reasonably fine and was mostly just bored. The Supreme Court decisions of the week still infuriated us but we resolved that we would get more politically involved when we get home and start doing what we could to take action (instead of moving to Canada), and lastly we had a plan to get into West Glacier at 4:00 pm.
With such a beautiful day at our beckoning, we had to take the dogs on a hike. We found an area that accepted dogs near Kalispell and drove 30 minutes to the West. It was a beautiful hike with lots of wild flowers and good views. Sophie and Ralphie were quite happy, maybe even giddy, because they could be off-leash for much of this hike.
We went to the quaint town of Whitefish for lunch where we indulged in a post-hike beer and some pizza at a local pizzeria. It was some of the best beer we have had in a long while! While at lunch we talked about the day before. Those goats on the rocks were pretty cool. Remember when we were on that winding drive? Wasn’t the view amazing? Oh, and lunch by the waterfall. How often does that happen?That lady that told us we couldn’t come in was so sweet. It was interesting how we remembered the highlights. Maybe yesterday wasn’t such a bad day after all. Then Lisa noticed a sign on the street at our pizza place.
On the way back to West Glacier, we just had to stop at the Huckleberry Land and buy ourselves some huckleberry pies for dinner. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a huckleberry before. It’s a bit like a blueberry but tases more like a blackberry. They grow them here. Huckleberries are everywhere.
The 4:00 hour arrived and we got in line, holding our breath that we would be let in to the park. They waved us through and we were in, just like that! We took a scenic drive along Lake McDonald and stopped whenever we could to take pictures. We did have to turn around about 14 miles in because of the size of our RV but we were thrilled with what we got to see.
We spent our last evening at our RV Park by getting a delicious meal of huckleberry chicken and huckleberry ribs all served with some delicious homemade mac and cheese and cornbread. We even shared some huckleberry pie for dessert. Our RV Park was a KOA near the entrance of West Glacier. At first, Lisa thought it was a bit too crowded and busy (she hates crowds of all kinds) but we both grew to love it. The spa-like showers won us over at the beginning of the stay but the homemade meals, the attention to every detail, the kids who were having the times of their lives riding bikes and making tie-dye shirts made this place unique and special.
Our stay in Glacier was a tale of two very different days and attitudes and experiences. But that’s the magic of travel; every day tells a different story and no day is like the other. Perhaps our first day wasn’t really a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day after all. And, really, a bad day traveling is better than a good day anywhere else, right?
Next we’re off to Blackwell Island Idaho.
Lisa and Brad's Travels 