What awaited our return from the West

After our three week plus camping trip out west, I knew the garden would be a field of weeds but I wasn't prepared for a garden full of four foot weeds, solid!

A friend told me they had to use the weed trimmer on theirs, so I went out to see if there was anything there to expose with a weedeater. Much to my delight, we found eleven of the twelve tomato plants as tall as the weeds and already bearing fruit. Seeing is believing, so will enclose the photo. Maybe we need to let the weeds grow so the plants can get a good start?????

Then I was afraid all my daylilies would be bloomed out. This was not the case either as you will see one of my favorite seedlings. The plant had six open on it today and I was very happy.

Our Take on Glacier

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CELEBRATING 100 YEARS
MONTANA
July 4, 2010

Yes, the glaciers do appear to be melting in Glacier National Park in this its centennial year. SInce this was my first trip to Glacier, I had nothing to compare as I looked at Jackson glacier, the largest in the park. I had only previously seen the glaciers on the Canadian side in the Colombian Glacier Field.

In 1993, I had actually walked on the glacier in Canada but after looking back at my pictures from 1993, I decided that if I could have gotten up to Jackson glacier, it could have been as large as was the Canadian Athabasca Glacier.

As we traveled the “Going to the Sun” highway in Glacier, the scenery was breath taking. Around each bend in the road there was a new view of snow covered mountain ranges, sparkling waterfalls and rushing streams.

The mountain sides were dotted with numerous waterfalls bubbling with snow melt down the alpine cirques and cliffs. Some are called step falls because the rock layers have eroded at different rates giving a step effect. The ribbon falls, just do that, fall as ribbons down shear cliffs from hanging valleys. These hanging glaciers marked where small tributary glaciers had carved intersecting valleys high above the floor of the principal glacier.

Along the road we passed the weeping wall where water weeps and falls to wet the road and splash your car. Many hands reached out to catch some moisture as they passed by.

The passes were marked with snow pilled as high as 25 feet where road clearing equipment had cleared the road. The road was still closed by snow until the last week in June, just a few days before we arrived.

On the “Going to the Sun” highway, we traveled along Lake McDonald for ten miles. It is reputed to be 475 feet deep and offered beautiful reflections of the mountain ranges. The Lake McDonald Lodge on the banks of the lake brought to mind a Swiss Chalet.

At Logan’s Pass, which has an elevation of 6646 feet and where we passed the Continental divide, the snow is quite deep around the visitor center and offered fun for kids and dads to pelt each other with snow balls. The mountain goats also seemed to like the visitor center and readily posed for my camera.

Speaking of the Continental divide, we passed Triple Divide Peak which was marked as having runoff to the Pacific Ocean to the West, the Atlantic Ocean via the Mississippi River Valley to the East and Hudson Bay to the North.

Construction along the “Sun” highway gave us pause to enjoy the wildflowers which were in full bloom those first two weeks in July. My favorite was called bear grass. Each plant had one plume of hundreds of tiny white flowers. These plants covered the ground where they had open sun, especially in the areas recently cleared by wild fire. Bright pink and red Indian Paintbrush gave a colorful accent among yellow monkey flower, blanket flower, glacier lily, white yarrow, cow parsnip and blue forget-me-nots, wild geranium, lupine and many other flowers that carpeted the ground.

Another colorful sight along the “Sun” highway were the numerous antique red open air tour buses. These buses from the 1930’s are treasured by the drivers as well as the park. “It just don’t get any better than driving this fine antique bus through this kind of scenery,” said one contented bus driver.

There are thirty buses in the fleet and it takes six full time mechanics to keep them in working order. The busses gleamed as if they had just rolled off the show room floor.

As soon as bears are spotted along the highway, rangers quickly make their way to the site to control crowds and keep everyone safe, including the bears. We spotted two Grizzly bears in a meadow, far enough away to be captured by a telephoto lens. They appeared to be mating. The ranger said it was a few weeks late in the year, but it was possible.

At one spot a braver mom and her two cubs excited crowds along the road, but she went behind a crop of trees before we got to the site. When I mentioned to a ranger that I had bought a walking stick with a bell, his comment was, “That’s not enough to scare them away. Make a lot of noise when walking the trails.” So much for my new bell stick.

Shining glaciers, high mountain waterfalls fed by melting snow, rivers with numerous rapids and falls, animals from as small as a marmot scurrying into holes to the mammoth grizzly bears and graceful elk moving about the meadows and sightseeing crowds such as ourselves filled the space of what the natives rightly call the “big sky country.”

Our Take on Glacier

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CELEBRATING 100 YEARS
MONTANA
July 4, 2010

Yes, the glaciers do appear to be melting in Glacier National Park in this its centennial year. SInce this was my first trip to Glacier, I had nothing to compare as I looked at Jackson glacier, the largest in the park. I had only previously seen the glaciers on the Canadian side in the Colombian Glacier Field.

In 1993, I had actually walked on the glacier in Canada but after looking back at my pictures from 1993, I decided that if I could have gotten up to Jackson glacier, it could have been as large as was the Canadian Athabasca Glacier.

As we traveled the “Going to the Sun” highway in Glacier, the scenery was breath taking. Around each bend in the road there was a new view of snow covered mountain ranges, sparkling waterfalls and rushing streams.

The mountain sides were dotted with numerous waterfalls bubbling with snow melt down the alpine cirques and cliffs. Some are called step falls because the rock layers have eroded at different rates giving a step effect. The ribbon falls, just do that, fall as ribbons down shear cliffs from hanging valleys. These hanging glaciers marked where small tributary glaciers had carved intersecting valleys high above the floor of the principal glacier.

Along the road we passed the weeping wall where water weeps and falls to wet the road and splash your car. Many hands reached out to catch some moisture as they passed by.

The passes were marked with snow pilled as high as 25 feet where road clearing equipment had cleared the road. The road was still closed by snow until the last week in June, just a few days before we arrived.

On the “Going to the Sun” highway, we traveled along Lake McDonald for ten miles. It is reputed to be 475 feet deep and offered beautiful reflections of the mountain ranges. The Lake McDonald Lodge on the banks of the lake brought to mind a Swiss Chalet.

At Logan’s Pass, which has an elevation of 6646 feet and where we passed the Continental divide, the snow is quite deep around the visitor center and offered fun for kids and dads to pelt each other with snow balls. The mountain goats also seemed to like the visitor center and readily posed for my camera.

Speaking of the Continental divide, we passed Triple Divide Peak which was marked as having runoff to the Pacific Ocean to the West, the Atlantic Ocean via the Mississippi River Valley to the East and Hudson Bay to the North.

Construction along the “Sun” highway gave us pause to enjoy the wildflowers which were in full bloom those first two weeks in July. My favorite was called bear grass. Each plant had one plume of hundreds of tiny white flowers. These plants covered the ground where they had open sun, especially in the areas recently cleared by wild fire. Bright pink and red Indian Paintbrush gave a colorful accent among yellow monkey flower, blanket flower, glacier lily, white yarrow, cow parsnip and blue forget-me-nots, wild geranium, lupine and many other flowers that carpeted the ground.

Another colorful sight along the “Sun” highway were the numerous antique red open air tour buses. These buses from the 1930’s are treasured by the drivers as well as the park. “It just don’t get any better than driving this fine antique bus through this kind of scenery,” said one contented bus driver.

There are thirty buses in the fleet and it takes six full time mechanics to keep them in working order. The busses gleamed as if they had just rolled off the show room floor.

As soon as bears are spotted along the highway, rangers quickly make their way to the site to control crowds and keep everyone safe, including the bears. We spotted two Grizzly bears in a meadow, far enough away to be captured by a telephoto lens. They appeared to be mating. The ranger said it was a few weeks late in the year, but it was possible.

At one spot a braver mom and her two cubs excited crowds along the road, but she went behind a crop of trees before we got to the site. When I mentioned to a ranger that I had bought a walking stick with a bell, his comment was, “That’s not enough to scare them away. Make a lot of noise when walking the trails.” So much for my new bell stick.

Shining glaciers, high mountain waterfalls fed by melting snow, rivers with numerous rapids and falls, animals from as small as a marmot scurrying into holes to the mammoth grizzly bears and graceful elk moving about the meadows and sightseeing crowds such as ourselves filled the space of what the natives rightly call the “big sky country.”

Grand Tetons Park Day 2

Today was a restful day in preparation for our journey back to Maine. We walked down to Snake River below our campsite after breakfast.
Then we took off for the Park. We drove along Jenny Lake in the Park and had coffee on the terrace of the Jackson Hole Lodge. What a lovely place. The lobby is large enough to have four nice shops and we splurged on coffee to drink out on the terrace.
Then we drove to a Wildlife preserve to visit a cabin and ranch which was owned by the Millers until it was purchased by the government to be on the Historical Register. Mr. Miller was the third homesteader in Jackson Hole. It is now an elk preserve, but the elk are all in Yellowstone for the summer. The house was an elegant cabin with 12 rooms and some original furnishings were still there. Mrs. Miller was one of the first Mayors of Jackson and on the wall was a picture of her and her six lady members of the town council.
We shopped for groceries which should see us through the week long trip home.
We came home and Tom took a nap while I read. It was our first day to really take it easy.

Grand Tetons 1

We left Yellowstone this morning around 8:30 and made it over all the high places with the camper with no problems. We arrive in Jackson around 2:30. The distance was short but we had to go all through Yellowstone to get to the Grand Tetons.
Tom and I did the shops in Jackson Hole, leaving a little cash for a few souviners after we checked into our campground along the Snake River. Actually I can hear the river from our camper it is so close.
We have decided to rest here tomorrow before we start our journey home. I need to do some wash and we will just rest.
You can see how beautiful the Grand Tetons are from the pictures. Tom and I had our lunch overlooking the Tetons at a table which clearly had a bear warning posted on it. We watched each other's backs!
The famous arch of elk antlers in Jackson Hole was not to be missed for a photograph or two.
Enjoy the lovely Teton scenes.

Thermal day in Yellowstone

Our goal today was to refresh our memories from our last visits to the park and fondly remember those that were with us during those visits.
We walked the boardwalks across the geyser basin and took several hikes even though we were at a mile and a half elevation. We just had to stop along the way and take lots of pictures.
The bent support for the bow over one of our beds worked fine after the good guys at the tire repair place opened their place up just after they closed and put a clamp on the support. We had come home and found one tent side collapsed. A storm came through while we were gone yesterday and bent the support. We witnessed the results of one of those storms in the mountains where we encountered the roads and mountain sides white with hail.
Today we spent all day doing the thermal pools and fininshed by waiting about an hour with some 1500 other people waiting for Old Faithful to do her thing. We were not disappointed as you will see in the photo.
We head out for Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons tomorrow as we make our way homeward. We plan to stay two days before we actually head home.

Yellowstone Day 2

Today we got a late start but had a full day of adventures. Our aim was to do the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone complete with the falls in the canyon. We hit all the view points between showers and made the walks in the mile plus elevation without too much huffing and puffing.
This is our fourth trip to Yellowstone, but the sights don't change and it's always a wonderful sight to renew.
The wildflowers are in full bloom, but pictures cannot capture the full beauty. The mountains are simply a blaze of color. The yellow ones always stand out the most, but Tom was patient when I asked him to back up so I could capture a tiny one that was so pretty. We found them everywhere but we started out taking another road less traveled this morning so we could stop more often. It was a one way dirt road, and we took our time. Many times we pulled over to allow faster lookers to get past.
We missed seeing a mother grisly with her twins as she had gone behind the trees when we happened upon the site. People standing around had seen her real close to the road. At each bear sighting, the rangers get there fast to make sure people stay out of harms way.
The large black bear was busy feeding just below the road. The cayotte was just running around the trails and you will recognize The Yellowstone Falls.

Yellowstone

Yesterday we spent our last day in Glacier by taking the road less traveled. We traveled on a dirt park road to a remote lake called Bowden Lake.Before entering the Park we stopped at Polebridge. The town consisted of a postal drop, store and bakery all in the same primitive building. It was packed with hikers getting a sandwich on freshly baked bread and pastries of all kinds. Tom and I got a pastry as we had packed a lunch. The fruit pastry was wonderful.
We then took off on this road which was only 6 miles long, but the further we went the more certain I was that we were having an adventure. There was no place big enough to turn around and meeting another car was almost impossible. One car had to back up to a tiny bit widder spot. Anyway 6 miles and 45 minutes later we arrived at the most beautiful lake, as you will see if my pictures load.We had our lunch sitting on one of those big logs.
As for the rest of the story, we are now in Yellowstone in a great camping spot. Fortunately we called yesterday for a reservation. The parks are all full as are most campsites. Ours is full as well.
Tom drove us to the northeast entrance to the Park after we quickly set up the camper. Our campsite is at the north entrance. We ate our fried chicken and potato salad in the car watching a large herd of buffalo feeding. Some of them were actually in the road
You will see from the pictures, that we saw buffalo, antelope, elk and two grisly bears in the distance. If you enlarge the picture, you can see they are really bears.

Bear, goat and flowers

Today was a beautiful day with blue skies and just a few puffy clouds. We found a mountain goat near the construction at Logan's Pass. He seemed happy with traffic. There were some in the hills but too far away for me to focus.
The bear was in the meadow about 6:00 this evening, enjoying his supper. I took several of him but didn't get out of the car.
I did see a deer this morning and one this afternoon, but hey, we have deer.
Flowers took up a goodly portion of the camera time today. The yellow alpine lily was in a bed of white which I haven't identified yet.
We went to the Many Glacier part of the park, but Jackson glacier is so much bigger than any there. They are melting fast.
We still have one more day here so will write more tomorrow.

The rest of the pictures

Hopefully I can sent the rest of my pictures I wrote about last night. My computer crashed but maybe it is fixed.
It looks like the pictures all went. The descriptions are in the last blog.
We are off today for another adventure.

Glacier "Going to the Sun Highway"

I will let the pictures speak for themselves. Here is a brief description of what you are looking at.
The white flowers are called bear grass and literally cover the burned over areas where lightning has caused forest fires.
The Cedars Trail shows many cedars over 100 feet tall and some are 300 years old. The root Tom is standing beside shows how shallow the roots are and many have fallen into Avalanche Creek. This trail we took was nearly a mile long and we were at about 4000 feet. We are doing well for old folks, I would say.
There is a picture of a ribbon waterfall coming from the hanging canyon so named because it was formed by a small tributary glacier. When the main glacier melted the canyon formed by this glacier was high up above the valley which had been formed by the main glacier.
The step falls are formed by rocks eroding at different levels.
The triple divide pass is where water goes in three directions unlike the Continental Divide which only divides the water into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Here is also goes to the Hudson River.
A tourist took a nice picture of the two of us, so am sending it along for the mountain view.
We had to hike a bit to get to the waterfall where Tom is standing, but we made it fine.
I'll have to put the rest of the pictures in another blog. I can't seem to load them all on this one.

Glacier National Park Day 1

A few showers didn't dampen our spirits as most of them happened while we were traveling.
AND the mountains are really something to write home about. It is just awesome!!!!
Our campsite is great with heated pool and hot tubs. DRAT I forgot our suits.
The sites are in the woods basically and not too close together. This is the KOA at West Glacier. There is a nice store and if I don't want to fix breakfast, there is a nice restaurant with a breakfast under $4.00. Dinners are not pricy either. We are out of town in the forest and I bought a walking stick with a bell on it. However, the Ranger told me not to depend on the bell but to walk, talk and clap your hands when on the trail.
There are some short trails which he outlined for us to take tomorrow.
The 'Going to the Sun' Highway will be our goal tomorrow. It will take all day, though it is not long as miles go. With the stops, it will take all day according to the Ranger.
We took a drive this afternoon after having lunch at our campsite. We were set up by 11:00 a.m. Along the drive we stopped to look for wildlife, but ended up with pictures of flowers.
On the way from Conrad this morning, we stopped at an Indian Gift Store in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. On the way out, three drunk indians were eyeing our car and camper. One approached Tom who is a soft touch and got two dollars from him. Good thing he didn't approach me!!! I don't yield so quickly.
I am sending pictures, but not taking the time to place them. There is just too much fun things to do. One nice picture is one I took on the road here, but it shows the mountains nicely. We can't see the glaciers as they are under 6 feet of snow, again, according the the Ranger. I think the pink flowers are Indian Paintbrush. I forgot my flower book. The lake in the picture is McDonald Lake and the guy having lunch is someone I picked up to help me set up the camper!!!!!!

Outside Glacier

Yes, it is the fourth of July and we are sitting in a campsite just outside Glacier National Park in the little town of Conrad.
The TomTom wanted us to go a route that would have taken us nearly 600 miles today. We knew that didn't work, but Tom had worked out a route before we left home that was about 380 miles. We had to shut off the TomTom as the lady kept telling us to turn around but we took the shortcut. No towns to go through and no traffic. That comment is very true. We drove for nearly 200 miles without seeing but just a few cars. Actually the first 100 miles, we saw 2 cars. There were no houses either. I don't know where the ranchers live. Tom was clicking along at 70 miles an hour, so the road was great.
Before we got to this shortcut, we stopped at a rest stop on I94 just above the Yellowstone River. It was so beautiful and I got a close up picture of the yellow Yucca that was spotting the hills all along the road. Of course I had already stood behind a large Yucca bush for Tom to take my picture when I saw the signs all over the place saying to stay on the sidewalk because of rattlesnake danger!!!!!
The hills were full of something that looked like fields of yellow wild mustard and accented with silver sagebrush. As the wind billowed the grass in waves among the fields of yellow and silver it reminded me of a Monet painting.
Along with the fat cows grazing in the fields, we saw 2 antelope and one deer (alive that is )
Interesting to note that beehives were very prominate in the fields. I guess this is where they spend the summer.
The elevation is not bothering Tom so far and we were at 4700 feet at one point today. Now we are at about 3900 feet.
Tom liked the Yellowstone canyon and we followed the river beside us for miles and miles.
The pictures that I will be sending will show me and the Yucca blossoms. I had actually remarked that I wondered it there was a snake in the plant.
If you look closely to the right on one picture, you can see an elk. There were actually 2 but by the time I saw them Tom was flying by at 70 miles an hour.
I took a picture last night of our campsite by a large clay hill. We walked over to it and it was really made of clay.

Badlands

Well, here we are in the Big Sky Campground in Montana. And big sky it is. Today we were driving and all of a sudden I said to Tom, "I can see everything for 360 degrees." The sky looked sooooo big.
We rode along looking at beautiful farm lands and ponds for hundreds of miles until we hit the Theodore Roosevelt Painted Canyon. It was hard to believe that we went from rolling plains to canyons. As you will see from the pictures, it was really a beautiful sight.
I don't know what the fields of yellow are in the picture, but the landscape was simply one giant painting after another, ever changing in color, shape and texture. The deep blue ponds accented the green fields of corn and often there would be gold where the wheat had been harvested. It was almost like watching a scenic movie.
Last night was horrific because of the wind. It must have been blowing 40 miles an hour all night. I never closed my eyes until after 3 this morning. I was sure the camper would be damaged. I didn't know until I talked about my fear this morning that Tom had the same concern. But, God is good and we suffered no damage, except loss of sleep.
Tonight there is a good breeze, but it's in the 70's and very pleasant. Tomorrow we have many things to stop and see along the way, but we will be on the outskirts of Glacier.