July 30, 2015 Travel day to Deer Lodge, Montana

Thursday, July 30, 2015 Travel day to Deer Lodge, Montana

We took our time getting ready this morning as we only had a 4 hours ride to our next stop.  This stop is central to a couple of things that we would like to see, Mike has a few small projects that he wants to get to and then just chill. 

We took a different route which was coming around the west side of Flathead Lake.  This lake is the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi.  It is 27 miles long and 15 miles wide and it is one of the cleanest.  It was a beautiful drive around with the mountains as a back drop.  We also saw a glacier in the Mission Range. 

We arrived at Indian Creek Campground.  It is a small campground that has 72 sites which are easy to get into.  Has full hookups and good wifi.  After lunch Mike began his project of finding the electrical short in our tow lights and I just did a few things inside and read for a bit.  Mike finally came in around dinner time and he thinks he has isolated the problem so tomorrow when we are out we will get the part and we will see if that is it.

Tomorrow we are going to go to a Sapphire Mine in Philipsburg.  These sapphires come in all different colors so we will see what becomes of it.  I do not have a sapphire in my collection so we may be in trouble.  Not really.

The weather has been nice during the day it has gotten into the 80's and in the 40's at night.

DIFFERENT SHOTS OF FLATHEAD LAKE

COUPLE OF SHOTS OF THE GLACIER

Nice design for a people crossing

This is called Animals Trail-nice crossing for the animals

July 29, 2015 no post for this day

July 28, 2015 A short trip into Glacier to follow up on things that we missed

Tuesday, July 28, 2015 A short trip into Glacier to follow up on things that we missed

We had a nice leisurely breakfast and we headed out to go inside the Glacier Park Lodge which is known as the big tree hotel.  Yesterday I only took a picture of the outside as we were racing the rain. The lodge was built in 1913 by the railroad.  It looks like a big chalet.  When you walk inside there are huge trees throughout the lobby.  There are 60 Douglas Fir tree trunks, each are 40 ' tall and 3' or more in diameter.  When you walk out onto the deck you can see a glacier off in a distance not sure which one is it.

As we traveled the same way we went yesterday we had a better view of the glaciers.  I am still looking for something that will identify the glaciers without paying an outrageous amount of money.  So I did take probably the same photos as yesterday but they are clearer.

Our next stop was to Running Eagle Falls.  These falls are named after a real person.   Running Eagle is the only young woman to have gone on a four day fast to suffer, pray, dream and to find her medicine.much like what the men do to become warriors.  This is a very sacred and respected site, named in her honor by the Pikuni people.  She became head of her father's painted lodge after his death when she was still a teenager.  Near her 30th year she was on her last raid and killed by the Flathead Indians.  The Pikuni warriors brought her back to these Falls and buried her in a tree overlooking the falls.  These falls were very beautiful as well as the riverbed with all the different colored stones in it.

We headed on home and made a few stops at stores to pick up some things and we were finished with our day.  Tomorrow we are going to stick around the motorhome and do the usual stuff before we leave on Thursday morning for a couple days to a campground near Butte, MT.  So there will be no blog for July 29th.

Happy Birthday to our daughter, Christina.

Blackfeet Indian Monument

This is made of all the different color rocks in this area-pretty ingenious

Lobby inside Glacier Park Lodge-pretty impressive

Glacier outside of the lodge

A chalet

Front of Glacier Lodge

Running Eagle Falls-water is coming through the top of the rocks

rocks in the water below falls


SOME MORE GLACIERS

a riverbed we drove down too

July 27, 2015 Road trip into Glacier National Park

Monday, July 27, 2015 Road trip into Glacier National Park

If you hadn’t heard there is a big forest fire up in the Northeast part of the park and the road called Going-to-the-Sun road is closed. So with that road being closed we drove the long way around to the tune of 270 miles round trip. It was a long day in the car.  FYI- glaciers are disappearing.  In 1850, they had estimated over 150 glaciers.  In 1968 the number dropped to 50 and today there are about 25 glaciers left.  They estimate that glaciers will all be gone in the next few years.

We started heading to the east side of the park and our first stop was at Goat Lick yep it is a place that the mountain goats come to lick at the minerals that they need.  In the morning we saw only one goat and on the way back we saw a mother and her young and also another by itself.  As we continued I noticed that railroad tracks ran alongside the road.  It looked pretty neat with some bridges and some rock coverings against the mountain.

Next big area we came to was called Maria's Pass.  This pass was well known by the American Indians but they tried to keep this information away from the railroad people.   It was discovered by John F. Stevens.  This pass for the railroad was the lowest pass route connecting the headwaters of the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast.  We then just rode to the Glacier Park Lodge that was built in 1912-13.  This Lodge is on the Blackfeet Reservation.   In showing respect to the Indians there are certain times of the year that no liquor is sold. We then continued on our way to Saint Mary.  On the road were signs that said caution free range animals.  Well we didn’t really understand this until we came upon a couple of horses and a couple of different group of cows that were not in a fenced area.  Seems strange to me why anyone would do that but they have their reasons just seems cruel to me.  We saw the Lodge at St. Mary and kept on.  We then noticed an area that had a lot of tents setup and further on down we saw an area that had helicopters then it hit us this was the base camps for the firefighters and volunteers that were trying to contain or put out the fire.  Then we started to climb and then we saw our first glacier it was called Salamander Glacier.  It then started to rain but we continued hoping that the fog wouldn’t stop us from seeing some more.  We ended up at the end of the road at Many Glaciers and then we saw many glaciers with the fog fast approaching us.  We managed a few shots but they were not as clear as we would have liked but you could still make them out.  Our last stop before heading home was Many Glacier Hotel.  This hotel looked like a swiss chalet and it is a 100 years old.  The rain was really coming down by now and we hope that it will help with the fire. 

It was a good day and the glaciers were incredible

Happy 16th Birthday to our niece, Rachel.

Mountains that we are going to be climbing

First Mountain Goat we have seen

Marias Pass

Glacier Park Lodge

Free range horse

Free range cow

Salamander Glacier is the long one, on top is Gem Glacier and at the bottom is Grinnell Glacier

Another shot of glaciers

Front of Many Glacier Hotel

Grinnel Glacier up close

Many Glacier Hotel

Helicopters helping with the fires

Big tents for the fire help

Little tents too

Railroad cover from stones

River bank stones pretty shades of pink, purple and blue

Mother and her baby

July 26, 2015-Travel day to Glacier and our first trip into Glacier National Park

Sunday, July 26, 2015-Travel day to Glacier and our first trip into Glacier National Park

It was strange not coordinating the time and route for our next leg of our trip with Jeff and Amy. We decided to leave whenever Mike was awaken by Max for his morning potty walk. So we were up and gone by 530am.

We headed back across some of the same route we took from Spokane. We turned north a little after Butte, MT and headed toward Glacier. It was a long day and we arrived at Columbia Falls RV Park at around 145pm. It is a small but nice park and about 16 miles from the West entrance to Glacier. We have a drive through slot and full hookups.  They also have a big and small dog park that you must use. After we got all set up we decided to take a short trip into the park.

There is a fire on the Eastern side of the park but it has not affected this side except that the road that transects the park called the Going -to-the-Sun road is closed near the highest point. We can still get to the eastern side but we have to go around the long way.

We had seen the mountains on the drive into Columbia Falls and they were what we expected the Rockies to look like. But as we entered the park and started to drive through we were amazed at the sights that met us at every turn. Our first stop was at Lake McDonald Lodge.  It was built in 1913-14 and is made of natural stone and red cedar.  They had no roads till 1921 ao the front of the lodge faces the lake.  There were 500 foot waterfalls that were formed from the melting glaciers. There were the glaciers themselves and the mountains are just gorgeous. After the drive up to the closed area of the Going-to –the-Sun road we decided to return to the RV Park and have dinner.

What a great start on this new leg of our trip. We will head out again tomorrow and explore the southern portion of the park and look for more glaciers. 

Everyone,  Mike has agreed to pick up where Jeff has left off on Facebook.  Jeff did a great job and gave Mike some pointers.

Happy Birthday to our nephew, Terry Jr.

The Rockies ahead of us

Nice Lodge on Salmon Lake it is on an island 

Big Eagle that was for sale

Our RV Park

Check out the first row

Haven, Brandon and Aubrey check out who got in the picture

South Fork Flathead River

Inside the Lake McDonald Lodge

Lake McDonald taken in front of the lodge

Lake McDonald Lodge

Ragged edges of  the mountains

Beautiful built tunnel

Glacier on Heavens Peak we think 

Water coming off of the mountain

Bird Woman Falls

Snow on the tops 

Weeping Wall- water just drips

Haystack Creek

Check this out a waterfall in the center of the trees

Another shot of Lake McDonald

Our site and the dark coach is just like ours but a dark gray