Off the Beaten Path

Thursday, August 21

We spent last night in Kalispell at a lovely hotel. We arrived in the afternoon, so we had some down time, and the hotel happened to be a great place to relax and rest. In the courtyard were Hydrangea Bushes—in full, fresh bloom—short growing season up here. It's a lovely old town that is being preserved, and they are controlling new building too, which adds to the loveliness. There is a lot of Prairie style architecture. Kalispell has its own civic chorale and orchestra too.

This morning we headed for Glacier National Park. It was a time of great beauty and intrepid driving! The road to the top was aptly named "Going to the Sun Road." It is a one-way-pretending-to-be-two-way road, very steep with many very sharp turns. To add to the fun was the construction! (This depression-era road is in need of a lot of repair.) Don drove us up, and I drove us down—mostly in 1st or 2nd gear. (See picture!) I can describe the road; the scenery is beyond description. Sadly, most of the glaciers are gone, and the few remaining are significantly smaller. Nevertheless, it is an awesome landscape.

Don found an interesting option as I drove toward Idaho. There was a place not too far off the route that promised giant Cedar trees. We decided to take this little side trip. That led us to 10 or 20 miles of two-lane road, which led to 4 miles of tiny, two-lane, which dead-ended into a small parking lot. We had seen massive cedar trees as we drove in, and in the center of the lot was a true giant.  It was quite deserted, except for an old van.  An Indian woman (about our age) and her dog were in the van.  She wanted to walk with us on the path of a couple of miles, so we went together, along with her well-trained dog.  Her name was Katya and she is from British Columbia. What a walk. The signs said that the oldest of the trees were about 500 years. They were huge. They were great beauties. It was really a primeval forest; an experience we will always treasure.

Road Notes & Humor of the day:

We enjoyed the Hungry Horse Dam, and the aptly named Hungry Horse Town, touted on a billboard as the "Best Dam Town In the West. The locals had apparently gathered at "The Dam Tavern" one night and decided they had a name that needed using, hence the "Dam Gift Shop," the "Dam Canyon Shop," etc.

For those of you who wondered why we were taking coats, it was 55 when we left Kalispell this morning and 44 when we got to Glacier.  We've worn those coats every time we left the car today.

Since leaving The Black Hills, we have seen one car from Massachusetts and one from Florida, leaving us as one of the big three winners of distance driving!

We didn't see any of the grizzly bears we were warned about in Glacier, but we have some choice instructions for safety!

The landscape of western Montana was much the same, but more human-sized as we drove along. Still very beautiful.  We hit Idaho about 8 this evening and are now tucked into a nice Best Western.  I've taken care of two customers—aren't computers wonderful?

Now it's off to bed.