Sunday, July 19

Today we woke up at a comfortable RV campground just outside the west entrance to Glacier National Park called Mountain Meadow RV Park. We were all tired from the long drive yesterday getting from Yellowstone to Glacier AND simply because we’ve been driving and living fast and hard for over four weeks now. We have really been enjoying ourselves! Rob especially hasn’t really had a moment to just be and to really relax and catch up with life very much. He woke up saying he needed a down day and by the end of this day he was saying he needed a stiff drink.

Today we came to the end of the road for our planning of this trip. We kind of had a general plan of entering Canada north of Seattle and heading into Vancouver, but today changed all that. Beyond getting to Mountain Meadow, we had no real firm plans. In Mountain Meadow while we had internet service we made a quick attempt to make plans for today that fell a little flat.

We needed to check out of our campsite by 11am and we had no idea where we were headed next. The only reason we went to Glacier National Park was because I really wanted to see it. It is supposed to be one of the crown jewels of the U.S. National Park service and I figured we might as well. So, over coffee this morning Rob pulled up some day hikes in Glacier and found a couple of awesome combined boat tours with hikes stuck in the middle before returning to the dock that sounded perfect. After being cooped up in the RV for some days a hike sounded great; however, these boat/hike combinations were all out of the east side of Glacier and we were on the west, but we were so intrigued we made our boat reservations and decided to head for the east. We entered the park on the “Going to the Sun Road” and at the fee station the Ranger immediately said, “Now, you know, you’ll only be able to go ahead about 12 miles before you’ll have to turn around? Your rig is too long to get through ‘Logan Pass’.” Oh, sure, yeah, we knew that – not!! So, we decided to go the 12 miles before we had to turn around to see what we could see of Glacier National Park. It is beautiful. The lakes formed by the glaciers – and for the moment at least – still being fed by the glaciers are serene and big and colorful. The mountains are more severe than at Yellowstone and the parks are very different.

Yellowstone is an RV-friendly park. There are many roads down which RV’s are not allowed in Yellowstone, but those roads on which RV’s are allowed are RV friendly, meaning the shoulders are wide, there aren’t a lot of blind curves one after the other, and there aren’t a lot of pedestrians and bicyclists. There are many roads from which to choose to get through Yellowstone and parking lots have been created with RV’s in mind. Normally, this is not the kind of park we would enjoy because until now we’ve been the kind of campers who pack in our tent and supplies. But this trip, is not like the others.

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Playing in and around the lake was exactly what we needed to keep going. We looked at a map, evaluated our options and made a plan. We decided that if we really wanted to experience Glacier and do these boat tours and a hike our only option was to drive around the outside of the park, down and around to the east side. It looked like it was only about 100 miles. That was until we came upon more signs on roads we intended to travel that said no vehicles longer than 20′. UGH!!!

Driving along U.S. 2 was great, but then when we had to get off 2 once we had rounded the south side of the park onto a smaller highway to go north along the east side of the park all through the “Blackfeet Indian Reservation” and things became not so fun in Lenny in a big hurry. It was a two-lane road with at most a six-inch shoulder and sometimes those six inches disappeared and even the paint for the lane lines was falling away off the road. It was tight and Lenny is wide and it was windy.  Remember, Rob started this day saying he could really use a down day. Eventually the pavement even came to an end because of road construction and that just added to what was already a stressful experience. At one point Rob found a spot to pull off the road and was seriously considering turning around but it was now four o’clock or so in the afternoon and then where would we go? We had no idea how many miles long the construction was or for how long we would have to continue to travel this narrow road. After some deep breathing and psyching ourselves up, we took off again and we made it! We arrived at the “Going to the Sun Road” west side entrance to the park and were told that we could only go in about six miles before we’d have to turn around because of the size of Lenny. Thankfully, we already knew that, so this was not an unpleasant surprise. We just wanted to make sure we could get to the St. Mary’s boat dock where we had reservations at 10 am. We made it there no problem and then turned around.

Now we needed to find a place to camp for the night. It was now closer to six o’clock. We knew that leaving this to the last minute could result in worst-case scenario, us having to stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot or a Rest Area. We oftentimes had no cell service all around Glacier to even find a place to stay, so we were winging it.  We drove up to and through four different places before we found a sign that said, “Glacier Trailhead”. Rob had the thought that many people park at the trailhead and leave their cars there for days while they hike, so why couldn’t we park Lenny there for the night. We drove down the road and it became clear very quickly that we were missing something, there were cabins all over and a big sign that said “Glacier Trailhead Cabins”. The owner was a very nice fellow standing outside as we drove in and Rob chatted with him and was told that it wasn’t a trailhead at all. Rob asked if he knew of any place we could just park for the night because the city of St. Mary is not big enough to have a Wal-Mart and it’s in the middle of the Reservation, so just pulling over at a turnout might not be the wisest decision. He told us of an empty lot where people who don’t want to pay for a place to camp, or who can’t find a place for the night, often park. He said he usually doesn’t see vehicles our size there, but he’s never heard of anybody running into any trouble there. That’s where we landed with two other campers and it was quiet and we were done for the day!  We watched a couple episodes of Gilmore Girls had chips and cheese for supper along with a beer or two and crashed, ready to start fresh on Monday not knowing where we will stay tomorrow or the next day, or the next day, and no internet service to figure anything out. The only thing we really know at this point is that we want to arrive in Anchorage somewhere between August 1-3.