Epic Cross Country Road Trip August 11-12

 

Day 11  Wednesday

Heidi and Elie brought pancakes with dried blueberries and appricots over to us for breakfast.  Now, that’s a treat!

The SunTour that we took is Indian owned and operated.  Our guide and driver is Terry.  Her family has lived on the land for many generations.  Good to hear her stories and perspectives.  They are very actively doing legal work to try to enforce previous treaties.  Currently, she is working on buffalo herd restoration.  We make several stops for better picture taking and experiencing.  Our first one is Goose Island in St. Mary’s Lake.  On to Sun Point where we walk a few hundred yards to a point overlooking the lake.  The views of the lake and mountains are inspiring.  I’m clicking away and wandering further and further from the group.  There is a woman with a tripod and camera.  I always like to see what someone like that is aiming at.  As I get close, a gust of wind comes and starts to tip the tripod which would have gone over the cliff if she hadn’t made a quick grab for it.  Grab a few more shots before Nick waves me back to the group to get back in the van. 

Next stop is to see the mountain that at it’s top is a  tri-contentiental divide!  The water goes to the Pacific, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.  Now, that’s pretty cool. 

A stop at Logan’s Pass where we have ½ an hour.  Behind the lodge and gift store is a path to Hidden Lake.  Not enough time to go all the way but I go a little way.  A beautiful mountain meadow and some great views.  Little purple flowers are blooming to contrast with the vastness of the mountains. 

The next stop is our turn around stop.  On the way back we get better views of the amazing stone masonry work that was done to build the road back in the ‘20s and ‘30s.  The road was built with hand placed dynamite, shovels and pic axes.  Lowered the workers with ropes to place the dynamite and then swing to the side as it exploded.  Amazingly, only 3 people died while building the road. 

The Sun Road tour is a half day so we have more time to explore on our own.  We go to Two Medicine Lake. Along the way we walk to some falls with the water coming from a hole in the rock rather than over the top of the rock.

 

Nick and I offered to make dinner for all of us.  We made a pot roast with potatoes, green beans, carrots, onions, celery and mushrooms in the pressure cooker. Heidi and Elie were quite impressed.  We went over to the camp store to get ice cream for dessert.

At 10:00 an astronomy talk was offered at the visitor’s center.  We bundled up, took our camp chairs and went.  The moon was only a sliver so the sky was really dark filled with thousands of stars.  The Milky Way went from horizon to horizon.  On TV monitors, we could see what the telescopes was seeing.  They highlighted other galaxies.  We are such a speck in the grandness. It was a night for meteors.  The light from the monitors dimmed our night vision but we still all saw several.  We stay til a little past midnight. 

Day 12:  Thursday

We have reservations for a boat ride on St Mary’s Lake at 10:00.  We need to break camp and get there an hour early.  We opt for a cold breakfast to speed camp breakdown.  Heidi and Elie come over to tell us that they have decided not to do the boat ride as they have a long drive ahead of them for today.  At least we plan to see them again at their home in Everett, WA. 

Nick and I finish packing up and head for Sun Point Docks where we board the boat for a morning lake cruise.  Our boat is the “Little Chief”.  It is the oldest boat that does lake cruises.  It is over 100 years old but looks good and water worthy.  Whew!  The views! 

The lake is very calm.  When we drove by it yesterday, it had white caps.  The guide said that it is a wind tunnel where winds can whip up to 100 MPHs and 8 foot waves!  They take the boats out even with high winds.  I’m glad it was calm on our day.  Near the end of the lake and turning point we docked.  A short walk brought us to some beautiful falls.  Lots of beautiful purple flowers.  

On our way back to the boat, a deer was standing at alert on the trail.  Who was going to leave the trail?  The deer.  With grace she disappeared into the underbrush.

 We thank our boat captain and continue our journey.

We cross the park to exit on the West side via the Sun Road.  It was nice to see the views again and continue past the turning around point of yesterday.  We both agree that we found the East side views to be more dramatic than on the West side.  The vegetation is different on the two sides of the pass.  The East side is drier and windier.  The West side has many deciduous trees.  Lake McDonald isn’t fed by glaciers like St. Mary’s so is warmer.  Lake McDonald gets up to a “comfortable” 60s degrees where St Mary’s is closer to 40s degrees. 

We had hoped to eat lunch someplace around Lake McDonald but didn’t find anyplace that fit the bill.  Drove on an hour or so and stopped to buy some yummy cherries and got a snack at a local little burger place. 

We think we would like to take Hwy 2 from Spokane to Bellingham but can’t find any hotels with space along that route and the smoke warnings are pretty high.  So we go the I-90 route and get a hotel about an hour West of Spokane which will make our drive the next day that much shorter.

In Spokane we stop for dinner at a place called Cochinito where we got some good tacos, beans and rice.

Enjoy a comfortable hotel.  The temperatures are in the high 90’s and air quality is poor so we’re extra appreciative of the stop.  We are also grateful that the skies were so clear for us while we were at Glacier!