Glowga Party

Well we did it. Thanks to everyone for a great Glowga Party. Glowga is a combination of Yoga done in the dark with glow paint. We left out the yoga portion and went right dancing in the dark.
Everyone uses glow paint or flourescent paint on their skin or clothing. Then the lights go out and the black lights come on. It is a riot to dance in the dark.
There was also a photo booth (thanks to Lu) at the party. It was a blast to have photos taken with different groups and then to get the little strips of photos. It was like being a kid.

Pre-party

This gives you a little bit of an idea of what it looks like with the black lights.

My son Nick on the lift and my brother JB on the right. Before the lights went out.

JB took my boa.

Bob

More JB & Nick

JB painting me

Bob getting his glow-on

Bob and Nick painting scales on Steph with glow in the dark paint.

36 inch wood

Today Nick and Bob had to split 36 inch logs for a customer. How big do you think his fireplace is? These are monsters. The regular size is 16-19 inches.

This one is 36 inches long but not nearly as big around as some of them were.

Moose

Yesterday Nick, Bob, and I were doing a delivery in Summit Park. Nick spotted this mommy moose and her baby in someone's backyard. Now you don't get to see this when you have an office job.
We have had such beautuful weather until the last couple of days. We have gone from leaving the windows open at night to turning on the heat in the last couple days.

SURPRISE

Say What? We arrived at my parents Sunday to celebrate my dads birthday as well as a special birthday for Nick. They (my family) had planned a surprise party for me. It was a surprise since my birthday isn't for a month. I do like to make my birthday last for the entire month of October but now this will be a new record.

Yes, that is me and my walker.

50 balloons

Perfect! Boa's and Tiara

Mom & Dad

Nick with his chocolate pie. He didn't want the plate. He said just a fork was all he needed. Isn't he handsome?

My Uncles

Bob

My Grandma June & Nick

Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans

We will start our journey back home tomorrow the 2nd of July. We would have loved to spend another month in the park visiting Two Medicine, Many Glacier, St. Mary's and then into Waterton which is the Canadian side of the park. There is so much to see here. This is a huge park with multiple entrances, but home and family calls and that is what is most important now.

Montana, We WILL be back!!!

Driving and more Hiking

The Weeping Wall. This wall goes on for awhile. On the way back down I had my window down taking photos and Bob drove too close (on purpose). I got wet!!

There are so many places where the water crosses the road. The waterfalls are abundant.

The views are so stunning

Mountain Sheep. Can you see 5 off them?

Mountain Goats. They are close to Logan Pass.

Mountain Goats. Isn't the baby so cute!

Apgar Lookout.

We hiked 1810 feet up in 3.55 miles to a beautiful lookout.

We started our day with a plan of taking the shuttle to Logan Pass via The Going To The Sun Hwy. The shuttles started today. However when we arrived at the transportation center, we were told that it would be another 40 minutes or so to catch the correct bus. We could take the big bus part of the way and then swith to the smaller bus to Logan Pass. Only the smaller busses can fit on the upper part of the Hwy. Only 12-14 people can fit on the small busses and they only fill them half way so that others have the chance of getting on the bus at the other stops. We did the math and could see that it may take us all day to catch the connecting shuttle as everyone there wanted to go to Logan Pass. Logan Pass runs into the Continental Divide at 6646 ft. altitiude.

We jumped back in the truck to drive it ourselves. Our other concern was in getting a parking place at Logan Pass. We had heard that if you arrive at noon, there is an hour wait for a parking place. We arrived at Logan pass 1.5 hours later and had no problem finding a place to park. There were 2 stops for road construction along the way where half the road had washed out. It is a big 'ol scary drop off on one side of the road and workers were working on it. SCARY!!

Logan Pass was under snow and the hike we wanted to do was under snow so we decided to do another hike called the loop. We were looking for an easy day today, but what the hell. Life if short, do the long hikes, right? isn't that how the saying goes?

We started on the Loop hike and got 1/4 mile down the road (still lovin the GPS) when the rain started. Where did it come from? Our hike turned into a jog back to the truck.

We drove down and ended up hiking to the Apgar Lookout which was another beautiful hike. We had magnificent views down into West Glacier and all the way to the end of McDonald Lake.

Hiking Sperry Trail to Snyder Lake June 30th

On Wednesday we did a great hike to Snyder Lake. The trail was 4.4 miles up to the Lake with an ascent of 2100 feet. It was just beautiful. There is water EVERYWHERE!! There are waterfalls around EVERY corner. It is unbelievable!

Here we are in the National Park and we passed a total of 21 people the entire time and 4 of them were trail workers. We saw very large piles of Bear scat but no bears.

Bike Ride June 29th

There is little bike riding allowed in the park. There is one trail which is only a couple miles in Apgar Village or the other option is to ride on the Going To The Sun Hwy. However on the Hwy. you cannot ride on the bulk of the road between 11am-4pm. The road is seriously narrow and busy.

We went outside of the park to ride which worked out pretty well. We were on a dirt road and there was a little more traffic than we had planned on.

The Other Camp

This camp is across the street from ours. I have a feeling that this guy is staying longer than us. Well either that or he has tent camping totally figured out.

Glacier National Park June 28th

I know I am safe! My man is packin the bear spray.
We are heading out to hike the Trail of the Cedars and then on to Lake Avalanche which is above Lake McDonald.

YIKES!!


As we were near to our hiking destination, this little (not) fella was 12 feet off of the trail having lunch. We were happy that he loves his greens.

Last night at the ranger talk, we learned that there are 400 Grizzly and 1200 Black Bear in the Park.

The water coming down Avalanche Creek was some serious water. It was busy carving out the rock in wider areas too. This little narrow area is just gorgeous.

Isn't it beautiful. This is Avalanche Lake. There are 8 Glacial Waterfalls behind us. We were told that the snow is 20 feet up on top. It doesn't look like it from this vantage point.

How is that for a picture frame?

Hey, a tree knome on the trail. I think seeing one is suppose to bring years of Good Luck!!

We have gone to the Ranger talks the last 2 nights which have been great. The first night we heard about the history of fire in the park.

Last night was a HUGE surprise. We thought we were going to a talk by a Native American but it was Jack Gladstone. We had already planned on seeing him at a paid event. Here is how he is described:

In concert, Jack Gladstone guides his audience through tribal stories, animal legends, character portraits, and historical eras into a richer appreciation of our Native American heritage. Jack is a masterful storysmith who blends enlightening narrative with his well crafted songs.

He sang and played his guitar for over an hour. We did not want it to end so we bought a CD and went home and listened to some more. Awesome evening!

Here we are on the McDonald River off of the Going To The Sun Hwy. We drove alongside the river on the way to the trailhead. It is beautiful. The color of the water is aquamarine and is very clear everywhere here.

Other interesting facts:

Walter Matthau was in the CCC at Glacier

The Shining was filmed at the Hotel/Lodge in Many Glacier. It was the only building that escaped one of the big fires.

Missoula

Ahh the Farmers market and what a beautiful blue day too. All the produce was no nice and so clean too. There were so many stands just like this one. We also had an amazing cinnamon bun too. The seller asked Bob if he wanted extra goo or extra pecans. It was big enough to share and we did.

We had arrived in Missoula on Friday afternoon. Patti & Bill live above Missoula near the top of a mountain. It is just amazingly beautiful at their house. They have 3 great pets, a dog and 2 cats which they take for evening walks and the cats just follow everyone. I have never seen cats do that. It was fun. On Saturday afternoon we went mountian biking from their property on killer trails. We were riding through tall pines. It is rated at the top of our rides. Montana is sooo beautiful!!

Check out these tables and chairs at the Farmers Market. They are all made out of old, used wine barrels. Some were even a reddish color from red wine. This is a great original idea.

Here's Patti & I at the Carousel. It is an old wood carved beautiful carousel.

On our way between the Farmers Market and the carousel, we passed through a car show. This one caught my eye. It is a '59 Ford Ranchero with a matching boat. A company in Wyoming contracted with Ford to build the boat(s). It was really cool.

See the KarBar? It is under the dash just under the radio. Well the literature said that the KarBar can make any drink, soup, or coffee and it does so in a BIG 5 oz. serving. This is in the boat.

Sunday morning before our departure to Glacier.