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.

Kids in the Candy Store

What a great find! We had a hot tip that there is a great candy store in Phillipsburg Montana owned by the Seventh Day Adventists. We passed by Phillipsburg after leaving Georgetown Lake on our way to Missoula. I needed a treat and Bob wanted to stop too.
This place was great with every kind of candy that you could imagine. Fun candy that we have not seen since we were kids.

Oh Fudge! Every kind you could possibly imagine.

Both sides of the store were lined with these different containers of candy.
In the middle was this 4 sided bar full of different types of chocolates. We did not leave empty handed.

Montana

Well here we are on Georgetown Lake. Today we rode our bikes 15.4 miles on lakeshore drive. It is a little dirt road that goes around one side of the lake. It was an awesome bikeride. I love my new GPS!

That is Bob at the shoreline fishing. We are camped right across from the Lake. I am standing right outside our door to take the photo. There are so many ducks and other birds here it is amazing. Some sound like sheep. I'm not kiddin ya.

Bob is catching our dinner. Yum!! Rainbow Trout

This sign is in honor of Brad. My cousins Michael & Kenny will totally get this. We also passed Wisdom & Opportunity. Hmmm, I wonder if we should have stopped for a while? You can never have too much Wisdom or Opportunity.

Now this is what Cocktail hour in the trailer in Montana looks like. Hey we earned it after a great bikeride.

N44 25.107 W 112 10.324

What a beautiful campsite. We are 14 miles North of Dubois off of I15 on Forest Road 017. Not another camper anywhere. We had left Park City on Monday with a bit of a late start. We arrived at our campsite around 7 PM. We had an incredible bike ride/hike on Tuesday. We rode our bikes until the terrain was to steep and then used our new GPS to mark the spot where we ditched the bikes and continued on foot. After crossing the ridge and dropping down the other side, we had been paying attention to our GPS as we rounded a corner, Bob heard a deep woofing-snorting sound that continued 3 times as we were backing up slowly. This was the bears way of telling us we had come far enough so we heeded it's warning and continued walking backwards making noise as we retreated back to our bikes. This was a bike/ATV path on the Idaho Montana border. Bob will remind me to buy Bear Spray!!

Today is Wednesday the 23rd and we are in Dillon Montana. We plan to camp tonight in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest which is West of Butte and Anaconda.

It is good to be on the road again.