August 7 – 9, 2020

After our time in Seattle we continued heading south a bit to Kent, WA. We wanted to get south of Seattle to better explore Mt. Ranier National Park and the surrounding area.

It was only about a 1 1/2 hour drive from the Lynnwood suburb of Seattle to Kent, so we wanted to explore a few places on the way. We tried to see the Fremont Troll in Seattle, but Tin Tin (our RV) couldn’t handle the steep hills on the road to get to the troll. Oh well, we tried. Better to pass on it then get hung up on a hill or damage Tin Tin (which, BTW, we have done on hills before). On to the next site.

Next on the list was to visit Snoqualmie Falls in Snotqualmie, of course, on the Snoqualmie River, of course. This was one of the better waterfalls we have seen. It is 268 feet high and has some pretty good water flow. We have seen higher falls, but not with as much water flowing over it. We have also seen longer falls in several layers, but they don’t have the impact of this one.

As it didn’t take too long to see the falls; we had some lunch in the park, then decided to see if there were any geocaches in the area. There were 3. We did great and found all three of them.

After our successful geocaching, it is off to the KOA RV park in Kent, WA. The park is OK, but very cramped and no fire pits.

The next day it is off to the main event, Mount Ranier National Park. It is about an hours drive from our RV park on some back country highways. We enter the park and start the scenic highway tour. Unlike the “loop” in North Cascades National Park, this road actually goes around in a circle. Unfortunately, there are a few side roads that got us a bit confused, but ultimately it worked out fine.

We entered the park from the north west, on Highway 161. As soon as we got into the park, we were surrounded by mountains and very tall trees. It was pretty, but we were disappointed at first because there were no grand vistas as we were accustomed to from the other parks.

As we continued to climb, we finally began to see Mt. Ranier.

Our disappointment went away as we arrived at Sunrise Point.

Sunrise Point is 6,400 feet high. The top of Mt. Ranier is 14,400. When we saw Mt. Ranier from this vantage point, it looked like we were almost on top of it.

We spent some time at the Sunrise Overlook checking out Mt. Ranier. We even saw a glacier, the Sarvant Glacier, on the neighboring Cowlitz Chimney Mountains.

From Sunrise Overlook, we continued up the mountain to Sunrise Visitor Center. Here it felt like we were right on top of Mt. Ranier.

There are a lot of field flowers that add a nice dimension to the grounds and surrounding areas.

From the Sunrise Visitor Center we went around the circle, south west, a bit more to find Paradise and the Jackson Visitor Center. Here we could not see Mt. Ranier, but had great views of other stunning areas of Mt. Ranier National Park.

We finished up on the scenic views and headed out of the park. We stopped in a nice Italian restaurant for a pizza dinner (and lunch the next day) and made it back to our KOA RV park safe and sound.

Map progress – Seattle (Lynnwood), WA to Kent, WA via Tin Tin.

August 5 – 7,2020

Today we headed just a bit south to get to Lynwood, WA, a suburb of Seattle. We actually stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights as Tin Tin (our RV) is due for some scheduled maintenance work. We had made an appointment with a local Mercedes Benz dealer to get the work done. We got a hotel just in case they had to keep Tin Tin overnight.

One of my brothers, Scott, and his family had lived in Seattle many years ago and really loved the area. We asked them for some advice on things to do and places to go in town. MaryAnn, my sister in law, was gracious enough to send us a nice list.

One item on the list was to take the ferry across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island. The ferry leaves from the wharf area in downtown Seattle, so we thought we could mix in doing the island, and then seeing some of the attractions in the waterfront and downtown area. However, we got an unpleasant surprise as we got into the true downtown area.

First we drove past a demonstration in progress outside City Hall. The Black Lives Matter folks were all over the place with their placards and chanting. Luckily they didn’t block the road and we were able to get by. Then, we ran into several blocks of homeless people that had set up tent villages in the streets and had obviously just taken over the areas.

We went around all the mess and managed to find a parking spot for Tin Tin on a surface lot and made our way to Pier 52 to buy tickets and board the Washington State Ferry to head over to Bainbridge Island. It wasn’t too comforting to see about 8 guys hanging out in the parking lot, drinking what evers, and having a good ol’ time a short distance from Tin Tin, but what the heck. It was still daylight so we figured we would be OK. How is hanging out and drinking in a parking lot at 2PM on a Wednesday a cool thing to do?

We boarded the ferry and had a nice trip across Puget Sound. We got a great view of the Seattle skyline as the ferry left the dock.

We had about a 30 minute ferry ride and arrived on Bainbridge Island.

We quickly saw that there is not a whole lot to do on Bainbridge Island. It is a quaint enough place, but most of the shops and the couple of museums there were closed. We did manage to grab lunch though.

After lunch we figured, what the heck? Let’s see if there are any geocaches on the island. Surprisingly, there were quite a few. We decided to go find a few. Now remember, we do not have a vehicle. We walked onto the ferry. This means we have to walk around the island to find these geocaches. They were all with in a mile or two of the port. Not too bad you say. Well, you didn’t walk up and down 4 miles of hills. For such a small island, there are a lot of pretty steep hills.

We found 3 caches, ran out of time, and had to hustle back to the port to avoid missing the 7:25 ferry. It was still a nice place to walk around and see some sights.

We made it back to the ferry on time, barely. Going back on Puget Sound we saw a pleasant surprise. The clouds and fog had cleared up enough for us to see Mt. Ranier behind the Seattle skyline. Pretty cool.

After we disembarked the ferry, we headed back to Tin Tin to check on him. Everything was fine. We explored a few of the shops on the piers and then decided to head back to the hotel. We were a little weary from walking around all of those those blasted hills, but in good spirits.

Map progress – Burlington, WA to Seattle (Lynnwood) WA via Tin Tin.

August 2 – 5, 2020

We continue heading west to the Seattle, WA area. We have found a space in the Burlington KOA, about 60 miles north of Seattle. We want to see the North Cascades National Park and the surrounding area.

As we head Tin Tin (our RV) west along I-90 from Spokane, we see a magnificent sight in the distance, kind of south west of us.

Andrea managed to snap this picture inside Tin Tin before we lost Mt. Ranier behind the Cascade Range.

We also had some great scenery along the way.

We found the Burlington Holiday KOA pretty easily. It is a nice park with lots of trees and facilities.

The next day it is off north to see the North Cascades National Park. Imagine our surprise as we enter the park and see our name (Goodell) on a facility sign.

It turns out that there is a Goodell Creek that runs through the park. None of the rangers knew where the name came from. I am also unable to track the history, although I am going to keep trying. But, evidently our family is a big deal in this part of the country (for some reason).

We wandered around the visitor center facility (which was closed, but had rangers outside) a bit and got to see another glacier.

N Cascades National Park has over 300 named glaciers, but like Glacier National Park, they are tucked away in the remote areas of the park. You have to do some strenuous hiking to get in to see them. Not for us.

However, we did do some tamer trails. The Trail of the Cedars and the Ladder Creek falls. These trailheads are up the road a bit in Newhalem. Newhalem has a visitor center, an ice cream shop and a few interesting sculptures. It also is the home of the Gorge Power Plant, which is kind of interesting. The powerplant uses hydro power from the Ladder Creek Falls.

After a 2 minute walk through town it is time to take the Trail of the Cedars, over the suspension bridge into the forest.

The trail itself is very well maintained and cuts through a mainly cedar forest (as the name suggests). These trees get really big.

They even have a tree you can see through. Disease has rotted away a good portion of the tree trunk, but it is still alive.

Next it was down the road a bit more to the Ladders Creek waterfalls, behind the Gorge Powerplant. We crossed another suspension bridge, then had to climb up a trail and steps to see the various levels of the water falls.

In order to get to the North Cascades National Park, we took Highway 20 from Burlington. This Highway 20, as it passes through the park, is known as the Cascades Loop. It winds through the northern part of the park through some very nice areas. These include a couple of dams, waterfalls, lakes, and of course huge mountains.

There is one very important detail that you need to consider if you are ever in this part of the world and want to drive this loop. It is not really a loop. Looking at it on the park map, it appears to circle around the top of the park. This is entirely not true when you look at it on a normal map. The “loop” circles around a bit on the top but then heads straight east away from the park. We came in from the west side, so as we drive this, we are heading further and further east, away from Burlington. Something we did not realize until we noticed – “Hey, we might need to fuel up soon. Seen a gas station anywhere? No.”. Ooops.

So now we break out a real map. Realize the few road signs telling us about little towns 70 miles away are true and start figuring out how to fuel up. We always carry a 5 gallon can of diesel as back up, but still this caught us a bit by surprise. Lets look at some great shots of the Loop and then you’ll learn how we got out of this little situation.

By the way, notice how green the lake water is. All of the lake water in this area is the same. It turns out that bottom silt in the lake gets churned up by the action of the streams and waves. This mud stays in suspension in the water, thereby giving it this really pretty green color.

By now we are coming out of the park on the eastern side. We are getting low on diesel and trying to figure out our next move. We know that the town of Winthrop is about 50 miles away, so even if we get into our reserve we will make it (assuming they have a gas station with diesel of course). Then we see a sign for a little town up the road called Mazama that says they have services. OK, let’s go see.

We get into “town” and start laughing. It is a cross road, one of them is dirt, with a country store and some kind of farm supply store. There is a park sign nearby with obvious signs of people coming and going from there. All the stores are closed. It is now about 7PM. Luckily there is a big sign on the country store that says the gas pumps, including diesel, are 24 hour. They just keep the power on and you use the credit card swipe on the machine. Now we are good. Full tank of diesel. What now?

What now is back into exploring mode. The town of Winthorp is only about 20 miles east of us. We have determined that the only way to get back to Burlington is to go back on Highway 20 the way we just came. All of the other possible roads head way south before they turn west to get back to Burlington. We’re hungry and don’t feel like cooking the the RV. Let’s see what’s in Winthorp!

Winthorp turns out to be a nice little oasis town in the wilderness.

We find a neat little restaurant, the Old Schoolhouse Brewery, on the banks of a creek and have a couple of drinks and dinner.

Then, we had another first in our long lists of travel experiences. They announce that the cook, a guy from Cuba, is going to sing opera for us. Sure enough, he comes down on the steps, turns on the music, and sings 3 surprisingly good opera songs. He makes out pretty good in his tip jar.

By now it’s after 8PM. We have an almost 3 hour drive back to our Burlington KOA. We make it back about 11:30PM and just crash for the night.

The next day we sleep in a bit and take it easy by looking for a few geocaches. We go 4 for 5. We are getting much better at this game!

After our geocaching day it is time to head back to the KOA, light a fire, cook dinner, and call it a day.

Map progress – Spokane, WA to Burlington, WA via Tin Tin.

July 31 – Aug. 2, 2020

After our interesting tour of the silver mine in Wallace, ID, it was time to keep heading west a bit into the State of Washington. We wanted to visit several places in this beautiful state. We started out with Spokane and added another state to Tin Tin’s (our RV) map on his back side.

We headed in the Liberty Lakes RV Campground, which is nice but very commercial and feels kind of cold and corporate. Everything is paved, cemented, lots of rules, and no trees. Still, everything worked and the people were nice.

It turns out, that while Spokane is a very nice, clean, town, there is not a whole lot to do there. There are a few parks, museums and such, but nothing earth shattering. So, my red headed navigator and wife, Andrea, suggested that we try geocaching again. We had previously tried it a bit back in Columbia Falls, MT with limited success. We decided to try our hand at it again. As the title to this post suggests; what the heck is geocaching?

Geocaching started in 2000. It is kind of like a scavenger hunt. People hide a “cache” and then log it’s GPS coordinates into the smart phone app. A cache consists of a hidden object with a log sheet inside. This object can be a tupperware container, medicine bottle, hole in a rock, pretty much anything you can hide a piece of paper in and try to keep it dry. Some are as small as a kidney bean and magnetized. Once you find the cache you sign and date the log, put it back, and log your find on the app.

There are about 3,000,000 geocaches active around the world. There are about 450,000 people actively participating in geocache in the U.S. Well, 450,002 now.

So, Andrea says there are several geocaches within a mile of Liberty Lakes RV Campground. There is also a geocache in Manito Park, one of the nice parks in the Spokane area. What the heck, let’s go try to find them. We found 2 of 4 in Columbia Falls. Maybe our luck will be better in Washington.

We started off our geocaching afternoon with a couple of sites within 1/2 mile of our RV park. We found 1 of 4 and started to get discouraged. Either we are really bad at this, or the caches just aren’t there. They do get taken by accident occasionally when a non geocacher (BTW the geocache community calls these folks muggles, after the Harry Potter movies) finds one and just wonders what the heck is this? We figure they must be missing. After, are they really that hard to find and are we really that bad at this? Hint – answers coming up soon!

We head out to Manito Park. There is a cache in there somewhere that we will try to find, but basically we just want to visit the park. It is supposed to be a great park with 90 acres and 5 different types of gardens in it. Let’s go check it out.

The park is very nice, even with the closed out Japanese Garden.

We looked for that cache in Duncan Garden in Manito Park for a good 30 minutes. We even had a couple of little old ladies come by and said they had found it a few years ago. Heck, we can’t give up now.

As you saw in the video, it was in a crack in a big rock, covered by a little rock, in the middle of a big bush with scratchy, sharp, branches and thorns. We were about to give up and suddenly, “hey what the heck is that stupid little rock doing in there on top of another rock”. Bingo! That is one of the keys to geocaching. When something looks out of place; it means something!

So now it’s “Hey, we may be on to something”. The other ones we have found were pretty easy. They were big, containers ( bottles, tupperware, etc.) stuck under a bush or in a big growth of grass. Fairly easy to find. This is our first really tough find.

As good burgeoning geocaches, we figure “Hey, let’s go back to the ones we couldn’t find before and look again.

We did this and then learned one more important tip. The geocaching community is really pretty friendly. They want you to find the caches and get that little thrill of success. You are allowed to email the cache person through the app and ask for a hint or clue. Well, Katie bar the door. We are in business now!

We go back to the sites we were at before, got a few tips, and find all but one! We wind up 4 for 5 for the day. Pretty good for beginners. So, the answers from the questions above are; we were really bad, but we are learning and becoming pros real quick!

We found another one in a “fake rock”. Someone went to the trouble of drilling a hole in a real rock. This hole was big enough to stick a medicine bottle in and then they threw it underneath a big evergreen tree with really sharp needles. The bottle side of the rock down to the ground, of course. That’s a lot of work!

We had another interesting day on the road, with geocaching adding a nice new dimension to our travels. It is fun to try to find the caches and also gets us out walking around more than usual. Exercise and the thrill of the hunt. What more could you ask for?

Map progress – Osburn, ID to Spokane, WA via Tin Tin.

July 29 – 30, 2020

After our great time in Glacier National Park, it was off to pick up another state on Tin Tin’s (our RV) map. We headed to the great state of Idaho and stayed in the town of Osburn.

We specifically went to this little town to explore the Sierra Silver Mine, which is located in neighboring town of Wallace, ID. Wallace was booked up. Now, Wallace has a population of 776, so this is not a difficult thing to do. The big city of Osburn has a population of 1,549, so we were able to find space in the Blue Anchor RV Park. Kind of a strange name for a RV park in the mountains, but what the heck. It was a nice spot.

We got into Osburn fairly early and decided to head into Wallace to check it out and find out where we got the tour for the silver mine, as we had pre-booked tickets. It turns out that the town of Wallace is a bit of a celebrity. The movie Dante’s Peak, with Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, was filmed here back in the 1990’s. I have seen the film and really enjoyed it. The locals still talk about how nice Pierce Brosnan was and how much they enjoyed having the film crew and stars around for a few months.

Wallace is also the self proclaimed “Center of the Universe”. There is a man hole cover in the middle of town that proclaims this, so it must be true.

We had some lunch and did a little gift shopping in Wallace. We went to Johnson’s Gems and Collectibles, which was a really interesting store. They had raw stones, gems, collectible items and even meteorites. We bought some stuff under their great big sign:

Further confirmation that we really were in the Center of the Universe.

While in Wallace, we also, accidentally, picked up another Largest in the World item. It turns out that Wallace, ID is the world’s largest silver producer, and has been for the last 100 years. Who knew?

The next day we got to go on the Sierra Silver Mine tour. This particular mine is now shut down, thanks to the Environmental Protection Agency, and now functions as a tourist site and kind of museum on how silver mining is done. It really was a fascinating tour.

After a hard day in the silver mine it was back to Tin Tin in the RV park to relax by the fire.

Map progress – Columbia Falls, MT to Osburn, ID via Tin Tin.

Tin Tin’s map with Idaho on it.

July 25 – 29, 2020

It is our last full day at Glacier National Park. However, we have only seen one glacier (that we know of) so far. We saw Jackson Glacier yesterday. It was clearly marked on a map and was an over look site on Going to the Sun Road. Now, silly me. The park is named Glacier National Park. It has lots of glaciers. How come we only saw one yesterday? Inquiring minds want to know.

Well, the answer is; there are now 35 named glaciers and 25 active glaciers in the park. Back in the late 1800’s there were 150 active glaciers. Climate change is literally melting them to death.

OK, we saw one. There are 35. Where are they? Some are very remote and you have to hike to them. By hike, I mean hike. Miles and miles with tremendous altitude changes. Not for us. Not any more anyway.

So, how many can you see from a car, or a short reasonable hike? I could not find that information anywhere on the Glacier National Park website. I finally found an excellent site – https://hike734.com/informational/glaciers-visible-from-going-to-the-sun-road/. This site was written in 2012 and really spells out how to see them, gives you great directions, and then pictures, so you can match up the glaciers to the mountains. What is kind of sad is that 2 of the glaciers shown in this site don’t exist anymore. They have melted away in the last 8 years.

Another item to consider is the size of the glaciers today. A glacier is defined as accumulating more snow over the years then the amount of annual snow fall. They must also move with gravity. You may see a bunch of snow on a mountain and not realize it is a glacier. You would not be alone in this case. The glaciers in Glacier National Park are not like the huge ones you see in Alaska that are hundreds of feet high and drop tons of ice off as they calf. These glaciers used to be big, but are now just hanging on. It’s still very cool to see them live though.

It’s time to head back to the Going to the Sun Road and do some glacier spotting.

The first ones we are able to see is on the section of the road heading up to Logan’s Pass. Unfortunately, there are no over looks on this section, so you have to look and take pictures as some else (preferably) drives. Andrea drove. I looked.

Here is the picture from the website that shows Vulture Peak, in the Livingston Mountain Range, in the distance with Vulture Glacier, Two Oceans Glacier and Rainbow Glacier. Remember, this was taken in 2012.

This is the picture I took from the car as Andrea drove.

You can see that Two Oceans Glacier just isn’t there any more. In 8 years it has melted away. The two that are there are a lot smaller also.

OK. We found 2 more. We actually saw them yesterday as we drove up Going to the Sun Road. We just didn’t realize what they were.

Another one, Gem Glacier, that the website mentions, is gone also. It is not even on the list of named glaciers anymore on the Glacier National Park literature. Same as Two Oceans Glacier.

We continue to head up the Going to the Sun Road and see the Three Arches along the way. This is a bit of engineering marvel they had to do back in the day to support the road through the side of the mountain.

Now, let’s find the next one. It is Blackfoot Glacier, just down from Logan’s Pass at Siyeh Bend. There is an overlook there that you can see it from.

This is on the other side of Jackson Glacier. They used to be connected, but it has shrunk. Happily, this picture looks pretty much like the 2012 picture from the website.

We are on a roll now. One more that we can find. This is Sexton Glacier. We can see this from the Sun Point site or even from the Sun Point parking lot. I hiked the 400 yards up to Sun Point to get this picture. Kind of a funny point, there was a wedding going on further down the point as I was taking pictures. They didn’t even know they were in front of a glacier I bet!

We have been pretty successful hunting glaciers. These are the only realistic ones on this side of the park that you can see from a car. On the western side there is the Many Glacier area that has numerous glaciers visible fairly easily. But, as mentioned before, we could not go to this side. Still it was fun chasing glaciers.

It is still fairly early, so we pull into the St. Mary’s Waterfall parking lot. The sign says it is an easy 1.2 mile hike to see the waterfall. The people coming off the trail say it is worth the hike. Off we go.

It really was a spectacular hike going back to the falls. In one group we passed, coming the other way, a guy said he felt like he had just walked into a postcard. I agree.

By now it is pushing 8PM and starting to get a little dark. Andrea says there is supposed to be a meteor shower tonight. Why not hang out in the park and try to see some at night? Why not? We had good luck with the Comet Neowise. Maybe we can see some meteors too.

We head to an overlook just outside of Rising Sun. It is next to Saint Mary Lake. Andrea says she wants to take a nap in the car. FYI, she really likes her naps. I say fine and I go outside the car to take pictures of the moon over Saint Mary’s Lake and look for wildlife. I am thinking I might see more mountain goats.

I am wandering around, about 50 yards down from the car and decide to head back towards the car. All of a sudden, I freeze. I literally can not believe my eyes.

There is a frickin’ Grizzly Bear in the road about 50 yards in front of the car. He looks at me. I look at him and luckily he decides to go up the hill, not down the road.

He heads up the hill, looks back at me a couple of times then goes out of sight. I think, wow, that was cool. Too bad Andrea missed it. Oh well, once in a lifetime opportunity.

I head back closer to the car, still taking pictures of the lake, the moon, and other stuff. Just in case, I keep looking around. Hey, there was one bear, maybe there is another.

Then son of a guy, I see him coming back down the hill! I have no idea why, but he comes down the hill, back into the road, and starts walking towards me and the car.

This time I jump into the car, wake Andrea up, and tell her there is a bear outside. After she looks at me like I’m crazy, she looks outside, sees the bear, and grabs for her glasses and cell phone. Buddy cruised right by us, about 45 yards away.

Buddy gets by us and then starts running down the hill. I guess he wanted to get away from us more than we wanted to get away from him. A few seconds later a car drives down the road. We can see the driver slam on the brakes as he sees Buddy going around the bend. I hope he got some good pictures too.

Anyway, we hang around waiting for it to get dark enough to see the meteor shower. No luck. We change spots a few times trying to get different angles of the sky, still no luck. I finally saw one shooting star, but that was it.

Still, a pretty good day. Five glaciers, one shooting star, one chipmunk, and a grizzly bear.

July 25 – 29, 2020

Today we picked up our rental car from Enterprise Rent a Car. As Tin Tin (our RV) is too big (over 21 feet long) to drive the entire Going to the Sun Road, we needed a smaller vehicle in order to drive this incredibly scenic road. It truly is the highlight of Glacier National Park. Not only is the drive itself spectacular, but this road gets you to a lot of trail heads that take you back to some really outstanding areas. FYI, this road is very narrow and twisty. It is nicely paved the whole way and has a lot of scenic overlooks. But, if you are afraid of heights, let someone else drive!

When we first got to the Columbia Falls RV Park, the nice lady in the office gave us a great tip about visiting the park. She said go later in the day, around 4PM (sunset is not until 9:30 this time of year). By this time most of the crowds are gone, or are leaving, and the traffic and congestion is a lot less. We took her advice. She was absolutely correct. Our first day in town we went to the park around 4PM and saw the people leaving and we got around, and were able to park, very well. Today, we picked up our rental car around noon and had a few hours to kill before heading into the park.

Andrea has been interested in geocaching for a little while and wanted to try it. She downloaded the app on her phone and we were both surprised to see that there were several geocaches within a few miles of our location. One geocache was only 800 yards away.

For those of you that don’t know what geocaching is (like me until last week); it is kind of like a treasure hunt. People place objects, like bottles, containers, anything that can hold a small geocache document, in places that are accessible to the public. They post the coordinates on the geocache app and it leads you to the location. If you find it, you get to log the find on the app. We had mixed results finding them (2 for 4), but it was kind of fun for an hour or two.

Let’s go geocaching!

Next on the day’s list of activities was to drive down to Goat Lick Overlook. This is an area located on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, about 40 miles south of Columbia Falls. The mountain goats come here to lick the minerals found in the banks and rocks of the river. They are looking for calcium, potassium, and magnesium plus lesser quantities of sodium and phosphorus. These minerals replace the minerals that their bodies naturally lose during the winter time.

All of the information about Goat Lick Overlook says that the goats are there all the time May through August. Well, there were not there the day we went. Nice drive. Nice scenic view. No goats.

OK, now it is time for the main event of the day. We head back to Glacier National Park and start the Going to the Sun Road in earnest. We drive past Avalanche Camp ground, where we had to turn around yesterday, and the road immediately starts to head seriously up.

The first really impressive sight is Heaven’s Peak. The road climbs and starts to loop back and boom, there it is, right in front of you.

At first I thought all the snow on top was a glacier, but no. It is just the accumulation of years of snow fall.

We continue up the road, past the Weeping Wall and past Logan’s Point heading for Jackson Glacier. Hey, it’s Glacier National Park. We want to see some glaciers.

So far, so good. We have seen a glacier. Now it is time to go to Rising Sun, where the road is closed off. We have to turn around there. But first, a bit of refreshment.

On the way back, we stop in at Logan’s Pass. This is the highest point of the Going to the Sun Road at 6,646 feet in altitude. It is also the trail head for several trails to hike back into the deep forests and hills. Let’s just say we passed on those opportunities. While we were there, guess what we saw?

Hey, we finally saw our mountain goats!

Logan’s Pass had a few other critters also.

Yep, more prairie dogs. Those little guys are everywhere.

From the Logan’s Pass over look, you can see the Over the Sun Road heading back into the valley. We stopped at several places along the way to enjoy the vistas.

Going to the Sun Road has made Glacier National Park our favorite park so far. It beats Yellowstone by a bit and the others by a mile. We are coming back tomorrow for a little glacier hunting.

July 25 – 29, 2020

Columbia Falls and Glacier National Park are only about 60 miles south of the Canadian border. As Andrea has never seen Canada; we thought it would be a nice drive to head north a bit and at least see Canada even though they won’t allow us to enter. Some silly rules about Covid – 19 and American infecting their population. Oh well, it is what it is.

We jump in Tin Tin and head north on Highway 93 to the Roosville border crossing. Once we got there we saw the border, and made a couple of new friends.

Andrea called the state police to report our friends in the road, but was told they already knew about it. The police were trying to locate the owners.

As we drove off, farmers started to show up and the cows were still blocking traffic and generally having a good time.

As we are driving south to get back to Columbia Falls, it is getting close to lunch time. We see a sign for South Dickey Lake. We have been driving along the lake on the highway for a few miles and it looks really nice.

We see the sign that says South Dickey Lake Day Use Area – 2 miles. OK, we say, let’s go and have a picnic. What the sign does not say is that those 2 miles are a graveled, pot holed, narrow, twisty road that once you get on, you are not getting off of until the end. Oh well, Tin Tin can handle it.

We made it to the picnic/beach area, which was full of people having a good time, and a really nice spot to have lunch. So, we did.

After our nice lunch, guess what? Well, we had to drive back on the pot holed, narrow, twisty, dusty road. This time we ran into a few other cars coming the opposite way. It made for quite a tight squeeze as we each pulled over as far as we possible could. Oh joy!

We made it back to Columbia Falls safe and sound. We may have put a few more scratches on poor Tin Tin.

July 25 – 29,2020

We arrived in Columbia Falls, MT after a spectacular drive through the Swan Mountain Range on Highway 2 from Missoula, MT. We are in the big time mountains now with elevations reaching 9,000 feet then descending down to 3,000 feet to get into Columbia Falls. Quite a spectacular drive.

We made it to our RV park in the mid afternoon, and decided to head out to Glacier National Park to see what we could see.

When we were doing our research about Glacier National Park, we realized that the eastern part of the park was closed. This was due to roads under repair, and more importantly because the Blackfeet Nation decided to close the eastern entrance, from their reservation, due to concerns about the Covid – 19 virus. The Indian populations of the North West have been hit particularly hard with the virus, so they are rightfully concerned and are protecting their people.

We found RV availability in Columbia Falls, MT, about 20 miles from the western entrance of the park. We also knew that there are restrictions on vehicle size to drive on the primary road through the park, the Going-to-the-Sun road. Vehicles over 21 feet are prohibited from driving a large portion of the road due to the narrowness of the road and the sharp, twisting, switchbacks it has going up and down the mountains. However, once we entered the park, we learned that Tin Tin (our RV) could go into the first 10 miles of the road. We decided to do that portion. We had also made previous arrangements to rent a car in a couple of days so we could make as much of the drive that was currently allowed. But, for now it is on to the mountains in Tin Tin.

We could drive in as far as the Avalanche Creek campground, then had to turn around. This part of the road features the Flathead River as it flows down from Lake McDonald. The river itself in the pristine mountain setting is really pretty. Then throw in the waterfalls and it’s really spectacular.

The McDonald Falls are a serious of steps of waterfalls that follow the path of the river. Not real big, but fast and fun to see.

Lake McDonald is the source of the falls. On this lake is situated a classic old hotel called the Lake McDonald Lodge. This lodge has been around since 1913. People would get there by train and horseback in the old days. Then they would hike, or ride horses, out to the spectacular beauty of the park.

We had a late lunch at the lodge restaurant, take out only of course. I had an Elk Burger. It was quite tasty. While wandering around the grounds, we saw an unauthorized visitor.

All in all, a very nice start to our time at Glacier National Park.

Map progress – Missoula, MT to Columbia Falls, MT via Tin Tin.

July 23 – 24,2020

We left Medora, ND heading west again to get to Glacier National Park. This will take a couple of legs, as it is quite a distance.

First step is to cross the border from North Dakota into Montana. Yippee!

This is the first time either of us have been in Montana. It has been on my list of places to visit for quite awhile. Nice to finally be here. We landed in Bozeman, MT on our first night in this great state.

As it was quite a distance from Medora, all we really had time for was to set up camp and then depart.

We spent the night in Bozeman Trail Campground. Not a bad place except for the freakin’ train track right next to the park. Nothing like hearing train whistles all night long to interrupt your beauty sleep.

Early the next morning, a bit groggy from the darn train whistles, we are on the road again heading for Missoula. Unfortunately we had developed an issue with the toilet in our bathroom. It was coming loose from the floor. Not a good situation in any home, much less our home away from home. Luckily, Andrea was able to track down a mobile RV repair company and arrange for them to meet us in our next stop in Missoula, later that day.

Along the way the scenery changes from the Badlands and the grassy plains to more mountainous terrain. It is quite fascinating to see. We passed through the Garnet Range of the Rocky Mountains on I-90.

We arrive at Jim & Mary’s RV park in Missoula, MT.. Anderson’s Repair shows up right on time and fixes Tin Tin. It takes him less than an hour to get it done. Back home in Ft. Myers, Fl it would have taken Camping World a week to work us in and get it fixed. Nice Job!

After the speedy repair job, we head into Missoula to look around a bit. Missoula is home to the University of Montana. So, it is a real college town. Lots of young folks, lots of bars and coffee shops, lots of quaint little stores. We were also surprised to see a few homeless folks and panhandlers. These are the first we have seen in this part of the country. I guess all of those rich college kids are easy pickings for the drifters in this area.

The next day we are heading out to Columbia Falls, MT to see Glacier National Park. However, along the way, we wanted to see the Garden of 1000 Buddhas in Arlee, Mt.. The garden is part of the Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism. It literally has 1000 Buddha statues arranged around an eight-spoked circle known as the Dharma Wheel. Around the Dharma Wheel on the outside of the circle are 1000 Stupas. These Stupa statues represent the different phases of enlightenment. Inside the circle is the figure of Yum Chenmo, the Great Mother, who represents the union of primordial wisdom and the skillful means of compassion.

It is an amazingly tranquil and peaceful setting. The garden was designed by the sect founder, Sang-ngag Rinpoche about 20 years ago.

We spent about an hour in this beautiful garden, bought some post cards in the gift shop, and headed back up Highway 93 to get to Columbia Falls. This was a very nice stop along the way.

Map progress – Medora, ND to Bozeman, MT to Missoula, MT via Tin Tin.