Finally have a chance to sit down and try to update this. I don't have a very good phone signal, so I am not sure how much will get done here.

Yesterday was a very long drive from Mammoth Hot Springs to Kalispell. I hit a bad storm and spent a good piece of the night trying to find a room to stay in. It was dark and storming, I wasn't about to set up a new camp site. I ended up staying at the Aero Inn and went out to have a beer and dinner at Applebee's. I know, not very "local", but I did drink a local beer brewed in Whitefish. It was excellent.

This morning I packed up and headed to Glacier. I arrived before 9:00 and was able to get a tent spot at Sprauge something campground in the park. It is all tents there, and they are many and varied. There are a few of the one person sleeping bag size and they range to one camp that looks like they built a biosphere to hunker down for the next 2 years. It is definitely more of the tree hugger crowd at this site. We have a couple VW vans and some hybrids as well as the Corolla type cars. I started the trip wearing flip flops and after a couple days settled into my New Balance walking shoes. With the Glacier crowd I felt compelled, no.... obligated, to dig out my Danner hiking boots and wear those.




Once I had camp set, I headed for the west side of the park. There is an "unimproved" road that runs toward the northwest side of the park. I spent about 6 hours putting on 70+ miles of teeth -rattling unimproved road time today. There were times to day where I was truly in the middle of nowhere and praying I didn't have a breakdown or a chance meeting with a grizzly. about 30 miles into the drive I happened upon a place that I would call a commune rather than a town. It's called Polebridge (I assume because of the bridge there, and seems to be stuck in 1970 free love and peace world. The highlight of this peace encampment is their baked goods. I have no idea why, but they have a wonderful bakery there. I had a walnut brownie. It was delicious. Minutes after I ate it I wondered if it was a "special" brownie and maybe I should have bought a bag of Doritos. Fortunately, it was just a brownie.

I am not sure of my plans for tomorrow. I have paid for the camp site so I can spend a full day without dealing with moving camp. I may start on the west side, but I really can't wait to drive the Road to the Sun. I haven't spent much time looking at the map yet, so I will start with that in the morning and then make a plan.



Songs of the day:

• Thursday - REO Speedwagon - Ridin' the Storm Out
• Friday - The Everly Brothers - Wake Up Little Susie

Thoughts/Lessons:

• There is never a bad time for a handful of roasted peanuts.
• If a glass jar of peanuts falls from the passenger seat to the asphalt it will break into too many pieces to count.
• Make hotel reservations for the day prior to 9:00 p.m.
• The Seely/Swan Lake area of Montana is beautiful.
• About half of the Jeep Wrangler drivers on the road will acknowledge a passing Jeep with a slight wave. It generally involves the hand in the top of the steering wheel extending 2 to 4 fingers upward. Sometimes it just a head nod. Sometimes there is no communication. It's a Jeep thing.
• You can be in a nasty storm in Montana and scan the radio for information and not find a single mention of weather.

There are hundreds of things from the road that I would love to share. I could write all day. I'm getting booted out of the cafe here now so this will have to be enough for today. I'll try to add more in the next day or two.

Here is one of the payoffs of shaking my body and the Jeep for hours on end today. This is Kintla Lake. It was the end of the road and jest a few miles from the Canadian border. There are a couple of lakes like this that I visited today. The water is several shades of blue and cold. It was worth the hard drive.

Tom