Our campground has a little restaurant/pavilion thing, and they were playing some tunes & serving breakfast, so we checked it out. Someone got dominated in foosball while we waited for our food...
After a quick breakfast, you guessed it - off to the playground to make up for lost time yesterday. From there, we packed up the jeep, dropped the top, and headed into Glacier NP to drive the awkwardly named 'Going to the Sun Road'. Here's the cliche park entry pic, which we got a nice young family of hempsters (is that a term? if not it should be) in a Westphalia to take in exchange for taking their family photo.
We popped into the visitors center to grab our customary sticker that we never use, and also to check out some of the exhibits. Jordan got to see just how terrifying a grizzly is, as you can see by the fear in her eyes.
She wanted to hold hands with it because it was so cute.
Next up - driving the 50 mile mountain pass that is one of the main draws to this park. It is also one of the reasons that our drive was so long - RVs (or any vehicle over 21') are not allowed, and the next closest mountain pass takes you several hours to the south. This was 5 minutes into the drive at Lake McDonald.
Not too shabby, and it made for some great rock-skipping after my picture obsession was fulfilled.
We saw all manner of vehicles, lots of convertibles, sportscars, bikes, etc. After being beaten with his own horrible vanity plate, this owner should be congratulated on the quality of this Cobra - bet that was a fun drive.
I won't begin to attempt to describe the road. I'll slap a few pics on here that give you some sense of what it was like, but there were some tense moments in our vehicle in spots, and there was plenty of opportunity for vertigo and general clenching of body parts.
The approach up - seems legit.
Poser jeep catalog shot
One of 1,000 waterfalls from the melting glaciers
A panorama from inside one of the curves
And finally another pose on the way down the continental divide to the east.
What you don't see here is 9 miles each way of construction, gravel, and us following the water truck that was spraying the road to keep dust down. The jeep is now basically white with mud, but it was worth it.
At the east end of the park, there is the St. Mary's visitors center. We stopped in to see a few things, and everyone was excited to be learning relevant historical facts.
On the way back through the pass, we stopped to do a bit of hiking and stumbled on this cool waterfall. The temp was a good 10 degrees lower just from the air coming off the glacier runoff.
More rock skipping, rock climbing, and general exploring finally led us back to the trailhead.
Once back at the campsite, we decided to run into town as we hadn't eaten anywhere but in the Big Truck (save for the campground breakfast) in 6 days.
Getting ready to go...
Once at dinner, we ran into a situation I will attempt to delicately describe with all due respect to the parties involved. The table next to us contained a family of quite possibly the largest douchebags we have encountered. Their incessant East Grand Rapids-ness prompted this reaction from our most patient family member.
Sitting on the deck and watching the trains roll by, we got this scene as some thunderstorms put on a pretty good lightning show over the mountains.
All in all, a pretty solid day. Day 7, headed to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
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