Land of Glaciers Past

We spent almost 2 weeks in Northwestern Montana, one week in Missoula and several days near Glacier National Park.  Missoula is not a large city (population 67,290), but it is the 2nd largest in Montana--Billings being the largest.  It's in a valley that was once a huge glacier lake.  In fact, the name Missoula is thought to have come from the local Native American language for 'land of frozen water'.  Its city center is easily navigated, and is the setting for several weekly events including live music and 3 different street markets--a couple of farmer's markets and some local crafts markets.

We visited one of the farmer's markets and found some fresh rhubarb.  The rhubarb crisp we made was excellent, especially when topped with our favorite ice cream, Blue Bell.  SheM has been on a quest to find fresh huckleberries--there are displays everywhere touting the huckleberry season and a multitude of products made with huckleberries including pies, ice cream, syrup, taffy, and on and on.  We would just like sample some fresh ones, but have had no luck yet.  SheM didn't realize there really are huckleberries--she thought it was just the name for a cartoon hound from years past.

We visited the Missoula Art Museum, and found some interesting exhibits.  One of the artists appeared to be more of a graffiti artist than a traditional one.

There was no charge for the museum, so even though it wasn't exactly our cup of tea, the price was right.  Another free-of-charge attraction was the Aerial Fire Depot & Smokejumper Center.

The tour was very interesting.  We saw the gear that the smokejumpers take into the firefight, and came away with a real appreciation for the physical demands put upon these men and women.  The gear weighs 60-80 pounds, and each jumper is responsible to carry everything out with them when they are pulled out--that may require a hike as far as 30 miles to get to a pickup point.  We saw the sewing room where each jumper is required to make their own repairs and/or make their own new jump suits.  We saw the room where the parachutes are packed and repaired.  We saw the locker room.  (The Dallas Cowboys locker room is much nicer, just saying).  And we were allowed to board one of the planes that transports the jumpers.

We missed seeing them in real action by a couple of hours; they had received a call before we arrived.  This is definitely wildfire season.  The local news always has at least one fire to report if not several.  We will be very happy not to see any of them.

We used our Missoula stop to take care of some everyday ordinary chores.  SheM was in desperate need of a haircut--it turned out to be one of the best $35 haircuts she's ever had.  We needed to make a quick trip to the Cadillac dealer.  Montana is all about outdoors and wildlife.  The Cadillac dealership reflected it.

Not only was the showroom full of mounted heads, the sales lot included a whole line of horse trailers.  We're not sure where else you can one-stop shop for your Cadillac and your horse trailer.

We drove Roamin up to Polson for a few days to get closer to Glacier National Park.  The RV park there caters to Class A motorhomes and is really roomy.  There were several upper-end motorhomes there, but we thought this picture of a Prevost with the "Git 'er Done" decor showed that they weren't all stuffy.

The adjoining airstrip and hangers certainly makes it convenient for folks more affluent than we to park their RV and fly their personal planes to wherever.  (We'll add a small plane to our list of lottery winnings purchases.)

Our site in the park overlooked Flathead Lake, the largest natural body of fresh water west of the Mississippi.  Not only is it large, the lake is truly scenic.

Kerr Dam was built at the natural outlet for the Flathead Lake to serve as a hydroelectric plant in 1938.  The vertical drop is higher than Niagara Falls, but its installation raised the level of Flathead Lake by only 10 feet.  The hike out to the dam was rather long, hot, and included signs warning visitors about bears.  We didn't see any bears, but did see the dam.

We drove out to Glacier National Park on July 18.  This was our first experience with sharing a national park with summer vacationers.  On top of the heavy traffic, roadwork was being conducted inside the park, reducing the roadway to a single lane.  That meant that we spent almost an hour waiting in line for our turn to make our way past the work.

We've seen a number of national parks over the past few months, so we fully expected this one to be beautiful but, other than glaciers, nothing we haven't seen before.  We were mistaken.  First of all, there's not much in the way of glaciers at all.  Secondly, this park's scenery was different with the immense amount of green everywhere.  Our timing had a lot to do with it, but we're glad to have caught it at this point of the season.

It's too bad that the park was so crowded we weren't able to stop at the visitors center at Logan Pass nor at all of the scenic overlooks we would have liked.  It is a national park, after all, so we'll just have to work on our sharing skills.

We're heading further east on I90 from here, dodging wildfires as we go.  We have one more stop to make before arriving at Yellowstone--we figure that will be an excellent opportunity to practice sharing.