We traveled down over Chief Mountain which is one of the
sacred sites of the Blackfeet people.
It
is indeed impressive.
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| Chief Mountain |
The drive was just beautiful (have I been saying that about everywhere?!)
When they say open range, they mean it.
Going through customs, again, we had forgotten to get rid of
our firewood and citrus fruit but once we did, we had no problems.
We decided to make a B line to St. Mary’s which is the hub
of the east side of Glacier and from there we could access the shuttle to the
Going to the Sun Road.
No luck-St.
Mary’s was already full.
So, we visited
the visitor’s center there and headed on up to find a private RV Park (not our
favorite thing to do, but in a pinch….).
We bypassed several that we couldn’t fathom staying at and ended up at a
wonderful find of a “campground” on Duck Lake.
We had a picnic table and a fire pit, yes, but that was all and the
spots were not level.
But, we were right
on the lake, where we could swim and sit and admire the most beautiful sunset.
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| Jim gets in. |
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| Enjoying this incredible sunset |
The fact that our site was not level was a REAL
problem. Not only did we list
north-south but also east-west which meant for a night of very little sleep and
much rolling into each other. But, some
wonderful memories were made here. We
were entertained by the incredibly loud buzzing sound of thousands of insects
hovering around Maxine’s roof, a beautiful loon swimming and diving right in
front of us, some lovely kayakers enjoying the sunset and the raucous sound of
a pileated woodpecker-at least that’s what we thought it was.
We hated to leave Duck Lake but couldn’t have done another
night at that angle (we think our freezer actually defrosted that night because
of the angle) and we needed dog food, alcohol and cell phone reception. We have hardly been in touch with anyone the
entire time (a month) we’ve been in Canada and we were craving talking to
friends and family. We found a general
store in Babb where we bought another water container (yep, Jim ran over ours
trying to get it out of the way for me to get in) and some low quality dog food
which Boo does not like. There are no
other options up here.
We drove to Browning, where we were dying to see the Museum
of the Plains Indians.
Our tour book
said it was open daily-not so!
But we
did get a fry bread taco at the Casino there, met some very nice people, toured
an art gallery and then headed south.
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| Teepee outside the art gallery |
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| They do overnights in these teepees |
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| Boo had the slots to himself at the Casino. |
We
FINALLY got some cell phone reception at the top of a pass and stopped there to
make a few calls.
Ah, all is well.
We decided to pop into Two Medicine in Glacier on a whim,
even though they said it was full.
We
wandered around the campground, found an unoccupied site and, lo and behold,
they said it was ours for two nights.
This place is just gorgeous!
A
beautiful lake, surrounded by mountains on all three sides with a campground
snuggled in at the end.
It just feels
imbued with spirit.
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| Two Medicine Lake |
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| Rising Wolf Mountain |
Went for a great hike to Paradise Point and then on to Aster
Falls (4 ½ miles RT-a big deal for us).
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| Wonderful beaver ponds along the way |
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| Aster Falls-a great place to cool off |
Wildflowers were everywhere-most like ours in Colorado, though we did
see bear grass here, which blooms only once every seven years.
Bears don’t eat it, though elk and mountain
goats do.
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| Bear grass |
We set up our chairs by the lake and took in the spirit of
the place.
For as many people as there
are here, there is privacy and peace in being enveloped in Rising Wolf Mountain
and the chilly waters of Two Medicine.
It was fun to pop into the beautiful, historic Glacier Park
Lodge which was built circa 1920, when guests came by train to spend a night at
the lodge before going up to Two Medicine by horse to stay at chalets or tent
camps.
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