Day 18 - Glacier National Park

Two things before I being to tell you about our day headed north.

1. This KOA where we are staying has satellite internet. To say that it is sketchy is an understatement. It takes forever to load the pictures, so I will have to play catch up when we get to a place to overnight that really has wifi connectivity!!!!
2. Last night, there was a very interesting event. About 10:30 pm (local time - 11:30 pm our time), we thought we were under attack again. Remember, it was July 1. I have no idea why, but the KOA put on about a 10 minute fireworks display. And I mean big fireworks. Some college students we talked to the next day said that they sat on the roof of the building where they stay to watch the display. Needless to say, the cats went into hiding when the first boom sounded. I tried to go with them, until I realized it was fireworks.

Anyway, the day was, once again, rainy and gloomy. Not 80 degrees plus, but still not a comfortable day tourist wise. We slept really late and decided to go to one of the local restaurants (there are 4 that we have identified) for a late breakfast. The first one we went to had a bigger crowd waiting to get in than they had room inside (we knew this because we had eaten there the day before). The next one we tried was closed!!! So, we went to the local lodge and they were serving. We had been seeing everything huckleberry since we got to the Yellowstone area. So, Jimmy had huckleberry pancakes and I had huckleberry stuffed French toast. (It wasn't really stuffed with huckleberries. They used a huckleberry/cream cheese mixture instead of butter). Both were excellent. I guess the huckleberries are why the bears love it out here.

So, on to Many Glaciers - a part of Glacier National Park and the site of one of the old hotels that were built during the heydays of the railroads. There are great pictures which will be uploaded as soon as I can. You cannot believe that there were trees that they were able to cut down to build these hotels. The lobbies are phenomenal. We did see a number of deer and goats and one moose while in the hotel area. In fact, I thought the goats were going to just come right up to us. They were across the road and just walked right on down into the highway and right on across to where we were. Deer are so frequent in the area that you just quit taking pictures of them (kind of like bison in Yellowstone). Now, the moose picture is from the rear. We saw the moose from the side, but before I could get the camera out, he had turned away from us. I took the picture anyway to prove that we saw a moose.

Our next destination was Canada. Let me tell you now, sign your passports. It was quite embarrassing to have the young man at Canadian customs tell us that we needed to sign them in order for them to be valid. He let us in. But, we pulled over at the next pull out area and signed the passports.

Our ultimate destination was the Prince of Wales Hotel and Waterton Village Townsite. We had seen pictures of the Prince of Wales Hotel on many PBS specials. The tv specials do not prepare you for the real hotel. Now, it is smaller than we expected, but it is so cute. It has more decorations on it than any we have ever seen. The most interesting thing was going on in the lobby of the hotel. With the most spectacular views of the lake, people were enjoying high tea. I felt underdressed - although most of the people enjoying tea were in shorts and blue jeans - just like we were. The hotel had been built for the enjoyment of its guests - as all of their dining room areas were overlooking the lake.

Of course, we had to drive down into Waterton Village Townsite - who could resist an area with such a name. It was the most beautiful little village. There was so much green space. The shops were quaint. The people had neat accents. The ice cream was delicious. Deer were everywhere!!! We sat down to eat our ice cream right across the street from where we sat. In fact, I walked across the street and right up to the little deer who was cutting the grass right in the center of the town. We saw lots of other deer throughout the town, just mowing the grass and saving the city lots of money!!!

Oh, by the way, at breakfast this morning, we were told that the Going to the Sun Road was open. We made a conscious decision to delay our trip across to allow any bad sections on the road to be tested by some other cars before we go up there. And, hopefully, the sun will come out and we can have the best of all days in Glacier National Park!!! Keep your fingers crossed and I'll get the pictures uploaded as soon as possible.