Glacier National Park on Independance Day

aka, Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. Seems that since the US and Canada have always had peaceful relations, the UN named the Canadian park north of Glacier and Glacier as a peace park. Due to the Fourth of July weekend, I camped at Flathead Lake about 60 miles from the park as it was as close as I could get into a campground. It was a very scenic area. Once in the park, the trip up "Going to the Sun Road" is narrow and also under construction. It is 52 miles of winding road with cutbacks, and to add to that they are doing construction on it. The trip took 2 and a half hours to reach the other side. They have added buses which I suspect will soon, when the construction is done, replace individual car traffic in the park as has been done in The Grand Canyon and Denali in Alaska. Once I reached the summit of 6600 feet, I continued all the way to the East entrance. The road was so tough, for my truck, the limited length to get onto the road was 20' and the truck is 19.5', that I decided to take the 120 mile trip around the park to get back. It was also raining the entire time at the higher elevations. It took me three hours to make the also rugged trip around. That evening I realized that my phone was missing. I had texted David as I entered, and later saw that I had no service up on the Road. Once I got out of the park, I decided to check for service again, and no phone. I searched the truck as it had fallen out of my pocket before and landed in a compartment in the truck door. Also at times I left it on the console. It was nowhere to be found. As I drove back to the camper, I drove through one small town and there was a bottle rocket war going on across the highway. It sounded like the truck got hit a few times. Then in Hungry Horse, the entire town was out and others too. The kids were shooting fireworks and the adults were mostly at the tavern but some were in lawn chairs along the highway too. I stopped and watched a while and took some photos, then left before it was dark enough for the town fireworks to start. I was wondering what had happened to my phone. I had left messages at the park to email me if they found my phone. I never received an email from the park but when I got to the campground, my computer had messages from David, Melissa and my dad. They had all received calls from the park saying that my phone had been turned in. The next morning I drove back to Glacier and had to travel the Going to the Sun Road again to get to the east entrance where my phone had been turned in. The day was better than the previous day but traffic was heavier on Monday than on the Fourth of July. I got to the east entrance and identified my phone and signed the necessary paper work and then had to decide whether to drive the long way again or just go back on Going to the Sun Road. I decided to go back through the park and was glad I did. I had dinner at a restaurant and enjoyed the evening as another day was gone. The next morning I left Glacier which is a name which needs to be changed to Glacier Lakes National Park as the remaining Jackson Glacier in the park is an 11 mile hike to what is left of it. Canada's park is Waterton Lakes National Park so they are ahead of us in the naming process.

I left on the road toward home again and the trip was very enjoyable around the Flathead Lake. On the south end was a beautiful town named Polson. If not for the winters, it would be a great place to live. There was a boat pulling kids on a tube in what had to be very cold water, but I suppose they get used to it here. I continued south to Interstate 90, the longest coast to coast highway in the US, probably due to the mountains and cities it connects. Somewhere between Boseman and Billings, I reconnected with bugs. On the windshield first, the when I drove through Billings and stopped at a McDonalds for a late lunch and to use the Internet for a bit , flies. Billings is where Melissa spent a year as an Americorps volunteer while getting away from the empty nest. She chose a good place as it is a lot like a smaller version of Memphis. She made some good friends there and traveled back to visit them once and again for the wedding of the daughter of one of the friends. It was tempting to try to find some of them, but they were her friends, as I was home working then and now she is home working as I travel through her town for a year. Life takes some interesting turn as it passes... Next, on to South Dakota for a day trip.