Glacier National Park–At Last

St. Mary, MT – Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tuesday we made our escape from Choteau, MT.  But it was a busy morning.  We made what was to be our last blog entry for several days, fueled up, cleaned out the holding tanks, and filled up with fresh water. We tried to go to the Bridges Coffee Shop, but they don’t open until 2PM.  We need coffee at 8AM, not 2PM.  We sat out front in the car and used their internet connection anyway.

While we were breaking camp, one of the park employees came over for a chat.  Turns out he is originally from Alaska.  He gave us two nuggets of wisdom to use on our journey.  Buy Skin-So-Soft to ward off the mosquitoes and don’t ever let your fuel tank get below the half mark.  We think these will be good rules to follow even though we have head nets, a screened enclosure and Cutters to battle the mosquitoes.

At the filling station we met another fellow that had just come from Glacier National Park and he warned us that highway US 89 was a little curvy.  Turns out he was right.  We never got above 35 MPH for the last 20 miles.

We arrived at the St. Mary campground just inside the entrance to Glacier National Park. Having made no reservations we put in our request for a space for four nights.  The Ranger gave us a list of 6 sites to go check out then return and fill out the paper work.  Two of the six were acceptable but by the time we got back to him our number two choice had already been reserved.  So we had to go with our number one choice…darn! By the way, having a Senior NP Pass is coming in handy. The camp site is $23 a night but for seniors its half price.

Our “home” for the next four days

Later we checked out the Rising Sun campground, 6 miles further into the park.  We had not considered it because there was a 21 foot limit on RVs.  As we drove through the campground we saw several 30 foot plus RVs that had ignored the limitation.

Lake St. Mary with the Rocky Mountains in the background.

Our first bear sighting seen along the “Going To The Sun” road.

We also had time to take a hike to the St. Mary Falls. EJ was a little concerned because Frank balanced the camera on the bridge railing that went over the St. Mary river to take this picture.

And as a last note, AT&T cell service is non-existent here in GNP.  However folks all around us are talking on their cell phones using, you guessed it, Verizon as their cell phone service provider.  We think we see a change coming in the future for our cell phones.

Also not having any luck with internet connections.

Notice the Canadian border.  We’re getting closer!

BG Miles Today	108	BG Total Miles	3381
Eat Out total $	221.63	BG Total Fuel $	1694.53
Entertainment total $	58	Total Camping $	415.71
E Miles Today	37	E Total Miles	1051.5
E Total Fuel $	205