Arrived home last Friday. I miss the mountains and the elk coming down the hill behind my dorm and especially the cool weather. We drove a total of 18,000 miles. 8,000 of those were just at YS.

We went to downtown Mitchell this morning to see the Corn Palace, originally built in 1892. Each year a new theme is chosen and the outside is stripped and redecorated with new corn and grains. Over the summer, 3000 bushels of rye, oat heads and sour dock are tied in bundles and attached. When the corn is ready 275 thousand ears of corn are sawed in half lengthwise and nailed to the building following patterns crated by local artists. We only drove 214 miles today. We’re going to try to do better tomorrow. Tonight we’re staying in the tiny town of York, Nebraska tonight.

Corn Palace in 1892

Corn Palace today

These murals are all made of corn

This past Wed we ended up in Bozeman exactly where we began our trip 10 days ago! We drove east through Billings and on to Sheridan, on of our favorite little towns, where we spent the night.

On Thurs we drove to Deadwood, SD. They were having the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, 15 miles away. Deadwood was full of motorcycle dudes and their biker babes. They were parked solid from one end of the town to the other.
We took a tour visiting Boot Hill where Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane are buried. In the evening we drove over to Stergis to see what that was all about. Basically it's about being seen on your motorcycle and looking at others, trying to determine who has the coolest wheels. We drove through town and then had our picture taken in front of the “Stergis” sign. Some guy let us sit on his motorcycle.

Yesterday, Fri we drove to Mt. Rushmore and toured it. We rented an audio device and thought that was the way to go. Then we drove to Custer Park and drove the entire loop. We spent the night in Keystone , SD.


This morning we drove on eastward. We ended up in Mitchell, SC. The Corn Palace is here. We'll check that out in the morning.

The day we left Apgar we walked down to a coffee shop to buy some breakfast but the English Muffin was 50 cents more than and McDonald Lodge so we decided to drive there for breakfast since we were going by it anyway on our way to Many Glacier. We stopped at Logan Pass and walked around for a little bit, we saw some Big Horn Sheep, then it was on to Many Glacier.
We ate lunch in the Many Glacier Hotel. We didn’t want to spend a lot of money so we ordered a salad listed on the menu under “starters.” When they served it it was about the size of the palm of my hand. We were starving when we got up from the table.
The scenery from the hotel was just breathtaking. There was a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. Fabulous.
We decided to try to find our lodging, the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. Before going to our room we sat down in their restaurant and ordered lunch!! Our room wasn’t nearly as nice as our old dorm room at Aspen. We threw our stuff down and set out on a hike. We wanted to do Iceberg Lake but it was too late in the afternoon to go up and come back plus there had been numerous sightings of a mother grizzle and her two cubs. We weren’t anxious to tangle with them. We decided to do Red Rock Falls instead. It was less than four miles. The falls were fabulous. They were so full of water and it was gushing all over the place. We were glad we hadn’t tried Iceberg Lake because it started thundering although we made it back before the heavens opened up. On our way back we saw a bird, a Ptarmigan, and her four chicks.
We did our laundry and then bought a cold sandwich at the campstore. We hung most of our laundry all over our room to dry.


The next morning we drove towards Canada. The wildlife that we saw along the way was cows! They were free range cows and they were all over the road just like the bison at Yellowstone.
When we crossed the border into Canada I got a tongue lashing from the guard. He said I ran through two stop signs. He said the fine for going through a stop sign in the park is $700. Thankfully he didn’t throw a fine on me. The lashing was enough.
We drove to the Prince of Wales Hotel which was build in 1927 overlooking Waterton Lake. It is historic but could use a LOT of updating. The hotel has huge picture windows that frame a seven mile long string of mountains. It was named for King Edward VIII while he was Prince of Wales. We went into the town of Waterton to have lunch. The town is small and really cute however the prices are sky high. The US Dollar isn’t worth much. We went to all the restaurants and looked at their menus. We couldn’t afford a hamburger for $14 so we ended up eating at Subway. It started raining so we decided to get on the road back to the US. We wanted to drive to East Glacier and see their lodge. We had read so many things about it. It was one of the best lodges we have seen. It is sometimes refereed to as The Big Tree Lodge because the lobby is lined with gigantic Douglas Fir trees. By this time it was late afternoon and we thought we’d better find a place to spend the night. There was only one room that we found around that area and it was $265, needless to say we decided to drive on. We were going to stay in Cut Bank but there was nothing there, we drove on to Shelby, nothing, so we ended up driving all the way to Great Falls, MT where we checked into the Motel 6. After our stay last night in the national park motor inn this place was like a palace.

Hiking Red Rock Falls

Many Glacier

Many Glacier

Prince of Wales Hotel

East Glacier Lodge




East Glacier Lodge





East Glacier Lodge

One of the workers wearing a buffalo hat

East Glacier Lodge

There are LOTS of windmills in this are of the country

Last Sat. morning we went zip lining in White Fish. We didn’t start until 10:00 and didn’t finish zipping until 1:00. They forgot to tell us that we were going to have to carry a 15 lb. trolly on our shoulder as we hiked up the mountain. In one place we went up so high that we rode in a chair lift but mostly we hiked with that damn trolly on our shoulder. To tell the truth we loved it - the zipping that is. We drove to Apgar Village in Glacier. Our room/cabin overlooked the river. We had a great view!

The next day (Sun) we got up at 6:30, put on our clothes over our PJ’s, grabbed our TRIPODS and went down to the lake (Lake McDonald) to take pictures before the sun came over the mountains. We drove to the transit center and caught a bus to McDonald Lodge where we had breakfast. We were still hungry when we finished because we could only afford an English Muffin. We got on another bus to Avalanche Creek where we hiked to Avalanche Lake. It was a beautiful hike but it took us a couple of hours because we kept stopping to take pictures. We were freezing when we started off since we didn’t wear jackets but it wasn’t long before we warmed up and were glad we didn’t have them.
After the hike and lunch we took an hour cruise on Lake McDonald. They had a ranger on board who gave us information about the lake and park.
When we got back to Apgar Village we headed out to Polebridge. The night before we met a couple down by the lake and they told us that Polebridge is a historic, quaint, tiny, little village where they serve a lovely special every night. It’s about 25 miles from Apgar Village. We drove and drove over paved and unpaved roads in and out of the park. Some of the paved roads were only “lightly” paved. They were just like the Yellowstone roads - full of potholes! They had outlined the really bad holes with red paint so people wouldn’t fall in and get stuck.
We were almost ready to give up when we finally arrived. There were only two commercial buildings: the Mercantile Building and the Northern Lights Saloon where we intended to eat. Remember this place is 25 miles from anywhere and there is nothing around, the place was packed!!! They were eating out in the yard on picnic tables and also inside. The building (log cabin) is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The food looked great but it was too expensive for us, around $12-15 a plate. We decided to go back to Apgar Village and have a hamburger.
We went into the Mercantile/Bakery and on a table was a big jar with a sign asking for donations so they could get the internet!
When we got back to Apgar the only place to eat was even more expensive than the saloon at Polebridge so we had wine and crackers in our room.

Lake McDonald









Behind our cabin/room





Hiking at Avalanche


Avalanche


Collecting donations at Polebridge

We decided to go to Glacier this morning (8-5.) At Apgar Village it was breathtaking to look across the lake at the mountains. We got on a shuttle to tour the park (Going to the Sun Road.) At McDonald Lodge we got off and had lunch before continuing on to Logan Pass, and finally St Mary. On our journey we were thrilled to see Mountain Goats, Big Horn Sheep and deer. The scenery was spectacular. We didn’t get back to White Fish until almost 8:00.

On our way to Glacier we saw this truck decorated to advertise a place that sells plants

Lake McDonald

My newest boyfriend

Apgar Inn

The Red Bus Tour

Mountain Goats