Sept. 15, 2010

Glacier National Park was a repeat of Yellowstone: no internet connection!  So being two days behind, I am going to be brief, even though many wonderful things have happened and been seen.

First, when we left the Rainbow Valley,    
through which the Madison River runs, we headed toward the town of Three Forks.  On the way, we had the terrific good luck to happen upon some riders herding cattle.  We pulled over and waited for them to come near and took a couple of pictures!  Their dogs were at work with them, and wow, we loved it!

Three Forks is a wonderful little town  
with a lot of history.  They claim that this is the area from which Sacajewea was captured by the Hidatsa Indians when she was between 10 and 12.  They have a hotel, recently refurbished, named the Sacajawea Hotel; it is very gracious ... built, moved, renovated!  Across the street is a park dedicated to Sacajawea, and in town, there's also a Lewis and Clark hotel.  I only have    

pictures of a statue in the park.  This is of course an idealized version of what Sacajewea might have looked liked, but it is nice.

Just outside of town is a state park, the Headwaters State Park.  This park is where the Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin Rivers join to make the Missouri River.  There is no doubt  Lewis and Clark actually set foot on this ground.  They did explore the sources of the Missouri and they named the three rivers.  Also, Sacajawea recognized this landscape as that of the Shoshones when they were exploring here.  It was really neat to see this very flat land: today it is grazing land for Black Angus while at that time beaver and buffalo and elk and deer roamed the region.

From the Three Forks area, we continued, eventually arriving at Glacier National Park. The following morning, when we awoke, the cloud cover was thick and threatening.  Had it not been for our "Red Bus" tour, I might have opted for bed, but we got up and went on that tour from St. Mary's to Logan Pass.  Logan Pass was socked in with fog.  The following picture is from that ride.  Pay attention to the poles in front of the national flags of the U.S. and Canada ... those are snow depth poles that are placed in the pavement each fall.

In the afternoon of the 14th, we hiked to St. Mary's and Virginia Falls, which were beautiful, and while we were hiking, the sun came out!  What good luck!

Today we started early, again with cloudy weather, again thinking it was a bad time to be driving (this time I was going to be doing the driving) through the mountains.  But ... between 8:00 a.m. and probably 9:00 a.m., it started to clear up.  In the pictures you can see fog that hasn't yet burned off.

As we crossed the pass where road construction was underway, we talked to a few of the workmen.  Reconstructing this road is serious business (it's a TARP project); it's a wondrous place to work with the wildlife surrounding them.

I must say that my trusty six-horse wagon has been working superbly.  Lewis and Clark travelled across mountains by foot, boat, and horse.  They would be amazed by today's travel.  I've come to the realization that we all go on journeys and explore ... the ease with which we accomplish our travels differs with time, but there are many similarities in our journeys.  They opened exploration for others ... we follow in their footsteps!