Glacier

Val and I were excited to finally be driving in to Glacier this morning.  There was a long line going into the park and we chose the left lane as we approached the gate.  We noticed quickly that our line was a little slower than the right lane, but that's how it goes sometimes.  You know how it is.  You pick a line at the grocery store and it turns out that the checkout person is a trainee who has to look up every produce item you're buying and it takes 3 times longer than the other lines you could have picked.  Well, it turns out that our line was moving one eighth as fast as the other lane.  Trust me.  We had time to count.  Not that we were in a hurry, but we counted anyway.  Our guess was that we had a new ranger on our side.  We were wrong.  Or maybe not.  He could have  been new, but you couldn't tell that by his age.  We figured after having him check our pass and wave us through that he is one of the original rangers from when Glacier opened.  In 1932.  And he was probably 40 back then.  I kid you not.  I think we talked to the oldest person on earth.  And the slowest....
But we got in and headed up the Going to the Sun Highway to Logan Pass.  The first ten miles or so travel along Lake McDonald with the mountains reflecting on the water.  Then we started up the mountains and were greeted with amazing views.  Well, actually, Val was treated to amazing views.  I only got glimpses since taking my eyes off the road was not a good idea what with the rather large drop a few feet from my lane.  And little did we know that they have torn up several miles of the road way up near the top so that we were riding on dirt and gravel as we approached Logan Pass.  There were even two times that traffic was stopped because the road was down to a single lane.  Fun driving on a motorcycle, let me tell you.

The view as we waited for the road to open.

But we reached Logan Pass, took off our motorcycle gear, grabbed our lunch and headed out on the main trail from the visitors center.  Some clouds were present, but the chance of rain was only thirty percent.  And the clouds made for better pictures.  So we hiked and ate and marveled at the views.

We could see rain falling in the distance , but things seemed fine.

We got to see mountain goats.

And Bighorn sheep.

Val is happy to finally be here.

Actually, we both are.

But who wouldn't be with views like these.

At the top, right after we ate lunch, it started to rain a little, but nothing too threatening.  We started back down and then heard thunder.  It's not comforting to be on a mountain when there is lightening around which we started to see.  So we rather quickly descended to the visitor center where we were treated to a hard rain.  We rushed to get our rain jackets on and headed back down toward our campground.  Of course the unpaved parts of the road that we had traveled up were now unpaved mud.   But despite a little worry, we got back home intact, washed the bike which was covered in mud and grabbed two glasses of wine.  

Before we left this morning, a man we talked to at the campground said that going to Logan Pass would be a day to remember.  

He got that right.