national park road trip. week 2.

It's Monday. Everyone hates Mondays. But today is a magic Monday rather than one of those manic ones. Today Wendy and I head to Yellowstone National Park. Old Faithful we're comin' for ya. Don't get too excited over there.

But first, let's recount the last week of this adventure.

Last Monday Wendy and I left Missoula to head to a small town just West of us called Superior. We were on the hunt for my friend Ashley, who is a river rafting guide on the Clark Fork River for the summer. Our first experience in Superior was one of alarm. And I mean that quite literally. We pulled up to the small market to grab some food for dinner as an alarm ripped through the entire town. As we were looking around trying to figure out what was happening, a young man raced past us, full speed, arms pumping forcefully as if his life were in danger.

Turns out Superior doesn't have a fire department. They just have volunteers. This young man must have been a volunteer and we had passed a small brushfire on the highway on the way in. Seems like that's where he was headed.

After shaking off the shake-up we bought our dinner and headed to the "Field of Dreams," which is where Ashley and her crew are spending their summer. Check out our sweet spot for the next two nights:

So our original plan was to just crash one night with Ashley and then hit the road to Glacier…but she offered us a couple spots on her boat for the trip she was guiding the following day, so we couldn't say no to those. We hopped on a bus bright and early the next morning to go catch some whitewater and what an adventure it was. Check out our sweet ride:

Although the rapids were pretty awesome, my favorite part was the cliff jumping…and being allowed to hop out of the boat on the "swimmer's rapid" and float alongside the group. The experience was an effort to simulate what it would be like should you be tossed from the boat unwillingly. "Nose up, toes up" is the rule of thumb for riding the rapid to safety. So it was fun getting to fake being in danger for a bit. After the trip ended we headed back to the field for some good old fashioned fun. With mustaches. Mo (the leader of the bunch) has this epic handlebar stash that he grooms with wax and curls over a pen in his spare time. Good stuff. Peep the action:

I promise I'm not stoned in the last one. That's what camping, hiking, and an utter lack of sleep will do to your eyeballs. Like my BEER hat? Fun times in Montana.

After saying goodbye to our new friends in the field, Wendy and I moseyed on up to Glacier. And when I say moseyed, I mean we made many a pit stop on the way there. First stop, St. Regis. We desperately needed coffee, and turns out we needed to buy a ton of souvenirs as well. Ok need is not the right word. Honestly, the two of us are consuming shit like all true Americans do. I'm really rubbing off on Wendy here. Oops.

After St. Regis we stopped in Lakeside, Montana at a legendary cafe aside Flathead Lake. Why is it legendary you ask? Well this particular cafe is known for its Big Ass Breakfast, which is basically every kind of meat you can think of with a pound (literally a pound, notes it on the menu) of hash browns, something like 1/2 a dozen eggs, as well as some biscuits and gravy. 

Welcome to Amurrica.

The Lakeside Cafe is not only a legendary breakfast establishment, it's an antique store. Yup. Welcome to Montana. So Wendy and I peruse the goods while we are waiting for our food. She ends up with a tomahawk and I end up with a vibrant painting I couldn't keep my eyes off of the whole time we were there. Upon closer inspection (and more importantly after the purchase had been made) turns out my vibrant eye-catching painting is none other than a Paint By Number. The adventure just keeps getting better:

If they just would have put another coat of that pale pink on I never would have known. I still love it.

From the Lakeside Cafe we head on up to Glacier, but because of our moseying we didn't arrive until very late in the afternoon and the only campsites available were at Avalanche Creek Campground. So Wendy and I jet there only to find those open campsites have been swooped. So we decide to hike. Life is about taking chances folks. We don't know where we're sleeping tonight but we're gonna take advantage of this daylight and see some shit.

This is what we saw:

Upon finishing the Avalanche Lake Trail we headed out of the park on a mission to find somewhere to sleep, which shouldn't be that hard. Right?

Well I was right. It wasn't hard at all. We found a private campground right outside the park with hot showers, laundry facilities, and AVAILABLE CAMPSITES for only $4 more than the sites inside the park. Perfection. 

Well all was perfection, until the keys got locked in the car at midnight. The keys got locked in the car at midnight when we had a 6am wake up call the next morning. The reason we had a 6am wake up call was, well you see, we had a starting line to queue up for. This starting line will be a recurrent encounter for what I will deem as "the race for tent space."Although the concept is quite comical, in reality, it bites. In a major way. 

The race for tent space involves waking up as early as possible to drive to your campground of choice and roll through slowly and as quietly as possible in your vehicle, meanwhile the crackly gravel is waking everyone up…you drive and you look at tags, tags that identify the date people are vacating the space. Meanwhile, said people are sleeping soundly, while you're attempting to stake claim on their soon to be vacated home. It's funny. But not.

Especially when your keys are locked in the car. So 6am rolls around and my unwelcome alarm sounds. I get up to call AAA hoping they'll show up even though my wallet with my AAA card is also locked in the car. Before calling, I assess the situation. Turns out, the driver's side window is cracked. And I happen to know that the keys are sitting under the tent bag on the driver's seat. 

Time to go fishin'.

So I find a long stick, attempt to gently bend it so I can hook the tent bag and move it out of the way, which proves to be easy enough. Now, to get to those keys. I get the stick to hook into the key ring, and as I'm lifting them up, I get the most incredible adrenaline rush. At any moment, the stick could break, the keys could fall onto the floorboard, unreachable. But low and behold, the mission was successful. I was able to fish the keys out and we were able to head out on our way.

We hit the Going to the Sun Road, which is apparently one of the most scenic drives in the nation. And so it was. Aside from the hoards of people, miles of road work, and slowly encroaching haze floating over from the surrounding fires in Washington, Idaho, and Canada. I can't complain though because we landed a campsite, an awesome one at that, and we saw some pretty incredible things in the world of Glacier National Park. 

Here's our magical little campsite along with some other gems:

After securing a campsite, we set out to hit the Highline Trail, an 11.6 mile jaunt along the ridge of the mountains in the park. We saw too many incredible sights. Here are some of them:

For the record, I fed a marmot (well attempted, he didn't want what I was offering) and touched a Columbian Squirrel tail. Gettin' up close and personal with the wildlife folks. When we got to Yellowstone, I toned it back. Not tryin' to get gored by a bison. Yeesh.

After finishing the Highline Trail, we of course ate a lot of food and then crashed out. 

Morning number three in Glacier started out with a hike up to Iceberg Lake (10 miles round trip):

From the Iceberg Trail we had a moment to kill before our boat tour…so we went to the Many Glacier Hotel where we had a nice lunch and enjoyed the view for a bit. 

After lunch we grabbed a coffee and attempted to mend some blisters before heading onto the boat. Once aboard, a gentleman asked if he could share our seat with us. The boat seats are spacious enough for 2 guests each. Three gets a little cramped. I tried to tell him they wouldn't board more people than could fit the boat, and he insisted on sitting there. He then said to his wife in front of us, "this young lady (referring to Wendy) seems to be quite nice, while her sister (me) isn't very interested in me sitting here." I laughed and obviously allowed him to sit there. What were my options though, really? 

We rode across Swiftcurrent Lake while getting some info from our tour guide Hannah (who I developed quite the girl crush on throughout our trip). From Swiftcurrent, we docked and walked 1/5 of a mile up and over to Lake Josephine, where we had the pleasure of catching a little black bear taking a dip:

This is the only way I'd really like to see a bear…from a nice safe distance. So far, this is the only bear we've seen on our trip.

Continuing on, we docked and went for a short hike up to Grinell Lake. We got to cross a suspension bridge which was fun. We also got to watch several baby deer (as in people with shaky legs) take some spills on and around the bridge. Poor little fellas. We offered some first aid to one gentleman. He and his family were very grateful. 

We were completely wiped out by the end of the day's adventures but we found it in ourselves to cook up a nice sausage dinner. Pretty standard for these campfire ladies:

The next morning we had every intention of hitting up Two Medicine Lake and another boat tour with a hike to Twin Falls thrown in before our drive down to Bozeman. We arrived at the lake and it looked like a hurricane was approaching. The smoke from the fires had rolled in fiercely and I think it was creating its own little storm. The wind was nasty. I ran up to the boathouse, but not before losing and chasing my hat, and I yelled over the wind to the young lady, "it it safe to assume the 9am tour is canceled?" as a few trees blew over behind us. She said, "honestly, if you guys want to go, I have to take you, but I would be perfectly fine giving you your money back." 

Soooo, we got our money back. We fought the wind to get into the gift shop and by the time we were out, we saw the boat taking off. The young girl said if she had more than 6 people who still wanted to go, she would have to take the boat out. Those assholes. The water was so rough it could not have been a very enjoyable experience for them. Whatevs.

We were on to Bozeman without a second thought. I'm not down for that kind of danger. 

After a 5 hour drive we arrived at my friend Rhyana's new house. Her and her boo have just purchased a brand new home. I know these cuties from working with them at the VC (UCSB Family Vacation Center) many years ago. It was so nice to see them and catch up. Adam was working the whole time we were there, but we got to spend some time with Rhy B out at Hyalite Reservoir, which was pretty marvelous:

Oh, and we also got to meet Jared Burnham's new mini australian shepherd, Clark, who is just the most precious thing on the planet.

During our stay, Rhy B convinced me to buy a house in Montana, rent it to college kids during the year so they pay my mortgage, and she'll be my landlord. I'll never be able to buy a house in California so this is my next best option. I am fully and completely in love with Montana. 

We stayed with Rhy B for two nights and then headed on out for a week long stay at Yellowstone. That adventure will be up shortly. 

Hopefully.