Glacier National Park - Day 1 (Saturday)

KArrival

(Preface - it's been a dry summer for the northwest. There are fires burning all over Washington and Idaho. A couple of weeks ago Glacier started lighting up as well. We've been keeping track of what's going on, stalking the webcams all over the park, and crossing our fingers things would be better by the time we arrived. Not so much. They've closed many of the hikes around the area and at times even parts of the roads have been closed as well.)

Our morning started in the middle of the night with a 3:15 wake up alarm for a 6am flight. Needless to say, there weren't many cars on the road. The airport was hopping though. Thankfully, both flights were pretty uneventful (our connection was in Chicago - O'Hare). As we got closer to Glacier, we could even smell smoke on the plane. It was pretty eerie. We landed in Kalispell about noon, had the keys to the rental car (a little Subaru XV Crosstrek - Bob was stoked) and our luggage and were on the road by 12:30

It was crazy smoky. You really couldn't see a thing other than maybe a faint outline of some of the mountains. Even though we had been stalking the webcams for the last month and knew it wasn't good, we were still disappointed. But it is what it is and we'll do our best to make the most of it. The lady at Alamo told us we'd find a Super 1 Foods on the way to the park, so we stopped in there to pick up a few items. We were at the entrance to the park by 1:30. 

The smoke wasn't dissipating, it seemed to be getting worse. After having seen the pictures and knowing what it was supposed to look like, it really was deflating to know how much we couldn't see. We passed Apgar Village on the way to Lake MacDonald (which is where we're staying). This is where one of the webcams is located. And yup, it looked just like the images we'd been seeing every day at home. The man at the Visitor's Center said the smoke was mainly from the Washington and Idaho fires, not the Glacier fires. Huh! We hadn't even thought about that. 

We found our way to the Lake MacDonald Motor Inn where we were booked. The lodge was full back in February when Bob was trying to find rooms. So for a couple of nights, this is Home Sweet Home ...

I guess that fan on the wall is our air conditioning. I ask Bob if he'd mount it on the ceiling song could have a ceiling fan. I suffered. No fan. 

After checking into our room at about 3pm, we headed to the lounge at the lodge for an adult beverage. And it went down real smooooooth. Since we hadn't had lunch we thought it smart to order a little to nibble on to tide us over until dinner. The beer was a Scotch Ale that even I liked. Our appetizer was some toasted baguettes, celery and carrot sticks served with a salmon dip. Yummm, it all hit the spot.

We walked down to the lake for a view and could tell it would've been gorgeous ... if you could see anything. You could barely see across the lake. There's hope that we'll get some rain tonight and wash the smoke away, even temporarily. We'll take what we can get. Supposedly, there's even more of a chance of rain tomorrow. As I'm sitting here writing I just heard some rain for a few minutes. I sure hope we get more than that. 

We went back to the room and chilled until we got to close to falling asleep and ventured out to the lodge again. Even though we really weren't hungry yet, we figured we'd walk over and see how long the wait for the main restaurant was. Forty-five minutes, so we put our name down. It ended up being only about twenty-five minutes. Not too bad. There are plenty of people here, but it doesn't seem to be too crowded.

I ordered a Huckleberry Smash (Huckleberries are big around here! They have huckleberry everything!) and Bob stuck with the Scotch Ale from earlier. Our server promised if I didn't like it I could send it back so I stepped outside my box and went for it. Eh. I sent it back. LOL. It really didn't have much flavor and what flavor it did have needed to be a little sweeter. I don't like sweet drinks, but I don't want to pucker up when enjoying one either. 

I continued my out of the box ordering by choosing a Black Bean Burger for my entree. Bob followed the outside the box movement by going for the bison meatloaf, which came highly recommended. My burger was good. Not great but ok. I'll try something else next time. My burger was better than Bob's meatloaf. Not what we were expecting. Oh well, you live and learn, right?

The sun wanted so badly to come out and put on a show for us. It kept trying to peek through all the smoke and clouds. People were walking around with cameras like there was actually something to take a picture of! I didn't get it. What I was seeing wasn't worthy of me dragging my camera out. I just popped out my iPhone and was done with it. 

There were two couples sitting at the table behind us. Bob thought he heard the lady mention Virginia Beach. So at some point he turned around and asked her if that's what she said. Would you believe one of the couples lives on Sandbridge Road, about a mile from us? And the other couple lives in Kempsville? Holy cow it's a small world. They're on a bus trip together that does a loop from Calgary. They said the smoke has been on again, off again. They've had some good days and some decent mornings. There is hope.

After dinner we walked back down to the lake. Amazingly, we saw patches of blue sky and some clouds. Major improvement. Crossing our fingers tomorrow is better. Came back to the room, packed our backpacks, cleaned camera lenses and have a plan for tomorrow. 

Of course Bob is snoring while I'm journaling. Life is good. And I'm out. Been up about twenty hours. I'm done. 

Night.