Going to the Sun

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Because we haven't been in a car enough yet, we decided to pay extra for a day long tour with the old people! Actually, it was a great day...we got to see so much of the park, and Shawn didn't have to drive! We traveled in a 1936 open roofed 17 passenger bus. It gave us incredible views of the mountains. The tour went across Going to the Sun Road, which is truly the most beautiful thing we've ever seen. The driver gave us facts along the way, and we got to "pop up" (aka stick our head out of the roof, says Emma) and look at all the sights. Weather in Glacier is so strange...we started off freezing to death in the topless bus, and ended buying a souviener blanket at one of the lodges. By the end of the day, we were putting on sunscreen and sweating in 90 degree heat.

Snow was still covering lots of the mountains and some of the trails. Several of the higher trails just opened on Friday when enough of the snow had melted to make them passable. We saw 6 glaciers on the tour (which actually look like dirt covered with snow) out of the 26 remaining. In 1850, there were 150 glaciers, in 1968, there were 50 left. They predict that all the glaciers will be gone by 2030. We saw lots of wildlife. Deer were not afraid of people at all...you could be 5 feet away from them and they just looked at you and kept eating. Strange. We saw a mountain goat, big horned sheep and prairie dogs.

Since we were in a car, we had to play car games. Emma decided to play the "dutch oven" game with our new blanket and Rachel. Rachel was the big loser of that game. Apparently being a passenger in a car wears Shawn out...he came home and went to bed at 7:30. The girls were not far behind.

All in all, a great day at Glacier.

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Comments

[Harry & judi]

fantastic
Reading your blog makes us envious. We are glad you guys are having such a great time and being able to share your time with us thru the great stories and photos. Shawn, I need to get a camera like yours.