Glacier National Park

Hello

Here's where I've been for the past two days. Hard to believe it's already day 9 of this trip!

Day 7, 9/16/08:
Computer Day

I awoke around 8 with the intention of finding a laptop in Bozeman, MT. Alas, Bozeman has pretty slim pickings in regard to computer stores, but I was helped by a gentleman named Clint Heath who overheard my question about computer stores I made to the desk clerk. He told me of a Best Buy in Missoula, MT, and a good inexpensive place to stay in Missoula. After conversing for a few minutes I packed up my stuff and made for Missoula, about 140 miles from Bozeman along I-90. But first I got an oil change in Bozeman.

In Missoula I got a room for 2 nights at the place he suggested: the Creekside Inn. I then went and found the Best Buy and after figuring out which laptop was the shiniest I settled on the Dell Inspiron I linked a few posts ago. So far so good. I also bought a tube of super glue to reattach my GPS mounting plate to my dashboard, as the hot-glued one had fallen off. I suspect that removing the plate will now take part of the dashboard with it, but it certainly won't be falling off anytime soon.

I then spent the rest of the day tooling about Missoula, then retired to my room to set up my laptop, make blog posts and prepare for Wednesday's activities.

Day 8, 9/17/08:
I decided to make a day trip to Glacier National Park, returning to Missoula that same day. Given my experiences finding a good place to stay near a national park vis a vis Yellowstone, along with the fact that Missoula is ont the way to Seattle (via I-90) this seemed a prudent course of action.

Leaving at 7:30am, I needed 10 hours to complete the 500 mile round trip. I planned to drive to Glzcier NP via Flathead Lake and travel east across the 'Going to the Sun' hwy that bisects the park north and south. Alas, even in mid-september the road was already closed. To snow? nah, that's too easy: the road was closed on the west end due to road construction! crap. So, I changed plans and drove east around the southern end of the park on the same road I planned to drive back on from the west. But I still got some cool pics.


More are located in the Photobucket site linked to the right.

The glaciers are relatively small, in my opinion. Granted it's september and they should be near their smallest before it gets cold again, but still. Matt Licata, a friend from Dr. Glick's lab who visited Glacier last year told me that the glaciers were projected to disappear entirely in the next few decades. See em while you can!

I also found a few humour pics. The first being the blatant and effective tourist trap of a giant purple wooden spoon. Very well done. The second being a few cows napping lazily along the road I was taking. They required photography.



Since I was already on the eastern side of the park and didn't want to backtrack, I decided to take a longer but new and more scenic route back to Missoula. I traveled south along the glacier range almost to Helena before turning west. I saw alot of semi-arid ranchlands along with cows, more road construction and beautiful terrain.

I arrived back in Missoula, and prepared to cross the rest of the Rockies then Cascades and find someplace to stay in Seattle for a few days. More on that in the next update.

Thanks!