Day 8 - Kalispell, MT to Helena, MT

Day eight found us on the road to our next national park destination, Wharton Glacier International Peace Park, or Glacier Park for short, only 15 miles away. Glacier Park has the distinction of sharing a border with both Canada and the United States. We entered Glacier Park at the west entrance and motored 10 miles to Lake McDonald. Unfortunately, the main east/west road through the park was still closed due to 18 feet of snow at the 6,664 foot summit.

We stopped at the Glacier Lodge for a quick self-guided tour and some photographs. In the early days of the lodge, guests had to take a steam-powered train from Kalispell, MT to West Glacier, board a horse-drawn buggy for the 10 mile ride to the south end of the lake, and then board a steam-powered motorboat for the remainder of the trip to the lodge. Travelers complained that it was too hot to ride inside the boat because of the heat of the boiler, and if one rode on the deck, the hot embers from the wood-fired boiler burned holes in their clothes.

The interior of the lodge was beautiful with solid beam lumber throughout and an enormous four foot logs ablaze contributing to the overall warm atmosphere of the lodge. Lake boat tours are available, as are rental boats for fishing @ $28.00 an hour. While strolling around the lodge, I came across an employee driving an early AMF Harley-Davidson gas powered golf cart, yellow in color. We gave one another the bike to bike wave and went on our way. In our opinion, the Glacier Lodge would be a very nice place for a romantic weekend get-away. You know the kind. Throw another log on the fire, fetch me my slippers, and pour me another glass of wine, will you Honey? Oh, that doesn't work for you either, huh ?

Those of us who are particularly sensitive to sun damage have to be very vigilant in these northern latitudes and clear skies. We're going through lots of sunscreen. Check out the picture of Scott applying his sunscreen warpaint above.

We stopped for lunch in East Glacier on the way out of the park at The Glacier Restaurant where some us opted for medium rare Bison burgers--very yummy!

Departing East Glacier southeast toward Helena, MT the terrain changes immediately and dramatically from snow-covered mountain peaks to the great grassy plains, and the home of the one of the great plains Indian tribes, the Blackfeet tribe. Passing through a small town we were following an old pick-up truck with a rather rotund native woman with long raven-colored hair hanging out of the passenger window waving her hand at us in a most violent manner. We had no idea what she was trying to tell us. As the truck turned off the highway and we proceeded straight, she stretched even further out the window, extended both arms in to the air and flipped us the bird with both hands yelling something unintelligible. We still have no idea what set her off or what she was so mad about. I guess she's still fighting the Indian wars or something. For whatever reason, she didn't like us one bit. Very strange, indeed!

We pulled into Helena, MT about 6:00 PM and checked into our hotel. The advertised no-smoking rooms all reeked of smoke. The manager responded with a spray bottle of some solution that helped a little, but they were definitely not no-smoking rooms. We also learned later that our hotel was not in the best part of town. We discussed posting four-hour security details over the bikes for the night, but after dinner and a few beers at the local sports bar it didn't seem so important.

We did suffer a minor disaster this evening, the cap on the bottle of Jack Daniels Gentleman Jack had come loose during the ride and filled the bottom of John's tour pack with whiskey. Nice, whiskey soaked binoculars, rain suit, trip itinerary, maps, tennis shoes, etc. You can't imagine how long it took to squeeze enough whiskey out of all of that stuff for a drink!

That's all for today friends. Please stay tuned. We're head for Yellowstone Park, Wy tomorrow.

Note to our readers, I hope you have discovered that by double clicking on the attached photos you can increase the size to full screen--enjoy!