Bill was a happy boy, as the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team won last night in game four, and if they win tonight they win the Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, I continue to binge-watch my Spanish series on Netflix “Velvet”. We are happy for rest at the end of our long days of sight-seeing and driving to indulge our eating, drinking, and television addictions:) We were on the road this morning at 8:00, driving from the west side to the east side of Glacier National Park on Hwy. 2. Both of us decided it was even more spectacular than yesterday if that is even possible!
The wind blew like crazy, and it was so cold in the higher elevations, but I continued to hop out for scenic shots. There was snow blowing on the top of the mountains, adding more white to the glaciers, but the only precipitation we received was rain. At one spot I stopped by a stream and had it been warmer, I would have gone in to collect the colorful stones in blues, reds, oranges, and grays, but no toes were dipping into that frozen stream today!
All the aspen are in full color, blazing yellows in between the green pines. Trains and tracks are everywhere to be seen, and they are longer than any trains I have ever seen, but today the most amazing sights included a snow rainbow, and my photo does not do it justice. It was the largest and most colorful, compared to the ordinary rainbows of my other life. The gusting winds also blew across the hay prairies of gold near the town coming out of the park near Browning and resembled the look of fabrics like velvet, when you brush it one way and then another. Undulating, rippling, colorful carpet nap.
We stopped in Great Falls, Montana for a lunch date with ex-Maqua camper, Sue Purdue Tanner, whose reputation as a camper and counselor is a legend with the nickname “Super-doo”. She had been at the 2012 reunion at Camp Maqua when many of her friends from the ’60s and ’70s congregated for a reunion. We are hoping to have another in 2024 to celebrate the camp’s 100th anniversary on the Loon Lake property, hopefully for more girls to connect with their old camping buddies!
We had booked a Wyndham downtown, but when we walked into their construction site at the entrance to a parking garage, we asked to see the room. Nope. It was like a dorm room or a cheap hotel for a one night stand. We walked around the corner and found a wonderful historic Arvon Hotel, with amazing artwork on all the walls of the hotel.
This afternoon we drove along the Missouri River to see all the dams and took a winding half-hour drive in the middle of nowhere to find Sulphur Springs. We did hike out for a bit, but the steep incline kept us from finishing the trail, so we returned to the Celtic Cowboy for a drink and appetizer.