Our room at the Crown Motel was very nice and clean with pretty hardwood floors! The outside was a sunny yellow and the ½ dozen units on either side in the front all had cute little cement front porches with plastic chairs and a small table. Before we left town we took a few pictures of the lake with the road to Summerland and the yellow cliffs that we had gone by the evening before. Barbee and Terry live in such a gorgeous area! The orchards south of Penticton take up the entire valley and stretch out like Midwest cornfields! While we headed south to the US border, anticipating the stern, stoic customs agent demeanor that we had been warned about, I “strongly suggested” that H keep his sometimes sarcastic humor in check and JUST answer the agent’s questions. Did he, you ask? If you know H, you already know that answer. We were the 10th vehicle in line. One or two of them took a bit longer than the 2 or 3 normal questions. A small motorhome was even pulled over. Those nine vehicles took 10 minutes. It took us 5 minutes to get thru! Luckily, as she opened things, she left them strewn over the back interior of the van and nothing was removed to the pavement. Thankfully, we/I endured and off we drove south, safely back in the US of A. From British Columbia, across the corner of Washington, across the panhandle of Idaho and into Montana we drove. Libbey Montana is the Eagle City of Montana and I did see a lot of high nesting perches all along the way. The center of town has a hugh big statue of an eagle that hangs above the street! The time had changed but I was still tired!
Friday the 25th we passed thru the foothills and “Native American” areas before entering the gate at West Glacier National Park only to find out that the Road to the Sun was closed 16 miles up the road. We turned around and took the long route around the entire south end of the park on Rt 2. Another delightful road that we have never been on and it gave new beautiful views of the peaks and rivers and the ribbon of railroad track that clung to the side of the mountain or nestled in the valley next to the ever present babbling brook. Up the other side and we finally entered into East Glacier. The last time we were in the park was in 1997 on our way to Alaska and nothing that we saw on our way up this time looked familiar. Last time, the world there was much greener - this time the southeast area just across the lake was totally destroyed by fire and the devastation looked fairly recent. We had driven miles and miles thru acres and acres of tall, thin, gray and black sentinels waiting forlornly to be blown over. Once up at Logan’s Pass, the parking lot had a long row of porta johns lined up like toy soldiers, as the visitor center was just as closed as the road at its feet! Coming back down from the top, the memories of our past trips, finally came back to us - the square chunks of boulders at the edge of the roadway instead of guardrails, the trickling waterfalls that dribbled under the roadway before seeping down the valley below, the magnificent deep dark blue St Mary’s Lake and her dainty island in the middle! The receding glaciers on the far jagged peaks! This time we passed thru big patches of yellow golden aspens with faded white or soft pink wildflowers at their feet or waving at us from the sides of the road as we sped downhill. There was less water in the streams now and more curves in the narrow almost 2 lane road. This time we (almost) ran into cattle on the roadway and several tourists taking pictures of some grazing horses next to the roadway! 50 miles east of the park the land is flat and mostly golden or tan, but you can still see the rise of the majestic mountain range behind us! I remember that view from years past! Just east of a “Native American” area and we are parked at another unusual “out west” motel! Saturday morning will be into the sun again!
