Glacier National Park (A Moose Mystery):

The beauty of this park is unbelievable! Gorgeous! Wish you were here! The water is so clear, so icy-blue, and so cold! There are rocks of every color and every formation that you can imagine. It is so hard to describe. It is too bad we cannot bottle this beauty and serenity to take with us. We tried with our pictures, but it just doesn’t do this park justice. We did post our pictures in our Webshots album: Glacier National Park. But you really need to see this park in person to take it all in.

~ Going to the Sun Road

We started our first visit around 9am and did not get home that night until 11pm. We came home to some very miffed and hungry cats. “Where have you been? Where’s our dinner??” The views were spectacular. We kept stopping to take in the views, hike along trails, and just sit by the water. We did a lot more walking than we had planned on doing, but we couldn’t stop ourselves!

~ Saint Mary Lake

We finally made it to the east side around 4:30pm. Just outside the Many Glacier’s gate, we ran into a couple we had become friends with at our last campground in White Sulphur Springs. While in WSS, we had compared notes on the wildlife we have seen and hope to see someday. We discovered that we had been at Yellowstone at the same time and our lists were very similar: bears, moose, etc. They had just returned from Many Glaciers and were very excited having seen their first cow moose with her little one near Redrock Waterfalls. We had heard that moose were everywhere in this park. We did not think the Mama Moose and baby would still be there, but we decided to give it a try. The hike was almost 2 miles so it would take less than an hour to walk to the lake. Neither one of us has ever seen a moose. As we started along the trail, one of the first hikers we ran into told us if we hurry we might see the cow moose and baby at the waterfalls.

So – off we went at a very quick pace. We were on a Mission! Sandy was packing her Sigma 500mm Super-Telephoto Lens for an up-close and personnel picture. We were within a half-mile of Redrock Lake when we ran into a group of hikers. One woman said, “Oh! You just missed him! A bull moose was standing on the path and he just went into the bushes. If you hurry, you might hear him.” Well, maybe not that close to a moose, but we did head down the trail with caution, listening for the bull moose – no signs of a moose on the path nor near the path – did not hear a moose….Darn… We finally made it to Redrock Lake and could see the falls – but no cow moose, no baby moose, no moose, period.

We asked a mother and her son who were fishing nearby. They had seen a moose at the lake a mile farther up the trail, but not one around this lake. So, we were off again to find a moose when we ran into another couple. Oh yes, she had seen the cow moose and baby about an hour earlier. They had swum across Redrock Lake and had gone into the woods within 20 yards of them. Darn! Missed the moose for sure!

We decided to turn around after another group of hikers said they had not seen any moose at the other lake. So we headed back to Redrock Lake because it was getting late. As we were returning, we ran into another couple and they said, “We just saw a moose swim to the far side of Redrock Lake.” Our jaws dropped! Were the moose playing a game of hide-n-seek with us? Did they know we wanted to get pictures? Have the Paparazzi before us ruined our chances of getting a photo? Maybe they don’t like all those cameras and the attention. It was a mystery to us.

We finally decided to spend some time sitting on the Redrock’s lakeshore. Dan started searching the far shores with his binoculars. He spotted one!!! Yes! A moose at last! Well, the antlers of a moose. He was in some very tall grass on the far shore and he showed no intentions of coming out for us. Well, it was better than nothing at all and we have to admit the hike was worth it for a view of Redrock Lake and waterfalls. So the quest continues to see our first moose closer than across a lake.

As we left the Many Glaciers area we saw a small brown (grizzly?) bear near the road. He was young, and we knew mama bear was somewhere nearby, so we did not linger in the area for photos of him -- least mama bear object.

Great Falls, MT

We spent one night at Malstrom AFB in Gateway FamCamp. It is a very nice campground for active duty military and retirees. We got in early enough to do some quick touring of the falls and dams along the Missouri river. We also toured the Lewis and Clark National Historic Interpretive Center. The exhibit is setup in a maze so a person can travel along with Lewis & Clark. A lot of the exhibits encourage touch and smell. Of course, the portage exhibit caught our attention with them carrying everything they needed in big heavy canoes on wheels. At least, our heavy home on wheels has a motor! They even have outfits for people to try wearing. The children were enjoying the exhibits and participating in answering a questionnaire pamphlet. Once completed, they would earn a Junior Explorer patch. What a great way to learn history!

We stopped at Kalispell just 30 miles west of Glacier national park. Spruce Park on the River campground is located among cottonwood trees on Flathead River. Within a hundred yards we have access to the river and a view that never ends. Of course, we are also near the highway, but we rarely noticed it.

In our Montana album, we have pictures of our walk to Memorial Falls north of White Sulphur Springs, a stop on Hwy 2, Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, and Great Falls. There are only a few pictures of the Great Falls area since it was a very overcast day.

~Rainbow Trout in Great Springs Fish Hatchery.

White Sulphur Springs, MT

We decided to celebrate our Independence Day 4th of July weekend in a small ranching town called White Sulphur Springs (WSS) – population: a little under 1,000. We started the day with their parade. The lineup took longer than the actual parade, but they made up for it by going up Main Street, turning around, and coming back down again. The 10-minute parade became 25 minutes. It may have been short and sweet, but it was twice as nice!

Cows – 9, Cowboys – 0
After the parade, we had choices of going to a dog show and art festival, or to a Ranch Rodeo. We have never seen a Ranch Rodeo (though we have seen traditional rodeos) and we found it very interesting. There were 9 teams of 4 ranch hands or ranchers. The competition included different skills in a cowboy’s workday: the ranch horse, branding, penning, doctoring, cow milking, and counting. Why the score above? Well, the teams were doing very well competing against each other until they got to the wild cow milking competition. The cows were smarter than the average cow. Not a single cow got lassoed during that competition. Watching the horse and rider working as one was amazing. We added some action shots of the rider and horse to our Webshot album. Please see above link.

That evening, the town put on a fantastic fireworks show. While waiting for the official show to start, the locals were entertaining themselves with very large fireworks. They were being shot from all over town. After dark, the town’s firework show went on for an hour. Well Done!

Like many small towns, White Sulphur Springs is showing signs of hard times due to our economy. The town may need some fixing up and paint, but it is clean and shows plenty of pride. The locals were very friendly and proved to be down-to-earth, heartwarming, and very patriotic.

On the Road

In the past couple of days we traveled west through Wyoming and Montana. We drove through some beautiful scenic areas with snow-capped mountains, rolling green hills, and swift running rivers. We are staying at a campground just southwest of Yellowstone NP near Island Park, ID. It is less than 5 miles to the Continental Divide and Targhee Pass. We will be here for 6 days. Our site faces Henry’s Lake and Mt. Jefferson.

During one of our travel days, we stopped for lunch near Hardin Montana in a museum parking lot. We had planned only to eat and get back on the road since we had 4 hours travel to go. But curiosity won and we toured around the Bighorn County Historical Museum (pics in On The Road). There are 22 buildings filled with history, pictures, artifacts, and machinery. We were so impressed with the museum’s exhibits that we spent more time there than we should have. It was a little scary as we found ourselves recognizing quite a few of the artifacts on display. Dan saw many of the tools his dad had in his barn and Sandy pointed out quite a few items from the farmhouse. Yep, it was like taking a trip back in time to our childhood homes, but feeling a little old at the same time. Take a virtual tour of the exhibits on this link: BHCM.

Oh, we decided to name our new found kitty friend – Hitch - short for Hitchhiker. He is adjusting, but longs for his wild days of roaming outdoors. Hitch and Dusty tend to shadow each other while the others just tolerate the young-whipper-snapper.