September 4, 2022  Glacier National Park - East Entrance

Found I'm terrible at blogging - I get tired or am working on other things and just don't get to doing a daily blog.

We set up the RV at Chewing Black Bones Campground in Babb, MT last night after a very long drive from Billings, MT (7+ hours).

We arrived just before sunset.  Haze is due to forest fire smoke!

We had to level using blocks - we were able to do this all on our own!

Set-ups and take-downs of the RV have gone very smoothly, and Linda and I have little to no comments to make in our trip diary of things to remember to do or new things we learn about RVing.

The terms "wide open spaces" and "Big Sky" hardly do justice to Montana. Wow!  Miles and miles between exits - and often no services at the exits - just roads to ranches.  It's amazing to think about people owning this land that's so vast.  It was endless!

As we drove yesterday and for most of today, we experienced smokey haze, results of wildfires in Idaho and maybe elsewhere.  When we arrived at East Glacier, it was difficult to make out any details - just hazy images of mountains in the background, which, in itself, was interesting.  This morning the same thing - very hazy and little blue sky.  By later afternoon, the haze has been blown out by very gusty winds, and tonight is clear. We're looking forward to the stars, as we are in a Black Sky area.

Today's trips into the Eastern part of Glacier Park were very nice.  Since we have no 3-day pass, the only way into the park is by purchasing tickets to do something in the park.

In the morning we had a Red Bus Tour.  Red Busses are refurbished from the 1930's and take you around a certain route with commentary, plus a couple of stops.  We saw so may beautiful vistas - one better than the other, even in the hazy conditions, and several iconic locations in the park.

Our Red Bus - held 17 passengers - open roof for "prairie dogging" to take pictures.

On our Red Bus tour

Clements Mountain with Jackson Glacier at Logan Pass.

Continental Divide at Logan Pass

U-shaped glacial valley for St. Mary's Lake 

Back to the RV for lunch and to check on Corky.

In the late afternoon we took a boat tour on St. Mary's Lake.  Very cool.  The company has been and is owned by a family - one of the longest running family-owned tours in the National Parks.  We had a bubbly 22-year old - recent graduate, who was fun to listen to and provided all types of info about what we were seeing.  Linda and I both enjoyed the boat trip very much.

All boats for this company are on historic register!  

We were on Little Chief - to the right of the dock.  It is the oldest boat on the Historic Landmark Register at 100 years old!

Our boat tour on St. Mary's Lake

Blue sky (finally), turquoise water due to glacial "flour," and sedimentary rock - what could be better?

Back at the RV, we - for the first time - cooked indoors on the stove!  No particular reason, other than what we chose to eat.

You know I could go on and on about the geology here - so cool.  Some of the rock is from a previous supercontinent (before Pangea) and is 1.7 billion years old! - sedimentary rock (mostly limestone) formed in a basin.  Then (as a continent from Pangea), the land was uplifted and overthrust (turned upside down).  And finally, glaciation altered the landscape by carving out U-shaped valleys and other glacial formations.  I'm in hog heaven - and I'm not really a geologist, just a geographer who enjoys the natural landscape.  So, I'll leave the geologic history as those three things - formation in an old, old inland basin, uplift, and glaciation.  Poor Linda - she has to put up with my commentary about glaciation as we pass things!  Horns, cirques, u-shaped valleys, and moraines.  Thank goodness she's patient with me and seems interested in it.

So nice to be at Glacier National Park - so many things to see, nice to be in one area for awhile (although we move tomorrow to West Glacier for 5 days).  Love the outdoors and calming affect of mountains, scenery, being away from routine.