A demo, a mishap, and then home sweet home

The day started with me walk/trotting in a pouring rain over to the hotel next to us so that Gwyn could drive me to Wilson tool. We got there OK and we did the demo which took just about all morning, and I think it went pretty well. Deb picked me up in the parking lot and we started home, well first we drove through McDonald's for lunch, then we started home. As we were heading down the road, we heard a lot of honking behind us and at first couldn't figure out what the guy's problem was. He just kept honking and I was assuming it was at someone else. Then I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a bike sliding along the road behind us, so we quickly pulled over, and sure enough Deb’s bike had come loose from the rack and was being dragged down the highway with us. The one good thing is we still had the bike locks on, so that held it on to the rack. So, we didn't actually lose the bike, but it did damage the handlebars and seat pretty badly. It turns out Deb went on a bike ride the day before while I was working on the demo and apparently she did not get the rack tight enough. Once we got all the bikes secured on the rack we headed back on the road to home. After we got home, we saw the handlebars and seat had to be replaced but luckily the bike still worked. That's enough adventuers for this trip. It was a really nice trip. Glacier is beautiful, probably my 3rd favorite national park behind Yellowstone and Banff. It's too bad therer are such severe parking issues.

Dickinson to Minneapolis

After breakfast at the hotel, we hit the road. I worked in the back of the car, putting the final touches on the Wilson Tool demo we were presenting the next day. For lunch we stopped at Dave's Hot Chicken in Fargo, it was OK, filled us up. That's about all I can say about that place, just fast food chicken with some heat. After lunch we hit the road again and had a bit of an adventure getting gas. GasBuddy took us to a place off the highway a bit in a little (very little) industrial park with dirt roads in Sanborn, ND. I guess it was more of a collection of co-op buildings with services to support all the farms in the area. We found the gas station and the girl there was very nice. We next made a stop at a RV center to hug some camper vans, but there was nothing really special there, class Bs are hard to find. We then made it to Minneapolis, where we checked in and got some food. We ate at Johnny Kitchen & Bar, and we were the only people who got a table... The only other people there were a couple of women at the bar. It took a while to get served because the owner or manager or whatever was helping out at the Hibachi restaurant next door, seems like their kitchens were connected or something, odd. I was the only one who ate, as Deb was still full from lunch and whatever junk she ate while driving. I was still putting finishing touches on the demo, and I met Gwyn to go over the plan for the next day. This time she ate, and I didn't because she just flew in and hadn't had dinner yet. Tomorrow I will show the demo in the morning, and we will drive home in the afternoon.

Start of drive home

We started our drive to Minneapolis today. We drove from Great Falls to Dickinson, SD. The most interesting part of the drive was seeing 20 miles of grain cars on the tracks parallel to the highway. Clearly harvest was happening, amazing amount of rail cars, the string of cars was only broken by street crossing. So now I know what 20 miles of train looks like. We also had a neat view of a storm in the distance across the fields. One funny thing is we ate at Los Cabos in Billings, where we also ate on the way home from Banff. We didn't know this until we drove into the parking lot, clearly the Yelp recommendations and our tastes haven’t changed in the last 2 years. They still have very good food, but for some reason this time there were way too many flies. Kind of gross. Hopefully that was a rare thing and not normal.

Many Glacier boat ride and hike to Lower Grinnell lake

Today we wanted to do a boat ride across the lake, so we got up early to get our name on the wait list for the tours. We got in line and put our name in and then we had breakfast at the little coffee bar inside the hotel. We went back and got called for the 10:00 tour across Swiftcurrent lake, the same ticket gets you on another boat to cross the second lake, which is Lake Josephine. When we got off of on the other side of Lake Josephine, we hiked about a mile up to Lower Grinnell Lake, which is a stunning alpine lake. As a bonus we saw a moose laying down on the lakeshore a little ways away. This was a really cool and magnificent location, probably the best place we saw in all of the park. After staying at this lake for about half an hour we walked back down to catch the boats back. We had to wait a little bit, but we did get the boat back to our hotel, after that it was time to pack up and head out. We dropped in to check out the Baab mercantile, which was recommended as a place to get some good souvenirs. As it turned out this seemed more like a gas station than anything else, only without the gas pumps. The shelves were pretty empty so I'm thinking that it may have a better variety during the main tourist season. From there we drove down to Great Falls and checked into our hotel. Ate at Mighty Mo Brew Company. There was a guy playing live music and taking requests, he was good. We ended up ordering too much food, so we gave the remainder of our garlic knots to a couple sitting by us, they were very grateful. So we ended the day by making new friends.

Drive over to Many Glacier and short hike

Today was our last day at the Evergreen motel in Coram. We will be staying at Many Glacier our last night in the park. First we stopped at Glacier Highline just up the road and got breakfast at The Tower Grill there, the coffee and my breakfast burrito were pretty good. I heard the woman there tell some other people that once the snow starts to fall it never melts as the temps don't get warm enough until April or May. They will have 4 feet of snow on the ground for several months. We then drove from west to east on the Going To The Sun road. We wanted to hike at Saint Mary's Falls but when we drove by the trailhead there was no parking, so we went and had lunch at Rising Sun restaurant again hoping that something would open up afterwards. When we went back there was still no parking anywhere near the trailhead. It's pretty frustrating with there being no parking by a lot of the hikes and with the hiking shuttles being done for the season. They really need to offer those hiking shuttles through September, since there are still a ton of people in the park. We pretty much had seen everything you can see from the road itself. So we drove over to the Many Glacier hotel which is really cool in in a beautiful location period it's right on an alpine lake with a ring of mountains behind the lake. In fact, the whole area of Many Glacier is almost like a separate park, very remote and nice. Once we got checked in, we went on the loop trail which goes around the lake, except it was closed halfway through because of all the construction going on. We turned around to head back and that is when some rain started to fall anyway, it actually got hard enough for us to put our raincoats on towards the end. After we got back, we just kind of relaxed in the lobby for a little bit before we had dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, we both got the prime rib, and it was pretty good. The restaurant and pretty much the entire hotel really makes you think of the shining hotel. After dinner back to our room for a bit and then went out to the balcony to watch the quote hootenanny quote that the staff put on. This is basically a talent show put on by the hotel staff, except to be honest there really wasn't a lot of talent and we only watched for about half an hour before going back to our room.

Polebridge and North Fork area

Today we went up to an area of the park that's not as busy it's a different entrance called the North Fork entrance up on the north side of the park. There is a little town called pole bridge right there by the entrance and that store called the Pole bridge mercantile which is pretty well known for its bear claws. It's a bit of a drive to get up to the area in the last 8 miles of it around a gravel Rd. That is not in the best shape. It's pretty much like a farm road. I think we were pretty lucky though as they were grading it as we were driving on it, so it was probably as smooth and pothole free as it ever is. Once we went through the entrance, we continued on even worse gravel roads to Bowman lake. This road had multiple blind curves, so it was really interesting to drive on. Luckily, we didn't see more than one other car on the road at the same time as us. Alvin lake is really nice it's very quiet and peaceful there, I was a little surprised to see as many people up there as we did, probably a couple of dozen. We did about a mile and 1/2 hike along the side of the lake and it was very nice and peaceful and quiet for the most part. We then just relaxed for a while on the lakeside looking at the scenery and taking it all in. This was a neat, more wild area of the park and I’m really glad we made the trek up there. On the way back we stopped at Pole bridge mercantile, and it was very much an old timey kind of general store place instead of a bear claw I got a huckleberry Danish of another kind which was also really good. We then drove back to our hotel and got our bikes so we could do a bike ride somewhere around Apgar. We started to bike the Fish Creek trail, but it turns out there's a very steep hill right at the beginning of this so-called trail. I couldn't get up the hill and almost died trying. I think the elevation had something to do with the fact that I could not get any breath. It was really bad, and I had to push my bike back to the car sucking wind the whole time. As we were driving into Apgar village to get dinner Deb thought it be a good idea for me to do her inhaler. But all that did was really kick up my heart rate to dangerous levels again. You went from about 1:05 to over 150 in about one minute. So that wasn't a good idea, and it was kind of scary there for a few seconds. Ah the memories we make on vacation. After I decided I wasn’t going to die we went to eat at Eddie's cafe right there in downtown Apgar Village, but the tables were disgusting and everything smelled like 3-month-old ketchup and mustard. So, we bailed on that place and went to Freda’s, which I think is run by Xanterra, instead. Papa was just OK but at least it was audible and we didn't have to worry about getting some kind of disease.

A lot of driving around. 1 hike

Today was our first day of feeling the bad effects of overcrowding in the park. We started the day by driving right to the park but had to wait a really long time to get in. For some reason only one of the entrance gates was open so it was a long one lane line to get into the park. I actually got out of the car and Deb took over driving while I went in and got a coffee and then came back to the car. This didn't work out quite as well as I hoped because of course while I was getting my coffee and waiting for a woman to count out every single penny she gave the cashier the traffic cleared up and Deb was actually pretty far down the road when I got out of the store. So I had to jog/walk a pretty long way to catch up to her, she had actually pulled over to the side right before the welcome sign. We then started driving looking for a good parking spot by any place we could hike. But everything was packed full. So unfortunately we ended up driving most of the Going To The Sun Road before we even had anything to eat. So we ended up eating at the Rising Sun restaurant over by the Saint Mary's end of the road. Basically we had brunch before we did anything else today. After we ate we hiked to Baring falls which is a short hike with pretty nice waterfall. We headed back west on Going To The Sun Road, still looking for some kind of parking by a trailhead. We stopped at the Logan pass area for a little bit but just walked around the general area near the parking lot and didn't go on any hike. After that we drove back out of the park towards our hotel and into Hungry Horse there we went to the Huckleberry Patch souvenir place and I got a T-shirt/hat combo and a sweatshirt. After that we stayed around Hungry Horse and drove to the Hungry Horse dam. Of course Google actually took us to the Hungry Horse dam power plant first which as you might guess was fenced off. We did eventually find our way to the actual dam and it was kind of a nice view as it's pretty big dam. We then did some more of what I call car hiking where we drove over the dam and drove through the wilderness on the other side. There's actually a lot a lot of wilderness on the other side and the Hungry Horse Reservoir is pretty big. After that we just drove back towards our hotel, and we ended up eating at Last Best Pizza, which was OK. So probably too much time in the car and I don't have time walking in nature today, sometimes that happens.

Drive east to west on GTTSR

We left East Glacier after breakfat at Two Medicine Grille where old local was talking loud to bikers from CA and AZ. A couple at the table next to us and asked about how to get to Banff from Glacier. That led to talking a out things they should do there we recommended the guidedby app, then the people ln the other side of us said they have the app as well and love it. we drove up to the East entrance of the park and did the Beaver Pond hike right by there. There wasn't much to this hike, other than a walk through the woods, but it was kind of neat because we saw a meadow and the beaver pond eventually. It wasn't the most scenic hike in the world, but it was very relaxing and easy. Hit GTTSR about 3:30. Stopped at turnouts where the view caught our eye, including Logan Pass visitor center. We got to Evergreen Motel around 6:15. This motel is made up of several different buildings, each of which had 2 to 4 different rooms in it. There was a useles kid in office checking people in, when the guy in front of me asked about places to eat nearby, the response was there's a bar a little bit down that way and another down the other way as well. He then gave me a very bad directions to our room, which was in a separate section from most of the rooms and not marked on the outside, so there was really no way to know if it was the right room until we walked in the door of this little lobby between the two rooms. It was a very bizarre and poor set up. We had dinner at Josephine's speakeasy, which I wasn't actually a speakeasy just kind of a hip little restaurant. The atmoshpere reminded me of a wine bar, but it was nice. We sat outside, and the food was pretty good, we ended the night by joining everyone else who was seated outside in singing to a woman named Dina who was out for her 85th birthday. Drove back to the motel and called it a night.

Red Bus Sky Circle tour

We started the day with breakfast at Two Medicine Grille, where we gave some advice about Waterton Park and Banff to the couple next to us who were headed there after Glacier. When we suggested they get the GuideAlong app for Banff, the people on the other side of us said they had it too and loved it. We also had the pleasure of hearing an old local guy loudly talking to some bikers who were eating. He basically kept harassing them and anyone else he could. All good natured but kind of annoying after the first 45 minutes. We noticed he was giving it to just about anyone else he knew as well, must be his favorite thing to do. On the advice of the driver we met a couple of days ago at the gas station. We drove over to the Glacier Park Lodge, which is right next to our motel, and got walk-up tickets for the Sky Circle Red Bus tour. As it turned out our driver was the same guy, Jammer Todd. All the drivers are called Jammer because the early buses had unsynchronized transmissions that required drivers to double-clutch, a technique that produced a distinctive gear-grinding or "jamming" sound. The tour starts at Two Medicine, which is in the southeast part of the park and drives all the way around the southern part to the west park entrance. From there it takes the Going To The Sun Road all the way across the park and returns to Two Medicine, that's the circle. Todd knew a lot of information about the park and the area in general. He kept up a constant commentary for the whole trip. The tour stopped at Lake McDonald where we had lunch. Food was decent, but the server brought me the wrong order. We had to get her attention when I noticed my sandwich did not look like the one people near us were eating. But she took care of it and got me the right thing pretty quickly. Which was good since we had a time limit to get back on the bus (we made it easily as it turned out). Lots of good stops on the tour, glad we did it as we got to see some great views without worrying about traffic or driving off a cliff. It also gave ideas on where we should return to spend more time and possibly hike. After we go back we ate at the Glacier Park Lodge, and got ice cream at the place in the lobby before calling it a night.

Boat ride/ hike to upper two medicine and first drive on GTTSR

We took the boat ride across lower Two Medicine Lake. We hiked from there to Twin Falls and Upper Two Medicine Lake, which was really nice. We almost stopped our hike too soon. We thought a little lake was it, then we went over another rise and about 15 minutes later came to the actual lake, the lake was worth the walk. On the way to the lake, we saw a lot of bear or moose poop on the trail and a goat way up the mountain. after we got back our feet were hurting so we drove out to Kyiyo Mercantile to see what it was like. I got a huckleberry bear claw, which was pretty good, and we both got hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was out of a machine that we had to get the kid who worked there to unclog. After that we did a "car hike" where we drove down a gravel road basically into nowhere that eventually ended at a campground. It was kind of cool to do just to relax and see some nature. Also saw cows right on the side of the road who clearly weren't too used to cars. We then drove Going To Sun Road from St. Mary to Logans Pass. On the way back we had dinner at the Snowgoose Bar and Grille, which is the restaurant in the St. Mary Lodge. Food was OK, nice window table with a good view.

Two Medicine

Today was our first full day in the park. We were greeted at the entrance by a fox. It was nice nothing to stand still for his picture. The parking by two medicine Lake was pretty tough, we had to do t

wo laps before we found a spot in one of the overflow lots.We decided to do a hike up to Aster Park Falls, and once we got there, we thought we'd go all the way up to the Aster Park Overlook. we met two other couples up there and talked to them for a little bit. This hike to the overlook was pretty tough but then, but the view was great our on the way down we both are feeling it a lot. We were very tired when we got back down. So we had some frozen yogurt at the Two Medicine Lodge before we got into our car. Since we were done hiking, or really even walking, for the day, we decided to drive up Going To The Sun Road for a little bit. We drove all the way up to Logan's Pass, which is where the main visitor center is, and then we turned around and came back and drove into St. Mary's, the town by the east entrance to the road. this town was more touristy than East Glacier, but still nothing like we saw at Banff or Acadia. We had dinner at this odd Mexican place run by some Blackfeet Indians. I tried the fried bread tacos, which were a little disappointing, but pretty good. Also, I walked next-door to a bar and got a margarita there and brought it back, no one seemed to care about this as it was all pretty open. after dinner, we drove back to our motel in East Glacier.

Billings to East Glacier

Completed our final leg of the trip to Glacier. I was able to work all the way, but at thend had cell signal issues. My last Teams meeting was cut off and I had to aplogize. Guy at Mountain Pine motel was very friendly. Deb asked if she could use the bathroom and he said "Sure you can use my grandma's". The "lobby" was a desk in a room attached to their house. Got to our room and used the motel wi-fi to send a couple things to my co-workers before being officially on vacation. we rode our bikes down to East glacier, and found out. It's a depressingly poor little town. There is really no place that looked good to have dinner so we eat at the food trucks that were parked by the road. I had a pizza from Flame pizza and Deb had a bowl of some type from the other food truck. We then drove into the park through the Two Medicine entrance. Nobody was manning the gate, so we were able to just drive in, look around for a little bit and see some of the park.

Bismarck to Billings

Drove to Billings, we ate the early bird special at Texas Roadhouse. Food was pretty good, servers were friendly. Place seemed awfully crowded for 4:30 on Thursday. Maybe they eat early in Billings?

Minneapolis to Bismarck

I had a plant tour in discovery meeting at Wilson Tool in the morning. Deb picked me up at lunchtime, and we drove on from there. we stopped for a late lunch at Southern Social in Eagan Minnesota. We drove to Bismarck and ate at Wiang Thai restaurant. The server hardly spoke to us, smed like one of those places that seems to rely on take-out, not many people eating there.

Drive to Minneapolis

Not much to say. I had to be in a meeting the next day better prospects, headquarters nearby, Minneapolis. We had lunch at the Rodeside grill in Windsor, Wisconsin. It seemed like one woman was running the whole place herself.The whole place. Sat in there with couple elderly couples in alone. Traveler sandwiches were fine nothing special nothing wrong with it though. we got to the hotel in Minneapolis, the same one where everyone who would be in the meeting with me the next day was at. We ate at Jimmy's restaurant cross the street which was fine.