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.