Day 64, Lewis and Clark Caverns SP, MT

A short driving day from Helena, MT, to Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park. The entrance to the Caverns is to the left of center of the photo below the ridge and the exit is about 300' lower down the mountain. 

We have a non-electric campsite, i.e. no hookups, and we are seeing how it is without A/C. Right now, it's 94°F but there is a gentle breeze and we are sitting outside under the awning. Could be worse. They said that we got the last available campsite but most of them are empty. When I asked the camp host about that she said that it'll probably be full by evening. We are thinking of staying an additional night but need to wait until checkout time before we can see what spots are available. They use some third party reservation company. Kind of an odd setup.

BTW, no Verizon and only AT&T 4G.

Day 63 - Helena, MT

Today is the beginning of Month three. It's looking to be a nice day today. Not too warm with scattered clouds. One (spoiled) black dog doesn't like walks on the gravel and dry grass. We are at Sierra Park in north Helena on our way to Petsmart. Here at the park there is AT&T LTE data. Where we are staying, there is very limited AT&T and only one bar of Verizon. Their moto traveler bunk room has a WeBoost and it makes Verizon useable. 

After dropping the dogs off at PetSmart, we headed to the capital building. It was just up the road a bit and we had heard that it was a beautiful building with well kept grounds. Also, there was no problem with just wandering around unlike many other government buildings. This one was really open to the public.

We went out to dinner and ended up talking and visiting until well after sunset. This picture was taken around 10pm. We got some good suggestions on places to visit on our way to Salt Lake City.

Day 62 - Helena, MT

Montana is called "Big Sky Country" and that is what we saw today. Lots of horizon to horizon sky with mountains and trees mixed in. We left the West Glacier area headed for Helena, the state capitol, to visit with some wonderful, relocated, motorcycle friends from Fairbanks. They have enough property to park the trailer and even had a 20 amp outlet which was enough to run the air conditioner. That's good information for me as the campsite I have reserved during the family reunion only has a 20 amp outlet. I think this style of "camping" is referred to as either driveway surfing or "moochdocking".

There was an earthquake just a little to the north last night which was something new to a lot of Montana residents. I guess earthquakes are not very common around here. I don't think I felt it at all though I did wake up around 12:30 last night which is about the time of the earthquake.

The picture was taken at a rest stop where we had lunch. All of the rest areas I've seen in Montana have been pretty nice even this one kind of off the beaten path. The GPS took us on some pretty small secondary roads including some that were pretty curvy. We didn't have the GPS set to "5th wheel" mode which may have influenced the choice of route. Tomorrow, we have some errands to run in Helena.

Day 61 - Glacier National Park, MT

Today, we went into the national park and drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road. I had foolishly thought that since most of the July 4th crowd had gone home that it wouldn't be very crowded.  It was still kind of crowded and many of the parking lots were packed. But we still found places to stop along the road. Logan Pass visitor's center was packed with people circling the small parking lot trying to snag a space so we skipped that.

But the views along the road were still phenomenal. At the St. Mary visitor's center, the video mentioned that all of the glaciers in the park would be gone by 2030 and that will probably have a large impact on the ecosystem of the park. I was surprised to hear that all of the glaciers in the park were disappearing. I have a picture taken from the same viewpoint in the early 1980s with a glacier. I'll need to try and find that slide...

Looking at these mountains will never seems to get old. Someone mentioned last night that the road had just opened up in the last couple of weeks and there was still some equipment cleaning up some residual snow along the road.

These 17 passenger, open topped cars were doing tours and it looked like a good way to see the park. I must admit that as driver, I didn't see a lot of the scenery along the really narrow sections. Plus, there were a lot of drivers crossing the line. A significant number of motorcycles (a lot of heavy cruisers) seemed to have difficulty keeping their bike within their lane. Maybe people don't like going next to the cliff face or the cliff edge.

This is at the St. Mary visitor's center at the eastern end of the road. There was a emphasis that this park was just a part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park as it straddles the border. One of these days I want to see the Canadian portion of the park. It always seems like there isn't enough time.