Wednesday, August 4, 2021 - We left Mel and Carol Power's home at around 12:30 because the drive to the North American RV Park near the west entrance to Glacier National Park was only two and a half hours. It was a very nice day for a drive and we even had a slight tailwind. About half way to Glacier, our EEZ Tire unit that monitors our tire pressures and temperatures sounded an alarm. It worked perfectly. It indicated the our center, right tire on the trailer was slowly losing air pressure. Shortly before, we had pulled off the road onto a dirt siding to allow cars to go around us and we may have run over a piece of glass that cut our tire. It did not immediately go flat, but we could watch the pressure slowly decrease on the EEZ Tire screen. We began to look for a place to pull off the road since there were not too many places to pull the big rig off the road. As it turns out, we came across a commercial business with lots of room for us to pull off onto level ground. We were actually right next to an 18-wheeler that was running while the driver rested. The EEZ Tire sensor system again paid for itself. I got out the truck four-ton jack and proceeded to change the tire. While at it, I turned on the RV generator to give us 110 volts of power and plugged in our compressor. Our tires should be pressurized to 80PSI cold, and since they were warm, I pressurized all of the tires to 84PSI. Then I went around with my torque wrench and made sure that all the lug nuts were torqued to 120 foot pounds. I was able to get all of this done in one hours. We then drove on to the RV park with no additional issues. We took the tire in to Discount Tire the next day and they are going to replace it for free; we have the road-hazard insurance on all of our tires. The only issues is that it may take as much as a week to get this size tire delivered to Kalispel, Montana. We may have to extend here for a few days, which is not a problem with me; we are having a great time here.

FYI: This is the first time that we have had a tire issue while on the road in the two-and-a-half years we have been traveling. I had just told Mel Powers that we had not had any tire issues and the next thing you know, we are on the side of the road. Karma!

By the time we had gotten to North American RV Park and set up the rig, it was after 6:00 in the evening. We had dinner and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Thursday, August 5, 2021 - We got up early (before 5:00 AM) to travel to Glacier National Park to drive the "Going to the Sun Road." The National Park Service has instituted a ticketing system where you have go online and attempt to acquire a ticket for the following day that allows you to enter the park. You can enter the park before 6:00 AM or after 5:00 PM without a ticket. These tickets are almost impossible to get online if you do not have a fast Internet; ours is beyond slow. We have given up on trying to get a ticket and just enter the park early. If we go to the Polebridge area of the park on the northwest corner, you do not need a pass to enter.

We entered the park at 5:30 AM and began the drive to the visitor center at Logan Pass. The scheduled sunrise on this day was at 6:15 AM. As we began to climb the mountain, we entered twilight and we could see pretty well. We continued our drive up to Logan Pass and arrived there at about 6:30 AM. We drove though the parking lot and were able to park in one of the last three parking spots. Anyone who arrived after us would have to drive up and down the rows of cars waiting for someone to leave or drive down the hill towards St. Mary's where there are a couple parking areas. You just have to hike up the hill to the visitor center.

We immediately began the hike behind the visitor center up to the observation platform for Hidden Lake. This is about a 1.5 mile hike and the trail is a little bit steep at the beginning, but it is on constructed stairways and rock steps. We are at about 6,000 feet of elevation, so the breathing is a little challenging. Be sure to check out the photo and video gallery to see images of our hike. It was a very nice day and there were lots of flowers and animals to observe. If you drive to Logan Pass, be sure to take this hike since it is a highlight of the trip. We saw a mule deer on the climb up along with lots of picas and marmots. At the observation platform, we saw a mountain goat. It came to within a few feet of us and was not concerned. People who had continued on the trail down to Hidden Lake had come across a grizzly bear and a cup. We always carry bear spray (potent pepper spray) when we hike in this area. We each have our own container spray. We met some really nice people on the trail and had some great conversations.

After our hike at Logan Pass, we got in the truck (some really happy people got the space we were vacating) and headed down the hill towards St. Mary's Lake near the east entrance to the park. We went about a mile and stopped along the road to have our lunch. It was only about 9:30, but we were hungry. After lunch, we proceeded down the hill to the east entrance. We went to the east entrance visitor center and gift shop. We talked to the rangers and they told us that we would have to have our kayaks inspected before we could put them in any park water. They also told us where the inspection stations are located.

After leaving the visitor station, we headed south towards Highway 2 and back to West Glacier. This route took us to Highway 12 which is a bypass road along the Two Medicine River and on to Highway 2 that takes us to our RV near West Glacier. The drive back after we left the park still took over and hour; about 65 miles.

When we arrived back at the RV, we relaxed and had another light lunch. After lunch, I opened the garage on the RV and loaded the kayaks on the back of the truck. We began getting all of the equipment together for kayaking at Bowman Lake on the next day. Bowman Lake is in the northeast area of the national park near the town of Polebridge. There is a fire in that area (the Hays Creek fire), but it did not directly impact us on our trip to Bowman Lake. Lots of firefighters around the area though.

Friday, August 6, 2021 - Again, we got up early (even though we did not need to) and began our drive to Polebridge and Bowman Lake. We went around the park to Columbia Falls and then drove north to Polebridge. The road from Columbia Falls is paved for the first ten miles or so, but the remaining twelve miles are on a combination of unpaved and paved roads. Once you get to Polebridge, it is all fairly rough unpaved road to Bowman Lake. Polebridge is the home of the Polebridge Mercantile that is noted throughout the state for its pastries. Their huckleberry bear-claws and cinnamon rolls are to die for. We bought several; one to eat right then and some to put in the freezer for future consumption. We then drove to the entrance to the national park. At the entrance, we had our kayaks inspected. You cannot put any watercraft in a park lake without an inspection. We then drove the seven miles to Bowman Lake. It was dead calm when we arrived at the lake and the water was like a sheet of glass. Be sure to see the photo/video gallery of our time at the lake. We rode the kayaks for about two hours out and two hours back to the start. We estimate that we traveled about four miles out and four more back to the start. The entire lake is six miles long. It was beautiful even though there was some smoke in the are from nearby fires. We saw a few small fish and some Loons that are common at these lakes. When we arrived back at the entry point, we had lunch. We then met a couple and their daughter who were traveling from North Carolina. We offered them the kayaks to go out and play for a while. The mom, Kristen, and the daughter, Kate, went out on the lake for a while. This family invited us to stop by their home when we get to North Carolina. After we left the lake, we drove back to Polebridge so that I could get some more photos from the inside of the store. We then drove back to our RV back to West Glacier via the Camas Highway that goes from near Polebridge directly to West Glacier. It really shortens the trip back. After arrival back at our RV, we relaxed and had a nice dinner.

Saturday, August 7. 2021 - Lisa and I went on our first bike ride here in the Glacier region. Our RV park is located about six miles south of the entrance to West Glacier and seven miles from the entrance to the park. Apcar Village is about another two miles from the entrance to the park. When we left the RV park, we crossed the road to the bike path and turned left heading towards Columbia Falls. We can ride the bike path for six miles when we reach the bridge for the south fork of the Flathead River. This is a "turn-around" point to ride the path back to the RV park area. This allows us tp put in 12 miles. It is another eight miles into the park and on to Apgar Village. This what we did, so we ended up with a 29 mile bike ride. Some of the main roads in the park are restricted to bicycles between 11:00 AM and 5:00 PM. You cannot be on "Going to the Sun Road" during this time period. When we got to Apcar Village, we stopped at a coffee shop and got a cup of coffee and a cupcake to share. We just sat at the park and looked at the lake and enjoyed the pleasant day and good coffee. While at the coffee shop, we met a very nice couple from Texas. Edgar and Iliana Diaz are from Guatemala and have been in the United States since 1969. Edgar worked in the aerospace industry for many years, volunteered to enter the armed service but could not get in because of the "wind-down" after the Vietnam War, and is not a real estate agent. Their dog, CiCi, is super cute with its visor and sunglasses. It was fun getting to know them better. After our coffee stop, we began the return trip to the RV park. We had a headwind going back, but the gradients were not too bad. It was a comfortable trip back.

We had lunch and relaxed for a while and I began entering information in the travel blog. I am also adding new videos to more appropriately show what we are doing on this trip.

We decided that we would take the kayaks to Glacier and go up to the northern end of McDonald Lake near McDonald Lodge. Even though the winds were blowing pretty hard from the south, we thought that we would give it a try. It turned out that the water was too choppy to make the kayaking experience much fun. Our kayaks can take quite a bit of chop, but it is not a lot of fun when doing that. While at McDonald Lodge, we noticed three guys putting bicycles away into trailers. They were a commercial organization renting bikes. I asked them about riding the "Going to the Sun Road." They suggested that I go to the Avalanche Creek campground (five miles farther up the road towards the climb) and start from there at 7:00 AM. People who do not have tickets to enter the park can enter before 6:00 AM, so there is a major crowd at the entry at that time. By 7:00 AM, those people are passed the Avalanche Creek area and are moving up the hill. People with tickets usually do not get up too early and straggle in later in the morning. This opens a "window" for bikers like me to make the trip up the hill by bike. The weather report is for rain tomorrow, but Monday is supposed to be a pretty nice day. So, I have decided to give this climb a try on Monday morning. I plan to enter at 5:30 AM, and wait until 7:00 AM to begin the ride up the hill. I have to be off the road by 11:00, so I figure 2.5 hours to get up the hill and 1.5 hours to get back down the hill. I'm hoping that there will be other riders with the same idea and that I can join them in ride. I will let you know how it goes. We drove up to the Avalanche Creek campground to checkout the parking and start point for the ride. There is lots of parking there and I should not have a problem at the time of day.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped at two "Exhibit Locations" along the way. The first was "Sacred Cascading Waterfall" on the Upper Fork of McDonald Creek. It is a beautiful, terraced waterfall on the creek that is quite spectacular. We got some great photos of this site for the blog. We then traveled farther south on the road to "McDonald Falls." This is another spectacular waterfalls on the creek. It only drops about twenty feet from the top of the falls to the water flowing out at the bottom, but it is a fun one to see. These are two "Exhibit" areas that we had passed by in the past, but we are glad that we took the time to check them out on this trip.

Sunday, August 8, 2021 - Today is forecast to be a rainy day and the forecast is accurate. We had rain during the night and more rain in the morning. We have been getting up early over the last few days, so I found myself wide awake at 5:30 AM this morning. I decided to get up and work on the blog because I was so far behind on it. By starting so early, I was able to get a lot done during the morning while it was raining. Kind of a fun thing to do when it is raining. We decided that we would leave the RV at around 11:00 AM to go into town to get some coffee and find a descent source of WiFi to upload some videos to YouTube. We ended up stopping at a little store about five miles south to buy some huckleberry jams and syrups for gifts. We then proceeded into Columbia Falls to look for WiFi access. The one coffee shop we found was super-busy and there was no room for us. We then continued on into White Fish, Montana to a Starbuck's where we stayed for two and a half hours working on the blog and uploading videos.

After we left Starbuck's, we walked across the street to a sporting goods shop where I could by a fishing pole and some lures. I left all my fishing gear in California because I was not using it and it was getting broken. Turns out that you don't need a fishing license to fish in the national park, so I plan to "troll" behind the kayak at Kintla Lake near the Canadian border. We will be making the trip on Tuesday because I will be riding the "Going to the Sun Road" tomorrow. This should be an interesting fishing trip. Not sure if it will be successful, but who knows??

On the way back to the RV, we stopped at a very wide place on Highway 2 where there is a pipe delivering water from a natural spring. Seems that this spring was found in the late 1800s and was used to provide drinking water to travelers in the area and car radiators for those early travelers. It is a very historic site and you can fill up containers there if you want some drinking water to take with you. We then returned to the RV to relax and for me to work on this blog.

Monday, August 9, 2021 - The ride on the "Going to the Sun Road." It rained last night and began to let up around four in the morning. The weather forecast was for clearing as the day went on, so I decided that I would go ride the "Going to the Sun Road." This is pretty popular for avid cyclist who visit Glacier National Park. There are a few rules to pay attention to before starting the ride. First of all, you need and entry ticket to get into the park. We have a terrible Internet connection, so we never get a pass before the are all gone. So, it turns out that if you enter the park before 6:00 AM, you do not need a pass; you just drive on in. That is what I did, I entered at 5:30 AM and drove to the Avalanche Campground site to park the truck. Lisa decided, judiciously, to stay in the warm RV and let me go by myself. My plan was to wait until about 645 and then head up the mountain. This way, those entering early would have already gone by me and the people with tickets would not be there yet since they normally enter later. Also, the weather seemed to dissuade many from coming in early in the morning. The temperature was 47 degrees when I got to Avalanche which is a lot higher than the temperature 3200 feet higher at Logan Pass. Luckily, I brought a light raincoat or I would have been a frozen ice cube before reaching the pass; it was miserably cold and I did not have my legs covered. I also did not have full gloves; only the ones with fingers and thumb exposed. Pretty poor planning on my part. About halfway up the mountain, I ran into the clouds; fog. Luckily, my departure plan was good from the point of view that there were not too many cars coming up the mountain at the time. The cars that did come up were very courteous and moved way over or even stopped behind me to give me plenty of room; nobody was in a big hurry since there was nothing to see at the summit with all the clouds (fog). The gradient for the ride was a pretty constant six to seven percent with occasional bumps to about nine percent (but, not for long). It just kept going. From the truck at Avalanche, it is about five miles of three and four percent gradient. Then you hit the "road" and it it steps up to six to seven percent and does not let up to the top that is sixteen miles up the hill. There was one stretch for about a quarter mile that went to four percent and it felt like I had leveled out; it was so easy. By the time I reached the top, I was pretty tired, cold, and beginning to cramp up. I demanded that a passerby take my picture at the summit sign so that I could prove that I had made it to the top. After a restroom break, I decided to head down to warmer temps. Going down is different then climbing up. You are going faster (more chill factor) and you are constantly on the breaks. You are also doing this in a complete fog environment with visibilities of about 40 feet. You tend to lock in to the taillights of the car ahead of you and you are going the same speed (they can't see either!) If they go over a cliff, you will possibly follow them. I had to stop a couple of times to try to warm up my fingers; seemed like frostbite was trying to set in. Only problem was that there was no place on my body that I could get to to warm them up. Just had to shake them a lot to get my circulation going better. After descending for about five miles, I began to break out of the clouds and it seemed to warm up about three degrees; doesn't seem like much, but you can tell that it is happening when you are a popsicle. The day was improving slowly and the road began to dry out a little. This made it seem safer to travel at a little higher speed. The bike was working great. I had a big, bright, flashing tail light and a bright flashing white headlight too. People could see me pretty easily. On the way down, I stopped a couple times to take pictures with the GoPro, although I could barely push the buttons to make it work. When I hit the bottom of the main part of the climb, I began the five mile trip back to the truck. I really began to realize how much I had climbed early in the ride as I was "cooking" along at 22 mph on the three and four percent grades. It still seemed like it took quite a long time to get to the truck. As soon as I stopped at the truck, some people asked if I was leaving. Yes I was!! Seems that all the parking was gone and huge crowds were still coming up. I talked to the people as I was loading up the bike and they were from Californina: the East Bay Area. They were sure happy to get the spot. I loaded up, started heading south, and turned the heater on the truck to "full desert blast mode." I began to warm up about the time I got to the RV (about 50 minutes, but a warm shower was a nice thing to do. Did I have a good time? Yes, I did. It was a great experience and I wasn't sure that I would even make the total climb. If it had been a nice day, it would have been much more scenic and pleasant, but I am so glad that I did not quit and abort the climb; just suffered and ground it out. Thursday and Friday are supposed to be clear and quite warm; I could see myself doing it again in better conditions.

Tuesday, August 10, 2021 - Lisa and I decided to go kayak at Kintla Lake in the northwest corner of Glacier National Park about five miles from the Canadian border. In order to go through the park, we had to leave early and enter the park at 5:30 in the morning. The park opens at 6:00 AM and you will need a ticket after that to enter. You can freely enter the park before six. Then we had to wait until 6:00AM at the start of Camas Road for the road to open. The park service is conducting maintenance on Camas Road at night, so they close the road. It is a shortcut across the park instead of going through Columbia Falls. When we arrived at the Park Entrance near Polebridge, we looked for the people who inspect all watercraft before you can put them in any park lake. We found that they did not open the inspection station until 8:00 and it was now almost 7:00 AM. We decided not to wait. We had the kayaks inspected the night before and they had not been off the truck since. We decided to chance it. We did not see a ranger all day. The dirt road to Kintla Lake is 16 miles long and in pretty poor shape in many areas. We arrived at the lake at 8:00 AM. The lake was calm and inviting. It was a cool morning and we were dressed with layers of clothing. Kintla Lake is long and narrow. It is about a half mile wide and six and a half miles long. We kayaked the east end of the lake in about two hours. When we arrived, we noticed that Kintla Creek was flowing into the lake from the east. If you hike five and half miles along Kintla Creek, you arrive at Upper Kintla Lake. The creek and the upper lake are closed to fishing to support spawning bull-trout. We got out of the kayaks and began to look around. We ate our lunch and relaxed for a short time. I also had brought a fishing pole, so I went fishing. Standing in the flow of the creek water (which was about 15 degrees colder than the lake) I caught several trout. The largest was about 16 inches, but most were in the eight to ten inch range. The were aggressive and great fighters. I also caught what I believe to be a small Northern Pike. It was long and slender with sharp teeth and black marks all over its body. It was about 18 inches long. The fishing was fun and exciting. This was the first time that I had caught a fish on our entire time traveling the country. You don't need a license to fish in Glacier NP. Most fish we might catch needed to be released, but we release everything we caught. After the fishing, we decided to head back to the launch area. Before we left, we kayaked to a small cabin on the lake where the trail to the upper lake begins. Bear protocols were in order and we had our bear spray with us. We then kayaked back to the launch and loaded the kayaks on the truck. The winds had died down and the lake was calm as glass. The scenery was so beautiful. We then began the drive back to the RV. On the way, we stopped to check out two small cabins that were once used by settlers in the area. Pretty rustic and a pretty hard way of life; especially in winter.

On the way home, we drove to Kalispell to pick up the new tire for our trailer that had been ordered. It had come in and had been mounted. We picked it up and returned to the RV. We both were pretty tired and ready to relax for a while.

Wednesday, August 11, 2021 - This was down day for us. A catch-up day to do the laundry and get things done around the RV. I changed the spare tire on the RV with the new one we had picked up the day before. We also drove to Whitefish for lunch at Subway and then we crossed the street to Starbuck's so that we could use their WiFi to upload photos and videos for the blog. This takes quite a while, so we drank coffee and had a pastry to share. After getting out uploading done, we returned to West Glacier where our rig is parked at North American RV Park. We relaxed into the evening.

Thursday, August 12, 2021 - We decided to go kayaking at Hungry Horse Reservoir just down the road. This is a long lake on the middle fork of the Flathead River. It has been dammed and the lake is huge. We got lucky again; the water was dead calm and we were able to look way down into the water as we were gliding along the shore. We also saw an Osprey perched near its nest. We stopped on a small, un-named island to eat and relax. We then left and headed back to the RV for lunch.

After lunch, Lisa and I went for a 24 mile bicycles ride. We found a road that took us across the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and over to the North Road heading to Polebridge. This bridge is the location where many of the local commercial rafting firms take their passengers and rafts out of the river. It was super-crowded with rafts and busses. We continued on to North Road and turned right towards Polebridge. After about five miles, we ran out of pavement and rode for another three miles (or so) on the dirt. We then reversed the route and returned to the RV. It was a good ride with some climbing, but nothing over seven percent grade.

After kayaking and biking, back-to-back, I was pretty tired. This made me a little nervous since I was planning to ride the "Going to the Sun Road" tomorrow in Glacier NP. I hope that I would have the energy that I needed tomorrow to complete the 3,200 foot climb.

Friday, August 13, 2021 - (Friday the 13th) - I left at 5:15 AM to enter the park before it "officially" opens at 6:00 AM. I would then drive to the far end of McDonald Lake to the Avalanche Campground area to park and wait until 7:00 AM for the Sun to come up more and so that the people entering the park early would have passed where I was and there would be fewer vehicles on the road. Two people parked one car over from me were also getting ready to make the climb. I talked to them and found that they were Dylan and Allison. Dylan lives in Kalispell and works in residential construction. He is 21 years old and in in great shape. He could ride rings around me. Allison is Dylan's mother. She is a nurse from Pennsylvania and is on a three-month excursion around the country. She also rode completely across the United States on her bicycle, so she is in great shape. This ride was not too challenging for either of them, but I figured I would "tag along" with them while I could. I think they slowed down their pace so that I could keep up. Nice people. We ended riding all the way to the top of Logan Pass together. Dylan also took lots of photos and will be sharing them with me over the next week. We stopped at several place along the way to take photos. This was such a nice ride when compared to my trip up the mountain on Monday in the cold, freezing, fog. The Sun was out and the views were spectacular. When we arrived at the summit, we took some photos and then Dylan and Allison went on a hike up to Hidden Lake. I decided to begin the descent back down to Avalanche. The ride down was a breeze. I could stay with the cars and it was about a thousand degrees warmer than Monday. I dressed better for today's ride with long pants and full-finger gloves. I even got over-heated at the beginning of the climb and pulled off a jacket that I hid along the road to pick up on the return trip. I even remembered to pick it up on the way down the hill. I stopped to take some more photos, but mostly is was a quick downhill to the truck. I then drove back to the RV and arrived before 12:00 noon.

After the ride, Lisa and I went into Hungry Horse to have lunch. We have been dieting pretty heavily, so we decided it was time to "splurge" with a few more calories. We had a very nice lunch and then went back to the RV to finish some chores before leaving the next day. In the evening, Lisa and I decided to drive into the park and take a walk along the beach at McDonald Lake near Apgar Village. While walking into Apgar, we ran across two gentleman sitting on a park bench looking at the lake. We had a long visit with Rich and Fred. Our conversation was informative and fun. We always seem to meet new people while on the road who are great to get to know. We had ice cream at Eddie's Ice Cream shop in Apgar Village. It was another infraction on our diet, but it sure was fun. After the ice cream, we began the walk back to our truck. Along the way, we stopped to talk to Rich and Fred for another 30 minutes. It was a good evening.

Saturday, August 14, 2021 - We left West Glacier with plans to stay overnight at the Cabela's Sporting Goods Store in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The Cabela's there allows RVs to park in their parking lot overnight. As it turns out, we decided to continue on to Fairchild AFB, in Spokane, Washington. We arrived at the base at 3:00 PM.