Going-to-the-Sun Road

Our drive yesterday through the backyard of the west was for one purpose - today's drive! If you already know where we are headed, hang on! Let's see where the journey started. 

We spent the night in Havre. Havre was founded as a railroad town for the Great Northern Railroad, as were many towns we rolled through in Montana.  The trains honk, or howl, or toot (whatever!!), ALL the ding-dang time. If we weren't so tired, and if there weren't ear plugs, that would have been a real issue last  night. I imagine if you lived there, you wouldn't even hear it anymore. As you may know, I hear everything. E V E R Y T H I N G. I think it's my teaching superpower. 

If you find yourself in Havre, stop at 406 Brewing! Caffeine saves lives. 😉

Highway 2 from Havre is largely uneventful, though very beautiful in spots. 

We stopped at every historical marker along the way. More than anything we learned there was very little writing objectivity.  If you need a head scratching linguistic giggle, please enjoy our favorite from Shelby. Isn't that the way you would use "cauterize"?

And then we were there!! Our plan today was to drive through Glacier National Park on our way home. This summer, you need a pass, in addition to your Park Pass, to drive the Going-to-the-Sun road. Last summer saw heavy traffic/crowding in Glacier as people fled to parks for safe(r) covid travel, so the driving passes are meant to limit the intense crowding. I'm a HUGE proponent of tickets, shuttles, permits and lotteries in National Parks, even if they are a giant inconvenience. One of our best experiences was a hike we took in Redwood Nat'l Park that required a permit. It took us to some of the oldest trees in the park, and we were there largely alone. In Zion, they are considering permitting (or limiting in some fashion) the Narrows hike. Yes, yes!!! I hope to do that hike again one day, and I hope to do it with less people. I love seeing people enjoy our wild places, but it's so important to me to keep them wild! 

All that said, we got into Glacier today on a technicality...  You only need the pass until 5pm, so we snuck in at 5:15. I know. 

We spent all the hours left in the day seeing as much as possible on this one road. Did we "do" the park? No. If you've been to Glacier, you know there is so much more to explore. But on a trip when this wasn't the park we were aimed at, these extra few hours of awesome beauty felt like such a lucky bonus. 

As mentioned before, we have been reading Hour of Land by Terry Tempest Williams.  It's a collection of stories that string together as a personal memoir as well as a call to conservation and social justice. In the chapter about the Grand Tetons, she talks about a key conservation decision of the Rockefeller family that contributed to the park. Laurance S Rockefeller, great-grandson to John D Rockefeller, said this in regards to wild places, which is a great place to end today. 

"In the midst of the complexities of modern life, with all it pressures, the spirit of man needs to refresh itself by communion with unspoiled nature. In such surroundings -- occasional  as our visits may be -- we can achieve that kind of physical and spiritual renewal that come alone from the wonder of the natural world. "

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