Having not slept long or well for the past two nights, we slept till 9:30 this
morning. D'oh! Okay, so now we need to reassess our plans for the day.
Driving into the park on a Saturday and trying to hike in the afternoon is
probably going to be a complete cluster. Neither one of us is big on crowds
(shocking, eh?) so we decided to check out Whitefish and figure out where we're going to spend the next few days. Our current place of residence is less than stellar so we'll be happy to move along from there. It might have something to do with the trains, the road noise and the general lack of appeal of an RV park to us.
I did a little budget update before we left (yikes! that was a mistake) and off
we were to the hoppin' town of Whitefish. Cute. Bill equated it to a poor man's
Ketchum. We investigated Whitefish Lake State Park campground and then drove up to the ski resort to get info on the downhill trails. The trail system seems to be nice and they have a skills park at the summit that should be fun. We were surprised that the elevation of the summit is only 6900 feet. Baldy was over 9000 and there was over 3000 feet to descend. I'm sure this will be fun as well if not as steep. It will be cheaper since we won't be renting downhill bikes.
After checking out the ski resort, and stopping by a carwash to wash the truck (which it desperately needed), we headed into Kalispell to pick up some dog food at Petco and milk and seeds at the Mart. We also stopped by Best Buy to pick up a cheap pair of speakers for the laptop. This falls under the entertainment budget for the month. The couple times we've watched SG1 or a movie, we could barely hear it. Guess the laptop's speakers are junk or perhaps shot. No matter. They were less than 20 bucks and will serve our purpose just fine. While employed, I would have said "let's get the Bose". Now I say "is there anything cheaper?"
;)
After our mini shopping expedition, we headed to East Glacier to check out the Two Medicine campground that one of the GNP employees recommended. We haven't figured out if we're going to hang out in Whitefish or try to stay in Glacier for a couple of days. We'll likely just decide tomorrow.
We headed back to the trailer to drop off the milk and I hurriedly made sandwiches for us to eat on the road. We wanted to check out the campground while we still had enough daylight. Nothing around here is close. Everything takes awhile to get to. The campground was 77 miles away so we had to boogie. Fortunately it's easy to make time around here with a speed limit fit for a drag strip.
The drive there was largely un-spectacular. Perhaps because the speed limit prevents you from seeing anything. And the crazy locals are passing us like we're standing still. Nut jobs. I was still able to snap a few photos even at Mach 2...
We got to the campground around 8:30 and briefly chatted with one of the campers and the campground hosts. The sunset was really pretty and I occupied myself taking a fair amount of photos.
Knowing that we'd be driving the 70-some miles back in the dark, we didn't linger. We stopped for gas on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. So sad what was done to the Native Americans and sadder still that people with such a proud heritage are now relegated to pathetically small plots of land "given" to them by our fine government. Makes me sick.
We got back to the trailer around 10:30. We did our nightly routine and were asleep by midnight. Not a particularly exciting day, but when I get bummed about the occasional lack of an action-packed day, I think about how boring my Monday-Friday was like while employed and then I get much happier about the down time. :) At least every day of this trip is something different. Couldn't say that about the weekly work grind. I don't miss working at all. Problem is, I'm eventually going to miss the money. Stupid money. It really IS the root of all evil. ;)
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