Making our Way to Glacier National Park

We departed Spearfish SD on May 26th and started our trek across Montana. We passed by the Geographic Center of the Nation Monument on the way out of town of Spearfish. I have to admit that I never would have suspected a place in South Dakota to meet the criteria.

The landscape continued to evolve as we entered Montana after a very brief drive through the NE corner of Wyoming, and I now understand better why Montana is known as the Big Sky State. The endless rolling hills were a little mesmerizing, and there are very few man-made structures (or trees) cluttering the horizon.

We made it to Hardin MT as an intermediate stop for a day without any issues. Our one day in Hardin was spent at the local Big Horn County Museum, and for afternoon fun, we defrosted the freezer in the trailer. Yay domestic chores! The fridge had started making some funny noises, so we thought getting rid of the growing ice block in the back of the freezer might make it happier. We’ll see. If nothing else, we gained some storage space in the freezer.

We moved on to Great Falls MT to wait a couple days before our reservation date at Glacier Nation Park. The drive from Hardin was smooth, and we enjoyed yet more scenic vistas. On our way, we passed the three-month mark for living in the trailer. The life-style that we had in an immobile home is beginning to fade.

Our journey has been intersecting with the Lewis and Clark Trail at several points so we visited the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center on the banks of the Missouri River while in Great Falls. This was a nice museum that traced their incredible journey in detail. It made me sorry not to have packed the Ken Burns series about Louis and Clark before we left our house. On the way to the Interpretive Center, we passed this monstrosity. I will not share the rude comment I made to CA as we drove past it out of consideration to our readers. The photo below is a much nicer interpretation of a bison I think.

But wait, we are on hold! We have been informed that the campground we reserved at Glacier (way back in January) is in a tax dispute with the local tribe (the campground is on tribal land), so they have delayed opening the campground until June 1st. This is our first hiccup in planning, which isn’t too bad, but we lost half of our days in Glacier as a result. Our campground in Great Falls could not let us stay in the same site for an extra couple days, so we opted to pull chocks and head north a short distance to the small town of Shelby MT to wait until June 1st. Hopefully we can continue to Glacier tomorrow.