No Reservations

7/18/2017

Andddddd we’re back! I bet you thought something crazy had happened to me. Well, a lot of crazy stuff has happened, but all of it has been in the spirit of excellent adventure, so never fear! Jane and I have been adventuring through the Great White North (Canada) and in the process have become an uncontacted tribe. But alas, technology pulls us back, and so I return to society to present you with another blog post, only a week and a half late!

If you recall, last time I posted I was holed up in a dive with a mermaid or two in Great Falls, MT. The stay was uneventful – or as uneventful as a mermaid-laden motel could possibly be – and so I departed the next morning with my sights set on Glacier National Park. I’ve wanted to see this park for a very long time, but it is just so dang far north. Fortunately, this time the distance is no object!

Somewhat unfortunately for us, a large part of the northern half of North America seems to be on fire right now. So we had a pretty hazy ride into the park.

As Glacier’s incredible craggy mountain vistas slid into view with each turn of the road, my ire at the fire-induced haze grew. I knew that what looked like kind of crappy, boring mountains had to be something incredibly awe-inspiring when clearly visible. I took photos of the mountains anyways, haze or not.

Jane and I headed for the valley through which Glacier’s most famous road, Going-to-the-Sun Road (honestly, they could have picked a shorter name), winds. I figured that either the valley would concentrate the haze or would be fairly empty of it, depending on how air currents flow in that area, so that seemed like the best option at the time. That, and I had no place to stay for the night, and Going-to-the-Sun Road links most of the hotels and campgrounds in the park.

I stopped off at the first campground, Rising Sun, to see what campsite availability was like. Glacier National Park is one of those parks that does everything on a first-come, first-serve basis, which is helpful in some parks and horrible in others. I wandered up to the counter at the office and wandered away just as quickly. The girl behind the counter had given me some very unwelcome information: campsite availability for almost every site filled by noon, and people started lining up at 6 AM for the chance to get a spot. Yes, that’s right: SIX O CLOCK IN THE MORNING. For a CHANCE to get a campsite! And you can wait around until noon (the official check-out time) to get a spot, depending on how long the people in the site before you decide to drag their heels (if they decide to leave at all). If you don’t get a spot, well, the next campground over is a good half hour away at a minimum, and there’s a slim chance you’ll get anything because you spent so long waiting around on the first campground.

Clearly, Glacier National Park is one of those parks for which the first-come, first-serve policy works terribly.

Now, I love camping. It saves me money, I like living in my own little house, I like seeing Jane three feet away when I wake up, and I enjoy the great outdoors. But I do not love waking up before 6 AM, standing in long lines, waiting on other people, and wasting the majority of my day in a pursuit that I didn’t choose. So camping got thrown right out the window.

The next problem, then, was that I was in a very busy national park during peak season with no reservations for a limited number of hotels in a limited number of strategically accessible places, with no cellular service. That didn’t really bother me though. I figured I would just continue my slow traverse of Going-to-the-Sun Road, stopping at each hotel along the way to inquire about vacancies. No sweat.

Jane and I wound our way along the road, encountering no vacancies but also encountering diminishing levels of haze. As the smoke parted, we were greeted with astonishing beauty. Soaring mountain peaks reached up into the sky as grassy meadows and spotted evergreen forests spread down their flanks, cut only by impossible cliffs or quick-running streams and waterfalls. Wide, U-shaped glacial valleys, criss-crossed by animal tracks and pathways, connected the mountains somewhere far below the road bed. The road itself was a wonder at times, clinging tenuously to the side of one mountain, a tall cliff face bordering one side of the narrow winding asphalt strip and a steep drop-off the other. I saw some of the park’s famous 1930’s red tour buses trundling up and down the road, leaping free of other traffic to reinstate their own bubble of time.

 

 

Two red buses framing Lunch Creek

Even better, there seemed to be some kind of Model T cruise in the park, as they were everywhere! I must have seen at least 30. I must say that I was pretty offended when not a single one of the drivers waved back to me. Maybe it’s a Model T owner thing. Regardless, it was still cool to see them all driving around the park.

 

Look, I finally found snow! And a Model T.

Come to think of it, I have seen more classic cars driving around Montana than I have any other state, barring California. I don’t mean seeing them at car shows, all prepped and polished and pretty and waiting to get back on the trailer, I mean seeing people really just driving them. I’ve seen all kinds of old cars, ranging all the way back to the 1940’s, just driving down the road like that’s what they normally do. And that thought really warms my heart. Not that there’s anything wrong with a show car, but I believe that something of the heart and soul of a car can only be fed by using it for its intended purpose – barreling down the pavement towards a new destination, ever seeking the horizon.

Of course, I’ve yet to ever see another classic car pass Jane and I. It seems that we move a bit faster – call it the influence of young blood, I guess.

I spent the afternoon driving Going-to-the-Sun Road, stopping at overlooks and just enjoying the scenery and relative coolness that I had finally found. It only took driving north 1800 miles to find it! I stopped at every hotel along the way, looking for reasonable vacancies. Two and a half hours later, I had reached the west side of the park with no luck. But at the last hotel, I finally was able to find a vacancy that had opened up… at a hotel on the extreme east end of the park, where I had come from a few hours ago. I would have been infuriated, but hey, this way I got to drive all the way back along that lovely road again.

Jane and I reached the hotel in St. Mary as evening fell. It occurred to me that she had accumulated quite a veneer of grit over the past couple of weeks, and that eager hands would likely smear that dirt right into the paint as soon as I left her unwatched in the crowded park. So I whipped out my miracle product – an all-in-one waterless wash called Chadwick’s Triple Play – and set to work cleaning Jane up. About thirty minutes of work saw her cleaned up and ready to match the beauty of Glacier National Park.

 

The "Barn Find" patina, acquired at an accelerated rate.

Dirty on the right, cleaned up on the left. Now that's what I call a transformation!

Til tomorrow morning… Kelly signing out.

P.S. - The lesson for today? If you are visiting Glacier National Park and don't want to be stressed out over lodging, GET RESERVATIONS! Don't fudge around with this camping thing or driving all over the park trying to find a hotel. It may not have bothered me too much, but it definitely has the potential to be stressful.