I had a huge delay in posting, rather than doing it on the day, I've got a bit of delay on when to post. I'm back home already, but I'll date the posts to make it easier.
9/24/15 Day 2
Started the day out of Lake Moses, WA and made it a point to head to Yellowstone. Though, that quickly turned around when I realized I would be 2 hours south of Glacier National Park....naturally I made the detour for an additional 4 hours worth of driving for the day. The car was a little "cranky" when starting up in the morning, so be it, it still ran well enough to stay at speed. 70-90 MPH is where it was happy.
Leaving Washington, I ended up driving by Coeur D'Alene Lake. I shot off the highway and took a bypass route that ended up being ridiculously scenic. I stopped off for 30 minutes for a photo op.
Even the mighty AMG needs a break, right?
Stopped up at the highest point. I don't think I was allowed to stop in this spot, but who cares?
From there I took a beeline route to Glacier, skipping off I-90E and taking some weird backroads to get to Kalispell, Montana and from there Glacier Park. I'm glad I did, because the entire road, without a single pothole, ended up following a river the whole way. I wish I stopped in at a Walmart to pick up a cheap fly rod to fish. I'm also glad I didn't, because I would have been sitting in the same spot for many, many days.
Like I said, I'd be in this spot fishing all day....
After finally convincing myself to go, about 85 miles down the road I had to pull in to fill up for the run up to Logan's Pass in Glacier. For time constraints, I couldn't go any further. That and I'm driving a car I don't know and the further you go into Glacier, the more desolate it becomes. Logan's is as far as I was willing to go.
Imagine my laughter when this lady pulled up on her motorcycle with this little guy behind her. Full riding gear and everything, he seemed like he was enjoying the hell out of the ride.
About 20 miles outside of Kalispell, the road got REALLY wide. There seemed to be a fire in the area as well, as most of the road there was smokey. Smelled nice though. This time of year I know Fish and Game with the local DNR will to prescribed controlled burns. As counter intuitive as it seems, this helps these forests regenerate to a healthier status. After long droughts and die offs, the area is usually left barren of life anyway, so burning it will put all that otherwise wasted nutrient energy back into the ground. 10 - 15 years and you have a full forest again.
About 30 more minutes of driving after this and I found myself going through these gates.
10 minutes in and I'm greeted with this.......where's my damn fly rod.
I had my GoPro with me and I stuck it to the inside of the windshield to record a short run up the mountain to Logan's Pass. Here's the vid:
This is where I ended up stopping - how's that for a potential "for sale" ad picture?
IT'S NOT FOR SALE - HOPEFULLY.
So after stopping for a bit I finally made it up to the pass - which is basically a road that crests a series of mountains. There were a lot of these guys around.
After looking at massive balls.....rams. I started my descent.
This is Lake McDonald at sunset. The smoke from the fires down south slowly started moving in so I wasn't able to get any spectacular sunset pics, but it's still an epic view.
This is the last pic of the day - I had to focus on the road as there were literally dozens of antelope, elk and I'm guessing foxes jumping in front of me. I wasn't about to wreck a super rare AMG....
to be continued.....probably
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