Day 58 – Glacier National Park, Montana

Sunday, November 7^th, 2010

Glacier National Park map

I stayed the night again in Kalispell, MT. It rained all night and it was still raining when I woke up. I decided to stay in Kalispell because of its proximity to Glacier National Park. I wanted to take it easy today so the only thing I put on my schedule was a visit to Glacier.

It rained all day long. It’s kind of unfortunate because the landscape here is fantastic, but with all of the fog it was almost impossible to see, and it’s so close. From Kalispell, I drove north to Whitefish and then east on SR-40 into Columbia Falls, from there US-2 north lead directly to the west entrance of Glacier National Park. The park was still open to visitors but with limited access only. Again my Annual National Park pass allowed me to enter without paying the $25 entrance fee. I saw a few whitetail deer immediately upon entering so I was hoping that was a good sign of more wildlife to come.

Glacier National Park covers more than 1,000,000 acres and borders the Canadian Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. It has over 130 named lakes, more than 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals. Unfortunately, the majority of the park was already closed for the season due to both construction activity and weather. I was able to drive the “Going-to-the Sun” road which leads to Logan Pass for nearly 17 miles before the park closed at Avalanche Creek. Even with the crummy weather, I could tell immediately that this was a park that I will have to come back to. The drive along the road ran parallel to the beautiful Lake McDonald for the first few miles and then pierced through this incredible deep, thick and dark, mainly coniferous forest with stops along the way to view gorgeous waterfalls and fast flowing rivers. I only stayed for about two hours. I had wanted to do some hiking but the rain was coming down too hard to make it worthwhile.

Since I had wanted to take it easy today, I drove back to Kalispell to have dinner at a Bajio Mexican Grill. I had the two fish taco platter with rice and black beans. These particular tacos were made with lightly fried and seasoned Tilapia on one white corn tortilla, topped with cheese, tomato, slaw/dressing, sprinkled with cilantro and served with a wedge of lime. These were excellent but the truth is I’ve never met a fish taco I didn’t like!

Later that night, I met a guy walking his dog in the coffee isle of WalMart. This wasn’t your typical Golden Retriever or Labrador service breed, it was a stocky mix of what looked like pit bull and a bullmastiff. Being a dog person, I started a conversation about his dog. The owners name was Eddie and his dog was a rescue and he was training it to be a service dog. Eddie was a very high functioning man with Autism, but all outward appearances and even a thirty minute conversation with him revealed only sheer intelligence. He is in the process of writing four books, with one close to being published. He is also in the process of changing his name to “One Man” and is writing about his trials and tribulations of growing up in America from “One Man’s” perspective on living with Autism. I exchanged email addresses with Eddie and hope to keep in touch and wish him the best. Should he ever publish his books, I will be sure to read them. It’s really amazing to think about all of the people that we choose to walk by every day. Granted, we can’t stop and talk to everyone, but every single one of them has a story!