Thursday, March 2, 2017

Here we go again...

The outage season is on us once again.  Instead of the normal stuff - we are working like crazy the=is spring....

I'm heading to Monroe MI, and then on to Washington State for my last outage of this season.  Tammy will fly out to meet me there and we will vacation there and drive back together.  I will be driving the truck w/camper out so we will have our home on wheels with us.

More to come...

Monday, August 22, 2016

Time to Catch Up - Again

Well we are home now and again I find myself with about 10 days of blogging to catch up.  I will post several over the next couple of days.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park was a magical place.  Knowing that it is named after one of our great leaders - it bears his rugged approach to life, his simple views of nature and how we are to protect it.  Thanks TR you did it right!






Tuesday, August 9, 2016

August 8 & 9

August 8 got off to slow start after our 8 mile hike on the 7th.  We figure on just trying to fish some and take it easy.  We wanted to try to fish at Many Glacier and as we were driving up there, a big black bear ran across the road in front of us about 50 yards.  Good thing I am a slow driver from the south -  In hindsight that bear taught me a good lesson - don't stop in the middle of the road - keep going and head for the trees.

No good fishing opportunities presented themselves to us so we went down to Two Medicine and remembered from our visit in 2011, things hadn't changed to much at all.  That was good to see.

Back to the camper for a special supper of left over steak and pasta - I gave way to the head cook when it comes to pasta - glad I did too!

August 9 - we broke camp this morning, had a quicky breakfast of cereal and milk and lit out for Great Falls - Tammy followed me in the jeep.

The drive was pleasant and I got to watch a thunderstorm move across the prairie - what a site that was.  The power of God Almighty himself was present.

Stopped by the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in GF.  Pretty interesting as I always find something new to learn about the Corp of Discovery.

Three hours later we checked into a hotel for a comfortable bed and food cooked on a real stove.  Ate at Bert and Ernie's - great chow - watched some more bad weather come rolling through and dumped about 2 inches of rain in less than 30 minutes.  Streets were flooded and provide some additional entertainment for the evening.

Tomorrow we head out for Medora ND and Theodore Roosevelt National Park!

I hated to turn my back on the mountains of Montana.  Seems like I felt so much at home there.

Peace to you all
~goodnight

jim & Tam

August 7th Grinnell Glacier Hike

Today on the 7th of August, Tammy and I decided to take the hike to Grinnell Glacier.  After hearing of the reduction on Glacier Ice in the park, we figured we better go see one before we can't.  It was an up hill hike all the way an elevation gain of 1600 plus feet from the bottom at Swift Current Lake to the official overlook.

Lots of bear activity reported as I figured as much with the season coming on and the bears feeding 22 hours a day (per the Park Ranger).

The scenery was spectacular!

Grinnell Falls - you can barely see the trail as it snakes around the right side.  In the background, that wide swathe of white is the actual glacier.  At this vantage point we were about 1/2 way?
The climb up took us through some dense tree growth, rocky outcroppings and finally on to a ledge where you actually look down at some of the remaining glacier pool.


The glacier pool was a milky blue and cold as if you stuck your hand down into a cooler with water and ice.  My hand hurt after just seconds of being in that water.  Let see the polar bear club try this on for size!

 Our walk down was slow because of the aged knee syndrome.  It was a shorter walk as we didn't have to stop to catch our breath.  It was really cool to see where we had started at compared to where we were.

There is another lake that isn't seen in the picture.  Lake Josephine.  That's where our hike started.  Swift Current in the closer of the two lakes seen here.  Lake Sherburne is seen in the back. 
  It was a great day!  The bottom line here is - go see a glacier before they are all gone.  I was given that advice back in 2005 as we flew back from Yellowstone.  I sat beside a gentleman in his early 70's who had just been to Glacier National Park - he told me then Go see'm while they still exist.

The Park Service predicts that by 2030, no more glaciers will exist in Glacier National Park.

Something for ya'll to ponder on....

jim

Sunday, August 7, 2016

August 6

Ok here's the post we've been wanting to make - The day started out with a trip to East Glacier Welcome Center and a ride to Logan Pass to finish our "Going To the Sun Road".  Check got that done.

We visited the 1913 restored Ranger Cabin/home/office that he worked out of and his family stayed with him.  Very interesting that one of his tasks was to rid the park of the major predators.

After supper at Many Glacier Hotel - we were on our way back to the camper when we spotted this guy below really going over some berry bushes, - about 50 feet from the road I got out to snap this picture.  As I began to focus, he decides to stand up on his hind legs to see what was going on that we were so interested in.

I was going to call out but I decided not to and just let this gentleman get back to eating berries.

It just doesn't get any better than this......

This fellow stood up on his hind legs - the bushes he was in was about 4~5 feet high - so you can get an idea of his size.

East Glacier

We broke camp early - got under way by 0800 and found our selves in Columbia Falls for laundry and supplies - Montana Traders Coffee - wonderful stuff, good for what ails ya.....

We got into the KOA in St. Marys around 3 pm and set up camp.  It was a very short uneventful hop over to St Marys.  Here is some shots from the campground.




We finished off supplies in St Marys and went back to camp and just relaxed and talked about the days coming events and what we wanted to do.  We had Bison Tips for dinner w/Red Potatoes and Onions and mushrooms with a white wine sauce.  Pretty dang good if I say so myself....

August 4th

We tried some fishing on our own but with the weather improving by the minute, the people were out in droves.  So we went by car to a few places and tried our hands but we did not have any luck - I guess that's why they call it "fishing" and not "catching".

We went back to the camp site and prepped for our easy drive over to the East Side of Glacier.

jim