Day 31 – 9/30 Helena to West Glacier, MT

Today was a driving day, we left West Yellowstone to go to West Glacier.  Morning routine was the usual.  I laid out Bella’s work for the day, her and Bia got going, and were doing good.  I started getting things packed outside, and Carol inside.  We wanted to leave by 11, so as soon as Bia finished her Spanish class call, we left, which was right at 11.  I think we got a good consistency in packing to leave, and it takes us about 2 hours from start to finish.  The GPS had us go East of the mountain range, and then cut West way at the top, already near Glacier. 

The drive was amazing.  We drove through the mountains, way at the top most of the drive. 

Awesome views, clear blue sky, and almost no other cars on the road. 

We only made two stops, and we were in West Glacier within 5 hours. 

We have been driving through mountains and valleys a lot in this area, but this drive was one of the coolest I’ve seen, it was just immense, with huge farm fields way up there, most land up there was hay, so we saw a lot of hay and a lot of cows. 

The final stretch of the drive, when we took HWY2 West was more packed in, and more like a forest and mountains around, more similar to what we were seeing in parks of Yellowstone, but the vegetation here is different.  It much more colorful here and the Fall colors are showing already. 

The little village in West Glacier is very cool, very small, but most places are already closed for the season.  Most places around here close mid September, and the campground we are staying at (West Glacier RV Park) closes on Sunday, that’s why we stay only until Sunday. 

Our campground is nice, all paved streets, very level gravel spots, all big.  Nicely located near the village and entrance to Glacier National Park.  As soon as we parked and started getting ready, the girls were out playing.  I took the bikes down right away, and they were riding around, went to the playground, etc. 

The campground sits right between some mountains, our big windows (dining room) face the sunrise, and the doors face the sunset.  Looking forward to watching the sunrise tomorrow. 

We made some dinner, Carol made pasta and I made steak. We ate and Carol and the girls went to another town nearby to get some groceries for the next few days.  I stayed home and cleaned up, got the fire outside started, etc. 

We sat outside for some time today, enjoying the fire, watching stars and watching the moonrise.  I had never watched the moonrise.  At first, around 8:30 or so, we could not see the moon, but the starts phone app showed it behind the trees about East.  And little by little the moon started rising and we could see it a little after 9.  That was cool. 

The moon was so bright that it was lighting up the area, and it was not as easy to see stars.  We had a nice time outside, it was getting cold fast, so when the fire was almost out, we went in and went to bed.  Nice relaxing first day here in Glacier.

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