Back in the USA

Flat Range Land with Mountains in the Background

Fields of Dandelions

Native American Statues in Montana

Going into Glacier National Park

A Bear Crosses in Front of us in the Park




Monday, June 13

We had a beautiful, crisp morning as we had our oatmeal, packed up and headed to the RV Wash in Canmore. Later, after we got on the highway towards Calgary, we hit a heavy downpour and were glad we hadn't spent more time fussing at the RV Wash. At least the top layer of mud, dust, and bugs were off.

The mountains were now behind us with flat, forever land ahead. We missed the turn off for the Cowboy Highway south and decided it was a good time of day for traffic and we wanted to see Calgary anyway, so using our little map book of Canada that we had purchased at Northgate by our cabin, we successfully navigated around the border of the city. The land surrounding Calgary was flat and treeless with sprawling new subdivisions. Then as we approached the city center, we could see the tall buildings of the city center down in a hollow. The land was shaped like a bowl and we were up on a rim. There were six lanes of traffic and a lot of construction. It seemed to be very clean and progressive and we heard later from a fellow traveler that Calgary is Canada's most livable city. It would have been nice to see some of the Olympic areas and the sight of the Calgary Stampede, but not hauling a trailer.

We went on south to Fort MacLeod and past the lovely little hospital that had helped me on the way up. Then we took Highway 2 south through more beautiful range land with increasing mountains to our southwest.

The wind was wild and we saw that Canada was using it with some massive fields of windmills.

We drove through the nice little town of Cardston and on until we crossed the quaint, small customs stop at the border into the USA. It was just a good feeling and Montana truly seemed to welcome us. We stopped to take pictures of metal sculptures of Native Americans on horseback and hurried on to get to Glacier National Park.

We got a camp site in St. Marys at the KOA situated on high, grassy, very windy fields with mountains bordering us. We set up and went into tiny St. Marys to the cafe and had delicious big salads and homemade pie. The restaurant was manned by college kids that looked like hikers and environmentalists. They were having fun joking with each other. Their t-shirts had a slice of pie on end like a pyramid and said, "Pie for Strength."

After dinner, we drove into the Park and twelve miles up the Road to the Sun. That was as far as it was open as there was still a lot of snow and danger of avalanche.

We went from sun to cold and rain the higher we went. We saw one black bear, an avalanche area with broken trees and piles of snow, and a rock slide area. The views were pretty, but the weather made it hard to see well.

We went back to our trailer, took a walk, turned on the heater, watched out our window as the clouds boiled over the mountains, and listened to the howling wind...cozy and content.