Day 7: Great Falls, MT to Glacier National Park

The three-hour drive northwestward through Montana seemed like a hop, skip, and a jump.  It's all relative, I suppose.  We had some serious business to take care of- namely, to renegotiate our backcountry itinerary with a Park Ranger and to secure lodging for the night.  We couldn't make advanced reservations at an r.v. park in Glacier because the in-park campgrounds are all "first come, first served."  A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Visitor's Center... A Riley Tour Bus drove into the parking lot at the same time as we did.  At first we laughed at the coincidence, thinking that this vehicle couldn't possibly be Bus #304.  After all, we were 900 miles away from the site of our previous encounter with that particular tour bus.  In synchronicity, Ron and the boys did a double take.  YES, this was the same bus that nearly side-swiped us on the Scenic Drive of Teddy Roosevelt National Park!  What are the odds?

Anyhow, we were successful in adjusting our 4-night backcountry permit to include better glacial views and less double-tracking.  We listened attentively as the ranger cautioned us to "use ONLY the pit toilets for our bathroom needs while at the backcountry camps because the nuisance animals are attracted to the salt." Yuck.  She also warned us about the possibility of hypothermia and attacks by bears and mountain lions.  All things that have already been carefully contemplated by yours truly.  $60 later (what a bargain!) we were on our way to find a home for the night.  We needed to put some finishing touches on our packs and get a good night's sleep.

Finding a place to stay proved difficult as the in-park campgrounds were all full.  We drove around the St. Mary's area, part of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, looking for a private campground.  You might expect a tourist mecca of shops, motels, & restaurants outside of the park's biggest eastern entrance.  Surprise, surprise... no luck.  We did find a few scary-looking, uninhabited r.v. parks with cobwebbed OPEN signs at the gates.  No, thank you.  That's footage for the next horror movie.  Eventually, we settled for the overflow lot at the nearby KOA.  We chowed down on a lame meal of pasta & sauce.  After showering for the last time before leaving civilization, I confess to throwing a minor fit when Ron told me I couldn't blow dry my hair due to our lack of an electrical hook-up.  It was too late to run the generator.  Hmph.  Well, I compromised and trudged a ways down to the KOA bathroom hut, which was surprisingly clean and modern.  Three other campers knocked on my single-room stall to ask, "Are you almost done?" prompting me to go even slower with the most satisfying blow-dry of my life.

Back at the camper, the fellows were nearly done preparing the packs, poles, boots, etc.  I saw them sneaking a few extra fishing lures into the case and told them that I was NOT, under any circumstances, going to skimp on underwear (to save weight) if they were going to load up on fishing gear!  We were off to bed after the obligatory ice cream, dreaming of our upcoming days in the backcountry.