Lazing at Lake McD

Before I continue with the adventures in Glacier, let me just say that I have heard your complaints and concerns in re: the absence of the blog, and I am so happy that you are interested enough to care when I can't post. McAdams and I are flattered, and enjoy the opportunity to keep up with you, our peeps, no matter where we are. I understand my mom has finally read my blog; better late than never. Also, I'm happy you're enjoying it, Brandon; I was glad to hear you had tuned in. Makes me feel warm inside. But Jeez Louie, the pressure! You people are SO demanding! I got life to lead cha-cha! I'll get to it when I get to it!!!

OK, so: Lake McDonald. McAdams once wrote a poem, published in the Glacier Gazette, or something like that called "To A Good Life". It was real poetic and beautiful, and long, too. Suffice it to say, it was inspired by Lake McDonald. We got up, ate breakfast and walked down a small hill to the water. The beach is rocky, but the pebbles are smooth and small, so it's no hardship. We spread out our towels and I read a chapter aloud from the bear book, which is actually about a middle-aged writers' trek through the wilderness down the Appalachian Trail.
The book is funny, engaging, well-written and informative, with just enough tragic, ecological factoids to make the reader righteously indignant about the lack of interest and effort most of us put forth about our fragile environment. You should check it out. It's called A Walk In The Woods, by Bill Bryson. Then we'd eat a little snack, maybe the fresh cherries we got from the weird, mean, born-again man and his squinty-eyed son at the cherry shack with the outhouse with the crosses carved in the wall, or some pretzels, maybe a huckleberry beer. We slather each other in 30SPF sunscreen (chick-a baum, chick-a baum baum!!!) and talk about how hot we are, double entendre intended. We put our toes in the water, shiver, and make our way in, past the knees past the hips, to the belly (Doh! That's CO-OLD!!!). McAdams takes a deep breath and sets off, a strong, gliding breaststroke, and I turn flips in the shallow end. Then we do water aerobics (Look! The washing machine! Use the resistance to your advantage!) and then back to the beach. I read articles about Chef Ramsay and Don DeLillo, and McAdams tries to memorize every crag, every slope, every avalanche trail of the mountains in the distance. I do pilates on the pebbles, she snores daintily. We get hungry again, we trek up to the lodge, chat up an 18 year old waiter from Idaho, and rent a row boat. I learn that it's not so easy to row a boat. You have to aim and steer. I covered the same foot and a half of water at least twenty times by making a perfect circle, which greatly impressed all those on the shore. McAdams laughed.





Hours of good, clean fun later, after dinner, we walked slowly down the beach, taking in the sounds of the pebbles under our feet, the stream flowing into the lake, some kid playing guitar in the distance. The light fades, the clouds go pink, the mountains become black sentinals of the rippling waters, and the stars pop out, until they are shining freckles on the face of the sky. (Now that's some real fine poetry, I tell you what!)






We sleep in the little log cabin with the windows open. I hear no bears in the underbrush, and am at peace.



bonus! bonus! bonus! bonus! bonus!

HOLY S**THOUSE, BATMAN!


Next: Polebridge!

Glacier National Park

Lake McDonald Lodge

Views from Whitefish: taxi leaving downtown; rainbow over the highschool; McAdams at her favorite brewery. Huckleberry Wheat Beer, yum!

Hello, Everybody! We are down from the mountains after about five days without a cell phone signal or internet access. We are back to modern American comforts in Spokane, a town which

I would love to explore, but that McAdams is, shall we say, less enchanted with. She can't wait to hit Seattle, which we will do later today. I am excited, also. I've only been to Seattle once, but I loved it. As I recall, I wanted to move there also.

But, I get ahead of myself. We left Whitefish and headed into Glacier National Park, which is absolutely one of the most stunning, eextraordinary places I have ever been fortunate enough to have visited. Established in 1910 under Taft, Glacier became our tenth national park, after we kicked out Salish, Blackfeet and Kootenai Native Americans; recent archaeological evidence points to the fact that people lived in the park area for over 10,000 years. (We passed through a large swath of Flathead reservation, but McAdams, who has driven through Blackfeet territory reports that the tribe shuns visitors and are very hostile towards those who don't belong on the rez. Reservation land, from what I can see, is rather ugly and inhospitable, especially in comparison with all the gorgeous vistsas the land that surrounds it affords. Coincidence that the tribal land is less desirable than the land the U.S. appropriated? I think not. I guess the displaced tribes have the right to still be pissed off.)

Glacier today encompasses approximately 1.4 million acres and has over 700 trails, 200 lakes or streams, and 50 glaciers. It is home to all kinds of flora and fauna, and makes up a vast and unique ecosystem. There are several hotels and lodges, most built by the Great Northern Railway to support tourism; some of them are lovely. There are also myriad campgrounds, small stores, and eateries scattered throughout the park. The Road to the Sun, built in the 1930's, is one of the modern engineering marvels of the world; it is 50 miles of winding, curving, clinging to mountainsides and teetering over dizzyingly dramatic valleys. More on it later. Most of all, though, the park offers mile after mile of the road less traveled. There are dense, verdant woods and jagged, rocky mountain peaks. There are crystal indigo lakes that seem to go on forever and silver blue icy glaciers that feed them. There are places where one can convince herself that nobody, save for a stray mountain goat or the random mountain lion, has even looked at in a hundred years. It is peaceful and quiet and smells clean and sweet. It is overwhelming, overpowering, all-encompassing. More than once, just looking around, I wanted to cry. It is just so MUCH.

So, we started by going to Lake McDonald. It is the largest lake in the park and was one of my favorite places. It features a very nice lodge, but we stayed in a little log cabin. Mostly we just stayed out one the beach.

OK, now I'm going to post this so that you will have something new to look at, but I'm not done with this chapter of adventure yet, so hold tight...more Big Adventure to come!

Chicofish, MT

The wheels of time turn on, and it's time again for us to move on...
We leave Wyoming and head towards Montana
Big Sky Country!
But first, a stop at Chico Hot Springs resort; not too shabby, huh?
This is the room we stayed in. All of it. None of the room is left out of the picture. The communal bathroom was down the hall and to the left. McAdams booked it. I think she likes me.

Hello Blogites! Before I begin, I would like to dedicate this episode of The Big Adventure to Henry Gavin Utay, who started his own great adventure on July 19, 2007. Welcome to the world, Hank! It's a great place to be, I must say! Also, happy first birthday to Micah Alter-Meeker. The first year is the hardest, kid; you're doing swell! Thanks again to all of you who tune in to read this blog and for all of your kind comments. We read them all, though we haven't figured out how to reply yet. I'm flattered that you make time for us, and it is a lot of fun sharing our adventures with you.Makes me feel connected, which is a good thing.

So, Chico was nice. It's a resort that has a big lodge, a restaurant that has been recognized by Wine Spectator, a coffee place and gift shop, two pools of hot spring water (one like a normal, heated pool and one like a jacuzzi), a stables, a greenhouse and gardens, and our room with no toilet. We spent the time visiting the pools until we were soft boiled, laying around on the soft, plushy lawn reading the scary bear book that Brenda snuck in my bag, and getting spa treatments (not one, but two!!) in a tiny day spa tucked high on a hill. We saw a Norweigian birthday party and a family reunion. We sat on a swing under a bright moon and rocked and told stories. We were pampered and soft and, in the morning, ready to head into Montana.

Montana, my friends, is beautiful. True, there are great spaces of not much, but what gorgeous swaths of nothing they are. There is brown dirt fading into swaying golden fields dotted with brick red farmhouses that lead to dense, green stands of pine, that roll into huge, purple mountains, shadowed by the blue and gray ghosts of mountains that loom behind those. That's just the view from the highway. Every once in awhile some dirt road will appear, and if one should take it, it would wind up past the farms into hills, and little communities would sprout up, like wildflowers in the fields. The people in these towns are friendly and happy to see you, even though (or maybe because) they know you are just passing through. Everyone works hard, but seems to be in a good mood. Maybe that's because they live in a kind of small-town U.S.A. that is all but forgotten these days, where people work and play hard, assume that others are basically good, live and let live, and truly appreciate the beauty that surrounds them. And, beauty, in these parts, abounds.

We settled for awhile in Whitefish, and I have decided I want to live here. It's small, but big enough, and if there is anything that can't be found here, it's a fifteen minute drive to Kalispel, which has it's own (three runway) airport. It has a 3 block downtown, but also a city park, tennis courts and lakeside beach. The food is good, the schools are new, there is a yoga studio and a brewery. All that and it is about 100 miles from Canada and 20 miles from perhaps the most awe-inspiring park I have ever imagined. Why would anyone live in somewhere, like, say, Texas, when one could live here? They are hiring waitresses at the pizza place and I am seriously considering it. Oh yeah, it also has a historic train depot and the trains still run through it everyday. AE and Deenstadad, these photos are for you.

More tomorrow (maybe, depending on if I have internet access!)

bonus photo for EA and AE - can you find the animal in this picture?

Yellowstone, Part Two

Foot's eye view

YELLOWSTONE, PART TWO!

This is how McAdams watches the road. I'm scared, but who can blame her? P.S. Dig the convertible action, baybay!
View from the rearview - the Grand Tetons.

Ok, so where was I? Ah yes, Yellowstone. Truly amazing, and incredibly diverse. On the one hand, psychedelic pools of toxic liquid fire, and on the other, dense, intense forest, home to creatures both meek and terrific, but mostly horrifyingly powerful furry forest freaks, hungry for human flesh.

So, after we checked out the forest for about a thousand miles, we went to a fantastic lake, on the opposite side of the enormous park, hidden in the pines, called Lake Yellowstone (very creative name-makers in Wyoming, non?). It was glacier fed and freezing cold, but crystal clear and sapphire blue. The beach was made up of tiny, round, obsidian pebbles and little salt crystals that sparkled in the sun. We both got in -McAdams before me- and made our way in the water in stages; first the legs to the knees, then water on the thighs, to the hips, flooding the bellybutton (perhaps the cruelest shock of all!), to the waist. Freezing, I tell you. By the time my arms were in up to the elbows, my legs were numb. With every advancement, a high-pitched squeal involuntarily escaped my lips, and when I was in up to my chest, my heart started pounding wildly and the surprise of the icy cold took my breath away. "Took my breath away" has always been sort of a romantic expression to me, more of a descriptive platitude than a reality, like, "Oh my Gawd! When Tom Jones GYRATED, it LIT-RULL-EE took my breath away!" This was different. For a few moments I felt as if someone had unexpectedly thrown a large pumpkin at my gut in my sleep. Don't you hate it when that happens? Here are some pictures of McAdams gliding into the water. She was a bit more graceful than I.

These pictures are lovely, but do not even begin to capture the magnitude of the sheer, serene beauty of this experience.

This is how clear the water was - see the bottom?

I got in also. You can see that the water was so cold, it made my head shrink to the size of a peanut. I can't explain why. It's physics, I think.

We lay on towels on the black beach, and gave ourselves exfoliating treatments with the obsidian chips. We did pilates and water aerobics and fell asleep for a little while as the water lapped at the shore. Then we got up, walked up the beach to a big, yellow, Victorian-stlye lodge, and lounged, sipping wine in front of a big picture window, while a string quartet played Vivaldi, or something equally classy. It was my favorite day so far, and McAdams said, "Just wait. You ain't seen nothing yet!" Coming up: Whitefish, Montana.

BONUS PHOTOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does a bear poop in the woods? I don't know, but McAdams hacer pipi en el agua! Sulphuric fart
By the way, continued thanks for your support and kind words about the blog. Belated condolensces to Funky and Laurie, and extended congratualtions to Lydia. Beth, keep it up! Yea, you! I'm proud to be your friend-in-law! Brenda, we read a chapter of your book every night! Don't worry Big Poppa; I'll bring her home! Looking forward to seeing you, mom! I love you!

Yellowstone, part one

OLD FAITHFUL

OK, did you read the blog? I said, "We almost got arrested!" Maybe this will refresh your memory:

Anyhoo, we spent a FANTASTIC day in Yellowstone. The park is truly amazing; it is lush and desolate, mysterious and overt, inviting and forbidding. I loved it. We started the day doing what all tourists do, Old Faithful. Having never paid attention in any of my public school geography classes nor my university geology classes, I had no idea how powerful it is. Since Yellowstone sits over a barely contained super-volcano, gases and water mix to fill roiling tunnels that beg for release from the incredible pressure. They are also full of sulphur, so they spume a 30 foot plume of fart all over the masses. I liked that. (See Photo)

The other geological features were really cool. Different bacterias and microorganisms survive and flourish at different temperatures in the boiling hot pools, which get up to 220 degrees. That, and minerals that are leached out of the earth, form remarkable colors in some of the pools. One of them looks suspiciously like my dad's colon x-rays.





Since it was already a thousand degrees, we decided to tour the park. Oh the things that we saw! Adventure around every corner! First we saw a hungry looking marmot or muskrat or really fat squirrel. Terrifying. Then, chipmunks. Then, a bison bigger than an SUV! He had mischief in his eye. Low and behold he charged a tourist. As McAdams screamed like a little girl, I knew I had to get out of the car and take action. With only a lint encrusted peppermint that I had in my pocket, I lured him off the road. The tourists all applauded madly as I looked that bison (or buffalo; I'm not sure of the difference) square inthe eye and showed him who's who and what's what. Then I shot him. Score one for the humans. Your hummers are always safe, as long as I am around. (Don't worry Adrian! I'm just kidding! He was rolling around in the dust to cool himself! Bison don't even like mints, though they are partial to lint!)


Just thinking about my heroics exhausts me. I'll sleep on it tonight, and resume yesterday's adventures tomorrow.

*********************************BONUS PHOTOS***********************************

1. Look at that rack!

2. And that one, too!

3. Good omens abound