Lynn and Dave have been married 47 years. Before they wed, a friend of Dave’s asked him to go with him to Glacier National Park. The plan was to explore the area on horseback. His friend figured they’d have one of the greatest adventures of their young lives. He didn’t go back then, and he says now it is one of his biggest regrets, not going when he was younger. Since then (yes, for nearly 50 years!) he talks often about how Glacier National Park is on his bucket list.
When we decided to visit Cindy and Dan in Spokane (where we are at the moment), and Lynn and Dave decided to join us on the first half of Grand Adventure, Lynn and I realized this would be the perfect opportunity for Dave to check Glacier National Park off his bucket list. It was the first land-based location on the entire trip we made a reservation for, and around which we planned the rest of the adventure.
After we left Salt Lake City we spent a night in Butte, Montana and then in Great Falls, Montana the night before we planned to drive through Glacier National Park. We thought about taking a more easterly route (than I-15) that skirted the west side of Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park, but that added several hours of driving time we weren’t keen about investing. We’ve been to Grand Teton before, and Yellowstone is said to be so crowded this time of year that we opted to watch YouTube videos instead.
This trip is the first time we’ve ever been to Montana. I fell in love. I don’t know what, exactly, appealed to me so much. It certainly is Big Sky Country, comparable to the cerulean sky with big fluffy white clouds I love so much in Florida. There are peaceful, pastoral valleys with tidy homesteads, majestic mountains in the distance, and long ribbons of straight but rolling highways threaded through the vistas that seem to go on forever. It felt like it might have been home to me in another life, so peaceful, so content, so unspoiled. Except for how cold and snowy the winters get there, I might see myself living there.
There are two roads through Glacier National Park, a year-round more southern route along US Highway 2, commonly referred to as the Theodore Roosevelt Highway. The other route, much more famous and favored, is the Going-To-The-Sun Road. It is a scenic, alpine highway offering stunning views of glacier-carved peaks, alpine lakes, and valleys. Its construction, from 1917 to 1933, was an incredible engineering feat for its time. It wasn’t until 1952 that the 49-mile road was fully paved. During high season, if you want to drive the road from west to east, you must have a reservation from the National Park Service. We planned to drive it from east to west so we weren’t tied to a specific reservation.
September and October are popular times for all the western National Parks. For us retirees it’s preferable because most of the children are back in school. But there were still an awful lot of people on the road the day we were there. Some of the parking areas were so full there was no chance of stopping to see their visual treats. Thankfully, there are enough spots on the road that it’s impossible to stop at every one of them and see everything in a single day. We were advised that the drive would take about 2 hours, but we spent more than 5 hours soaking in the sights. It was indescribable. I’ll let these few photos we took speak for themselves, but I’ve got to warn you: photos don’t do justice to what the human eye sees standing on the precipice of some of these panoramas.
Have you ever driven through areas of the country and imagine what the pioneers were thinking as they brought covered wagons from the eastern, civilized states to the untamed, wild western areas of what was to become the United States? There were no roads, no maps, no restrooms, no places to stop and eat or drink whenever hunger or thirst struck. Can we really imagine the difficulties and hardship of those undertaking a journey of that magnitude? Many didn’t survive. I don’t know if it would have killed me, but I’m fairly certain the struggle they endured would have broken me. I don’t seem myself as strong enough or determined enough to have even wanted to begin that kind of life changing trek.
But doing this grand adventure road trip in 2025, on interstate highways with 80 mile an hour speed limits in a comfy SUV with plenty of room, satellite GPS with a big color screen, a fully stocked electric cooler in the car, and sleeping in a king-size bed almost every night is my kind of travel experience. It’s a good time to be alive. And I am deeply grateful to be doing E50AGART with Randy Grathen, a good man, a great husband, one of the best men I know.
If I haven’t told you lately, Rand, I love you more than I ever thought possible.
P.S. I called my mom just before the ship sailed last week to check on her and she was very upbeat and said she felt much better. Now, 10 days later and at age 91, she doesn’t feel as great as she’d like to feel, but I’m grateful she’s still as active and healthy as she is. Thanks to all of you who prayed for her and asked about her.
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