Glacier National Park - Day 3

September 12, 2010
Today we finished up collection in Glacier. It was a really nice day out and collection went well. We took a couple of photos at Lake McDonald. I would have loved to be out in a canoe on a day like today!


When we were collecting data on a parking area I saw this bug fly by and land....I took a quick photo. I wasn't that close to it, I didn't want it to fly on me :) so this is a zoomed in shot. It turned out OK.
Tomorrow we head back toward the West.

Glacier National Park - Day 2

September 11, 2010
Another day in Glacier. Today was much more productive than yesterday, we got 90% of the park done! We went over Going to the Sun Road. That is the main road that goes through the park and is very narrow and goes above tree line. This photo was taken near beginning of the route looking east.
On the way up...Still on the way up...we passed several waterfalls along the way.Finally, over the summit and on the way down. I took this one while we were waiting for our turn to go through a one lane construction area. Looks like the peaks got some snow yesterday.We saw some mountain goats on the side of the mountain on the East side across from the St Mary lodge. The goats were really far away and the only reason I saw them was because I heard other people talking about them while I was collecting a parking lot. They looked like really small white specks on the side of the mountain. This is the best photo I could get with my camera. You can see them in the center of the photo.Two Medicine area on the East Side...It was windy and chilly all day. After leaving the park for the LONG drive back to Kalispell the wind was so strong a sudden gust of wind pushed the van pretty quickly. It felt like my heart flew out my arm pit. It took me by surprise but after that I was prepared.

Glacier National Park - Day 1

September, 10, 2010
Today was a long day with little productivity. We are staying on the the west side of Glacier National Park but the park is pretty big and we have several routes on the East side, about a 90 minute drive. We decided to drive to the East side to try and get those routes out of the way but we soon realized today might be a bust. The weather said only a 10% change of showers but it rained ALL day in the park. The perimeter of the park was cloudy with some light sprinkles but once we drove a mile into the park it started down pouring. We did get one route done that went up to the Canadian boarder. That was interesting. This is the 2nd time I've collected this route and the boarder patrol have not gotten any better.

In the next couple of photos you can see the clouds just hanging over the park, but blue sky outside the park...no fair!On the drive back to the hotel we stopped at a huckleberry shop and I got a huckleberry milkshake, finally! I also got a slice of huckleberry pie but i haven't tried it yet...I'm sure it will be good.

Nez Perce National Historical Park

September 9, 2010
This morning started off with a waffle breakfast with huckleberries! Yummm. They were fresh and not frozen. For the past few months I've been looking forward to coming to this area to have huckleberries again.

I had high hopes for today...collect the three routes at Nez Perce and head North. It did happen but it didn't happen quickly. This park should have taken us about 30 minutes but 4 & 1/2 hours later we were finally on the road heading North. We made it to the hotel at 8:30pm MTN time. The rutting on the truck was acting up. It wasn't very noticeable, the problem was hard to detect. We could only tell after we transferred all of the data to a USB and processed the data. We got -999 numbers, which are not good. After several phone calls and recollecting the routes 4 times we finally got valid numbers. I have no idea what happened and I'm not sure why it finally worked. I'll be keeping an eye on the rutting in the upcoming days. Hopefully today was a fluke.Here is a short sentence about the park...
"Nez Perce National Historical Park commemorates the contributions the Nez Perce have made and help protect and preserve sites, stories, and artifacts associated with their history and culture." http://www.nps.gov/nepe/historyculture/

There wasn't much to this park. There was a pretty cool old bridge, which I don't think is really part of the park. There were 3 cemeteries at the park and a couple old buildings and a monument. The monument says "1836 Site of Lapwai Mission. The first home, the first school and the first church in Idaho."

During the drive North to Kalispell, MT we passed through some really pretty farm country then some rolling hills with wide rivers. It was pretty and nice to have something to look at during the long drive. We passed through an area in Idaho that had a wildfire. We couldn't see flames but we could see the thick haze in the sky and the smoke smell was strong. http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/
After looking at this link it seems that there are two fires near where we were driving in ID.

Oh, my TV remote is pretty sweet. The up button doesn't work, only the down button works. If I want to go up a channel I have to punch in the channel number....nice! I'm going to be here for 4 days with a broken remote. I guess I probably won't be watching much TV anyway but still....

Whitman Mission National Historic Site

September 8, 2010
Uhhhhhh describes the day. I'm glad to be in the hotel laying in bed! This morning we finished some verifications on the truck. After a few hours of that we hit the road heading West to a small historic site just outside of Walla Walla, WA., Whitman Mission National Historic Site. http://www.nps.gov/whmi/ We didn't spend much time there, this park only has one route that is less than one mile long....although we did have to run it 3 times (part of the uhhhhh of the day). Here is some information from the website above about the park...

"In 1836, before the era of emigrant wagon trains, five Protestant missionaries decided to cross the continent to establish a mission in what was known then as the "Oregon Country." "

"The 1847 Whitman “Massacre” horrified Americans and impacted the lives of the peoples of the Columbia Plateau for decades afterwards. Was killing the Whitmans justified legal retribution, an act of revenge, or some combination of both? The circumstances that surround this tragic event resonate with modern issues of cultural interaction and differing perspectives."After a few minutes at the park we continued our journey West to Clarkston, WA, on the boarder with Idaho. During the drive we saw a really pretty rainbow.We also saw a semi that needed to use the run away ramp. That is not something you see very often. Unfortunately my photo did not capture the event, the semi tires were buried in sand. I guess someone else had a long day too.