A LONG Road Home

We depart at 0830 from Luck and make our way toward the Minnesota line.  Passing Grantsberg, WI I spy my Uncle Gene and Aunt Max's house on the ....yes, golf course.  Memories flash across the movie screen in my brain of cousins, piling into the golf cart and "Whooshhhh" off we go down the hill and across the greens...un-noticed by all the uncles and aunts deep into happy hour...laughter abounding from the house.  We KNOW we are not supposed to do this....and is it ever FUN!

Soon I'm back to reality....it's the summertime road rodeo again, and we are entering the arena.  

 This long road home takes us all the way across Minnesota today to Grand Forks, ND.  Passing by the fabulous state park, downtown on the river flood plain...we wind up at a different campground.  Sadly.

The next day, our ride takes us across the broad expanse of North Dakota on Hwy 2.  There are fewer trucks and the road is great with wide shoulders and not much for obstacle courses.  At one of our fuel stops this sign is posted on the diesel pump.  Hummmm....hard to even go there as the temps today are in the 90's.

Looking for anything to break up the trip with an interesting five minutes....we find the "Geological Center of North America" and do a drive by.

We should stop...don't you think?  

There's no deneying we are deep into oil country here in northern ND and in Montana.  How do we know?  Well, there are oil wells...and oh, oh so many oil trains.

Oil cars....many, many oil cars

When we reach Malta, MT Steve remembers a tiny city campground with  "the BIGGEST slide in the world" where his family car camped on their way to Minnesota in the summer.  We find the park!  The slide is...well, obviously replaced by a small yellow one, but the old "merry-go-round" is still there!  And the camping fees are very reasonable....$3.00!

Pretty much, definitely...a "new" slide

Pretty much, definitely, for sure...the same merry-go-round!

We do a drive through.  Then it's westward HO again...with the feeling that..."something is watching us..."

Seriously???

 We drive on, train tracks our constant companion, HWY 2 stretching on to the west as far as the eye can see.

Hwy 2...a little narrower in Montana

Trains headed East and...

...trains headed West.

The Empire Builder Minnesota bound....and beyond.

 The landscape stretches either side of the road, north, south, east, west...earth to sky.  The thought passes:  this is a BIG country, full of food....oh, and some oil too.

Grain

Sunday night we finally reach Glacier National Park!  The mountains are a relief from the flat, open, wide, expansive, spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

BUT, what were we thinking?  Visit a National Park during the peak season?  Not to mention, there is a large fire on the east side of the park, so, people did not just leave and go home, they moved to the west side of the park.....same for us.

Logan Pass

Luck is with us and the KOA has an open spot.  We grab it.  We will see what we can see tomorrow, rest up a bit, and return to this fabulous place...when there are not so many folks enjoying it with us.

Mountain meadow high near the tree line

 It turns out that top of Logan Pass is a perfect place to play ukulele!  And we have the perfect ukulele to play!

The rain today is welcome as there is hope it will assist the fire fighters on the east side of the park to control the blaze that is raging there.  Amazingly enough, although the road is closed beyond this point, and the entire east side is closed with campgrounds evacuated, we can neither see nor smell any smoke!

Our trip back down the pass and to our campground is an easy one, the road adventurous as the rock walls are close to the pavement.  See our kayaks on top of the Jeep as we look down the road?

View out the windshield of the Jeep

Classic Glacier NP tour business limo

It's a perfect rainy afternoon for ....a nap!  After that, KOA has invited us, ALL of us, to their little 

bar-b-que area for dinner!  We enjoy a great chicken dinner with coleslaw and corn on the cob for $13 each!  Hard to pass that up when someone else is cooking, and you awake from your afternoon rest to a delicious smell wafting your way.  

Dinner out with the boyz

It's only 671 miles to the Anacortes ferry dock and we have our reservations for the last ferry on Wednesday night.  Leaving Glacier Tuesday morning, an overnight stop in eastern Washington, lets us finish up our trip taking HWY 2 East all the way to Monroe, WA where it meets up with our old friend I-5 taking us the last bit to the north.

Time to take out the ukes at the ferry landing and find that old John Denver song:  "Back Home Again"....yes it is!  "Sometimes this old farm, feels like a long lost friend, yes, and hey it's good, to be back home again!"  (the dogs are really really woofing it up on this one!)

What next?