Day #11 Apgar to St. Mary, Glacier National Park

Auntie Grace gets up at 3:30 every morning. She says she saw the skies turn red around 5:00 AM. Art got up at 5:30 and was only able to catch a hint of the crimson left in the skies.

I was barely awake and caught Tif looking out on the deck and just contemplating the beauty around us.


We were in a second floor suite. Mom and Auntie Grace were on the first floor. We could see them soaking in the morning magic from above.

These cliff swallows never stayed still, but were always darting to and fro. Incredibly, this pair decided to pose for Art.


Art took a morning walk and strolled onto a pier to take this photo of me.


And then we were on our way to see more Glacier sights.


Running Eagle Falls:
"This falls is named after Running Eagle (Pitamakan), a Blackfoot tribeswoman who lived around 1825. As the story goes, she gravitated to the skills of a Blackfoot warrior. She became a great hunter and was incredibly brave in the face of her tribes’ enemies. At one point, Running Eagle was instructed by the village elders to go on a vision quest in order to find her true calling. It is said that she went on this quest near the falls. Running eagle was able to tell of her adventures in the Medicine Lodge ceremonies while also becoming a member of the Braves Society of young warriors. She continued to lead successfully war and hunting parties until she died in a battle against a party of Flatheads near the Sun River."


I'm so glad my brother, Dennis showed me how to photomerge photos on Photoshop so I could give you a more complete photo of what we were seeing. (Please click to enlarge.)


The Beaver Pond Trail was supposed to be full of wildflowers so we decided to try it.

The Pasque flower is South Dakota's State Flower.


I think this is called Creeping Barberry. It's rather funny that I worked so hard to find out the names of these flowers. I don't know 80% of the plants in Hawaii.


We saw this gorgeous purple Slimpod Shooting Star everywhere in Yellowstone and Glacier.


I know you can't see it very well, but this meadow was blanketed with Shooting Stars. Unfortunately, a dark blanket of clouds also started to roll above us.

This trail was supposed to be only a little over a mile long. Well... I don't think so. It felt like we'd been walking forever. It's a good thing the clouds stopped us because mom was getting pretty tired.



We finally made it back to the minivan and did the rest of our viewing with the car.

By the way: The Going-to-the-Sun Road was still closed due to snow. We've done the road twice before, but erred this time in not checking to see when the road typically opens. It doesn't open until mid-June or later, probably later this month. If you plan to go to Glacier, be sure to check when the ideal time to go is. We actually went earlier than we should. We were just lucky that everything else worked out for us.

Our hotel for the evening would be at St. Mary Lodge and Resort. This was a rustic lodge with not many places for hanging things but there's really not a lot of other places to stay at in this area.

It didn't matter. We slept well.

The next day, we'd be on our way to Canada.