Day 7

Day 7: 6/25/10

Start and in end in Glacier National Park

Today's miles: 110
Total miles: 1,722

Miles hiked: 8.75
Total miles hiked: 18.75

Marriage status: After a good nights sleep we are back on stable ground.

Passed through: Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park.

Today's notes:

Today was an awesome day! It started out with beautiful cool sunny weather, and we made Pancakes much more successfully this time around by taking our time and reducing the heat as well as spraying the skillet with Pam between pancakes. Then we packed up our day hiking bags, hopped on the bikes and headed north to Canada!

After crossing the border we went into Canada's side of the park to Waterton village. This place was crazy, there is an entire little town with a school, housing, movie theater and everything inside the park. Now in a way this sounds terrible, but they have done a really good job of not letting it get too big and respecting their amazing surroundings. We spoke to a Canadian in town and he said that the Canadians that live there can own their house, but the government owns the land, so basically if the government tells you you have to move your house then you have to do just that. I was glad to hear this because up until that point I was trying to figure out how Tomme and I could get dual citizenship so we could live there because it was so beautiful. There are deer everywhere in this town. Just about every house has them in their yard, and the Canadian guy we talked to said some people basically just use the deer eating their grass as their way of mowing the lawn.

After driving through town we headed to a trail that would follow along the side of Waterton Lake and take us to the US-Canadian border that is about 4.25 miles down the trail. At the trailhead we met the lady I hope to be when I'm old. This lady was in her 80s and she walked up to us and the bikes and said that is how she used to travel all the way up until she was 79 years old. Amazing. She did the entire length of Canada 3 times on her motorcycle, and road in every state in the union BY HERSELF! On top of that she didn't even quit at 79 because she had to, that was just the year her bike finally gave out. She really was a great example of, you are only as old as you feel, and I really hope I'm still riding into my 70s.

After that we took off on foot down the trail. It was a beautiful hike, with great views of the massive crystal clear lake with snow capped mountains and glaciers in the background. Finally we reached the US/Canadian border, and took the obligatory one foot in Canada and one in the US picture just has it started to rain. At the border we put on our rain gear and had a little snack before heading back. We walked for maybe 20 minutes in our rain gear before the rain stopped, the sun came out, and the temperature was up. So we stopped again and took all our rain gear off. On the trail we passed some people that told us we narrowly missed a bear siting (I was so pissed). Then we ran into some deer that were on the actual trail, so Tomme raised his arms and waved them in the air, and yelled "hey deer, hey deer" to my amusement. Eventually they did move and we were able to proceed with the hike, but I'm not sure how much of Tomme's antics played a part in that.

At the end of the hike we decided to eat dinner in the village, and we went to the Prince of Whales hotel and ate in their restaurant. This hotel is amazing. It was built in the early 1900s and is right on the lake. The restaurant has incredible lake and mountain views, and the food was really good too. There was also a gift shop in the hotel called Princess Gifts. Now while this may seem fairly insignificant it had Tomme and I cracking up. This is because earlier on this trip I bought a dinosaur bone replica at Dinosaur National Monument for my nephew, and then realized I would need to find something for my niece. Well nothing at Dinosaur was going to do because my niece is pretty girly and I was not sure there would be anything that really fit her on this trip. While I was thinking about this Tomme said "Too bad there isn't a princess exhibit at Glacier". To this we laughed at the absurdity of that possibility and how true it was that we would need something Iike that to find her a gift. And then of course we found a place called Princess Gifts and we were able to find her a pink t-shirt with a glittery butterfly on it inside the shop.

After getting the gift and eating dinner we started to drive back to Glacier just as the sun was setting. The mountains were beautiful at sunset and the sky was pink and blue. It was so pretty I really wanted to take pictures but it was 9:30 and the border control gate we wanted to go through closed at 10. So we just booked it back to the gate. At border control we talked to the guys checking our passports for about 10-15 minutes about what they do, and it was really interesting. They actually work all over the world, and not just on our continental borders. It was all pretty fascinating and we enjoyed this little encounter. By the time we made it back to the campsite it was dark and we were tired. So we pretty much went straight to the tent and curled up in our sleeping bags, but it was a great day, and probably my favorite so far on the trip.

Mediocre tip: Backpacker magazine this year rated Starbucks' instant coffee via as the best camp coffee ever, and they were right! If you like to go camping, and you like coffee, throw away your regular old instant coffee and buy this. You will thank me later.

Mediocre tip: Be nice to your border control and customs people, and thank them for what they do. Sure going through customs is annoying, but they are just doing their job, and it is an important one at that. So just be happy they're there.


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