After leaving Great Falls (thanks again to Adam’s Grandma!) we headed straight for Glacier National Park. And by straight there I mean we dillydallied beyond belief and both almost started punching everyone at Walmart because we were there for TWO HOURS. Up until this point we hadn’t gone grocery shopping and there were also small random things we absolutely needed but had gone without for quite some time. More or less we had forgotten what we needed until everything came crashing down in the aisles of Walmart.
Let me back up to the day before the Walmart hell. While we were at Adam’s grandmas I noticed (by overwhelming itchiness) I was under attack from some ferocious animal. Most likely a killer spider. I had like 5 bites on my body that I think I got while wearing my jeans. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice this, but my bites get inflamed to the size of cherries and take over my life. Logically, I thought my clothes were infested. Since I was trying hard to leave on time for this trip originally, I had my things packed and in the VAN days before we left which I later realized was stupid. Grandma offered up her wash machine and I gladly accepted. Feeling like a good prepared traveler, I grabbed the “detergent” out of the VAN, only to found out later that it was actually fabric softener! (good catch Grandma) and my original trip to the store was now proven pointless. All the things I thought I had carefully prepared... thus the half-day trip to Walmart commenced.
Eventually, we made our way to Glacier. It was beautiful. We drove around the park and stopped at a few photo/van cooling down opportunities. There were so many waterfalls and endless amounts of crystal clear water. We drove past Lake McDonald as we were leaving and it was blue, clear, huge and beautiful. I said that we should come back tomorrow and see what our awesome Explorer 300 could handle. Adam liked my idea so we found a campsite in West Glacier and made some rice/veggie/brat mix for dinner and hung out for a bit before sawing some logs.
The next day (Friday?) we headed back into Glacier. Before we left for this trip, we bought the Explorer 300 boat online after we decided we needed some type of watercraft. We heed and hawed about kayaks (being I have one and Adam had a blow up one but didn’t know about space and usage) so after much review reading we decided on a glorified pool toy. The Explorer 300 (also known as the Bird Hawk—be sure to see the detailed paint blob on the front bow) offered a great ride on Lake McDonald. It felt nice just being on the water and enjoying the sunshine. I can’t wait to see what else the Bird Hawk can handle.
We left Glacier late afternoon and headed west for Vancouver, but ended up staying in the weirdest place in the world.