Posts Tagged With: rocky mountains

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK

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As you leave Browning traveling West, the Blackfeet Reservation has a Buffalo Preserve within  a mile or two of town.  After seeing so many stuffed buffalo heads it was reassuring to see a healthy herd of the beasts on the range.

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The Plains change dramatically as you enter  foothills of the Rocky Mountains, their peaks rising in front of you.

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The eagle eye perch of an old homestead kind of reminds us of what life used to be like in this wild country.DSC00398 (Copy)

Glacial rivers, so clear and clean, they reflect their surroundings.

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We camp at Camp Apgar, the west entrance to the park. The Going To The Sun Road Jim drove many years ago with his smallish motor home, is no longer accessible to Motor Homes. It takes you up over the Continental Divide and into Calgary, Canada if you choose to visit that part of the park. This is the beautiful and rustic MacDonald Lodge that sits next to MacDonald Lake. We set up camp, had lunch, and visited the lodge.

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I believe it was built in 1911, all of it from local materials.

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Each corner is held up by three giant cedar logs. The park has a trail where one can see some of these 500-year-old cedars.DSC00411 (Copy)

Lodge patrons enjoyed the pleasant heat from the giant fireplace.

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The Lodge has a totem but the plains tribes, the Native Americans that once lived and danced here, did not build totems.

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Directly behind the lodge is the boat ramp on Lake MacDonald. Blue, blue clean, clear water reflects the peaks.

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We bought tickets at $16.32 cents at the boat ramp. If it weren’t a National Park, that price would be double. Such a bargain. You can order your tickets and reserve ahead of time, as well. We moved away leaving a road-like water con trail on the still surface of the lake.  It made interesting abstracts on the water.DSC00437 (Copy)

A close-up of our wake.DSC00441 (Copy)

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Rivers erode in a V shape. The U shape tells you a glacier once sat here. There are only two glaciers left in the park.

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The boat carries us West toward the old  town of Apgar. Two horrible fires hit the park. The worst was in 2003 when the “new” fire wisdom was to let the fire burn out. It consumed 43,000 acres and nearly took the town of Apgar. DSC00462 (Copy)

At one time, all the burned trees would have been cut down. Now, scientists know the trees provide insect homes, draw birds and provide ground shade. Recovery is better and natural.

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Its kind of fun to concentrate on the ever-changing surface of reflective water, helped by an overcast sky.

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On the opposite side of the burn, high up on the peak, a crevice is eroding as water cascades down this slope during spring melt. The peak is also home to Dahl sheep and grizzleys.

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We head back to the dock.

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The light changes.

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The glacier cradle darkens.

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The burn regenerates.  Not all trees die in a burn. A few remain and help the recovery and some trees fall on their own.

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We return to the dock after a very pleasant hour on the lake the natives named, “Best Place For Dancing.”  The guide couldn’t say the Indian name, just the meaning.

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I DID see wildlife. This little ground squirrel popped up on our way back to the parking lot.

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Glacier National Park, Montana – Day 1

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 75 miles from Browning to Glacier National Park, Montana.

We continued traveling along U.S.Highway 2 West.

Here are some photos of pur trip along the way…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Approaching the Rocky Mountains…

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Getting closer…

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We unexpectedly came upon a herd pf Buffalo and no place to pull over. Mary grab her camera and shot this photo with her camera set on the wrong setting…

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I doctored it up as much as I could then decided…let’s really make this look like long ago, so I turned it into a black and white photo…

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After more than 1,000 miles of crossing the Great Plains where trees are few to be found, it felt a little strange to be among so many trees once again…

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Now in the Rockies, we ran alongside the Flathead River…

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We arrive at Glacier National Park…

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We ended up in a nice pull-thru site. No utilities at the individual sites. With our Golden Age Pass camping is $10 a night. We’ll be here for two nights…

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Here’s the usual dinette window photo…

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We drove the Bronco the about 10 miles to MacDonald Lodge…

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Mary really liked this table…

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Where we boarded this boat for a one-hour Ranger-narrated MacDonald Lake cruise…

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It’s so pretty here, it’s hard to take a bad photo…

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This was one of my funnest days ever as a photographer. I really enjoy shooting colors, reflections, shapes and patterns that result in abstracts. On land, everything remains static. On water, everything is constantly changing. Here are some of the photos taken during the cruise…

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To see the other 47 photos, you need to click the following Picasa Web Album Link. To fully appreciate the beauty here, I recommend you view with them in the slide show mode at full screen… https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/GlacierNationalParkMontanaDay1

To read all about this beautiful park, click this Wikipedia link… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_National_Park_%28U.S.%29

Here’s the official government website link… http://www.nps.gov/glac/index.htm

We will further explore the park today.

Yesterday was a decent day. 79 degrees…humidity still far to high. Today’s forecast 83 degrees. YUCKITTY!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying beautiful national parks is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Montana. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

USA1WG

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

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On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Browning, Montana

Yesterday I drove the motorhome the 35 miles from Cut Bank to Browning, Montana.

We continued traveling along U.S.Highway 2 West.

Along the way we saw our first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains about 50 miles distant. Look closely at the far horizon…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

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Browning holds a very interesting record… From January 23, 1916 to January 24, 1916, the temperature fell 100°F (56°C) from 44°F (7°C) to -56°F (-49°C). This is the United States and also the world record for the greatest temperature change in 24 hours.

Browning is also the largest community on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. You can read all about Browning by clicking this link… http://browningmontana.com/

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First stop was at the Museum of the Plains Indian. It was very interesting, but unfortunately it has a no photography policy. You can read about the museum by clicking their official website link… http://browningmontana.com/museum.html

But, in an adjourning two rooms were two displaying artists. First was…

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Here he shows some of his works…

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In the next room was…

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Then we walked across the street to the Blackfeet Heritage Center & Art Gallery which also has a no photography policy and you can read about by clicking their link… http://blackfeetnationstore.com/store/

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On duty in the gift shop was another artist happy to show me his work. John Isaiah Pepion has a website at http://pepionledgerart.com/

He does ink and oil-based colored pencil drawings on old ledger paper as a background…

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A closer look…

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Here are some other of his drawings…

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Despite the no photography policies of the two places, I still managed to get some nice photos of some great work and got to meet the artists as well!

We parked overnight in the lot behind the museum. This photo will also serve as a quasi for my usual dinette window photo as the view would be the same more or less…

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Yesterday was a decent day. 79 degrees…humidity still far to high. Today’s forecast 87 degrees. YUCKITTY!

We’ll continue our westward travel later this morning.

Enjoying Indian cultures is another joy in the life of a full-time RVer!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Montana. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

USA1BR

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures with low humidity most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

3E23M33J85Gb5Fc5M2cc4ab5610239cb71a2b

On October 27, 2012, I created a two-minute video titled America The Beautiful. The music America The Beautiful is by Christopher W. French. The photos, which I randomly selected, are from the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia (not shown in that order)…are mine. Yup, That’s me standing in front of the Post Office in Luckenbach, Texas…Y’all!

Click this link to start the video. Make sure you have your speakers turned on and go to full screen asap.
http://youtu.be/FfZUzEB4rM8

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Possible Maybe Becomes A Done Deal…

In my July 6th Blog entry I discussed reading the book(s) of William Least Heat-Moon. It was then that I described I had starting reading his last book River Horse and I was kind of struggling with his book(s) because of what I called an awkward writing style. At that time I classified my situation a “Possible Maybe” that I would actually finish reading that book.

Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that it was kind of both of our problem…he was a college English teacher and I have a basic high school English education. So, he has a much larger word vocabulary of larger words than I do. I’m an ex-engineer and numbers are my strong suit while English was my weakest subject. I remember telling my 10th grade English teacher…”You can’t give me a D…it’s the only language I know how to speak!” 🙂

Anyways…I’ve finally finished reading the book. It’s been 10 days…slow going…kind a lot like some of his river voyage across the interior of the United States.

Early on in the book he describes his excitement about floating on the rivers that have been in place for thousands of years…unlike any of the Blue Highways he traveled on his road trip. Later in the book crossing the Great Plains and approaching the Rocky Mountains…he expresses his frustration at how slow the going was…like they could have been walking faster than the headway they were making on water. As you might imagine…he details a wide variety of people he met and experiences along his way.

So, if you’ve got a large vocabulary and enjoy reading real-life travel stories…you’d probably enjoy this book. Was he succesful? Did he reach the Pacific Ocean? Sorry, I don’t give away book endings…you’ll just have to read the book to find out. 🙂

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2011
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://lulu.com/panamaorbust

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