Going to the Sun in a crowd!

Ok - I admit the last two were in planted gardens at a lodge!

Again, today we saw beautiful scenery.  More beautiful than one can reasonably count on seeing more than once in a lifetime.  And so did thousands of other people.  I loved every eye-stretching minute of it, but the experience is different when you are in an eternal line of vehicles rather than the remote country we previously enjoyed.  The highway itself is actually only 40 miles long, but it takes about three hours to drive.  The road is narrow and limited to vehicles under 21 feet.  Many places are right next to rock cliffs so close to the road, you could swear the rocks are sneaking up on you.  And there were bumps and dips to rival Yukon roads.  We first drove around the Southern boundary of the park, and then crossed through it.  Along the boundary there are several ranches tucked in valleys between the foothills that are nestled in spectacular scenery.  And cows are grazing in the grassland and forests in many places.  We stopped at a couple of the old lodges built in the early 1900s.  One had beams made of old growth tree trunks.  I am sure that it will last another five centuries at least.  And we saw lots of flowers.  As you looked over grasslands, you would see yellows, blues, oranges and reds from the flowers.  We got up into snow, but thankfully not on the roads.  I have posted an abundance of pictures.  Please keep in mind I had to select them from 196 pictures today.

When we got back to our camp, we learned that the camp owners operate a big barbeque pit on the weekends.  We had delicious ribs with sauce make with huckleberries (they have to be frozen, because they are not blooming yet!) and sat with some other campers.  We met a couple from Michigan who have not yet driven into the park.  They are quite nervous about it because of the size of mountains they saw on the way here.  I didn't have the heart to tell them that they haven't seen anything yet!  I hope they can relax and enjoy the beauty when they do go into the park.

bad roads in Montana too!

Car wash.

Small creek.

Dancing tree.

Look at the size of those beams!

These "buses" were everywhere.  They were made by the same company that made checkered cabs sometime in the 1930s.

Bored tourists pile rocks at the lodges.

Mountain sheep.

Wildlife crossing!