Sea to Shining Sea
FALL 2021
“Canada: Living the American Dream without the violence since 1867.” Anon.
10/2/2021. We reluctantly had to leave Waterton Lakes today. It is such a beautiful place and everyone we met was so nice. We decided to make a final drive up to Red Rock Canyon before heading back to the US. We got up early for some nice morning light.
We’ve been on this road a few times now and are getting a sense of where the bears hang out. Spotter Sue came through again this morning. We saw a large black bear foraging through the huckleberries. This one was lighter in color than some of the others we’ve seen.
When we got to Red Rock Canyon there was hardly anyone there so I didn’t have to shoot around kids getting their toes wet. However, it would be a long time before the morning light hit the canyon.
Even Sponzi got into the whole Canada thing. He wanted to show solidarity with his Canuck Wood Ducks.
We headed back to the US and bid Canada adieu. Any trepidation we had about getting back into the US vanished the minute we hit the border. After all of the hoops we had to jump through to get into Canada we were ready for whatever the US border guard needed. The maskless guy glanced at our passport and waved us through. We breathed a sigh of relief and pulled out our last two contraband Tim Horton doughnuts from under seat.
Our trip to West Glacier took us back through Browning on the Blackfoot reservation. We pulled into a gas station and Sue started hyperventilating. The pickup truck parked next to us at the pumps had antlers poking up above the walls of the truck bed. Sue went over to check it out and low and behold it was a moose! Shortly a young native woman dressed in full camo emerged from the store and approached Sue just beaming. She proudly told Sue that she had just killed the moose with a bow and arrow and proceeded to show it off for Sue. Only Sue could find a Blackfoot woman who had just killed a moose with bow and arrow. Sue was too respectful to ask to take a picture, but it was still a pretty cool moment for her, though not exactly the way she had planned on seeing a moose.
With a full tank we headed off for West Glacier. We took a slight detour down a short dirt road that led us to the Flathead River. Once you start walking along a mountain river it is hard to stop because you always want to see what’s around the next bend.
After the rivers in our area that have mud bottoms and ice tea colored water from tannins, it was refreshing to see the rock bottomed Flathead flowing with clear water from springs and snow melt.
We eventually made it to West Glacier which was a LOT more commercial than East Glacier. There were shops and lots of lodging. Sue welcomed the opportunity for a little retail therapy. All of the guide books say that you must go to Lake McDonald for sunset. Not being ones to argue with local knowledge we headed out. We found a good place to hang out on the lake shore and waited. We were just about to give up on it when all of the sudden the magic started to happen.
Have I mentioned how much I hate what this site does to colors? These sunset pictures both have beautiful pinks in them which this site turns to bleh. The only solution I can think of to remedy the situation is for all of you optimists to continue to view all of my sunrise/sunset pictures through rose colored glasses.