MONTANA to ILLINOIS
Sep. 2-5 2010
PART 3
This part continues my coverage of Glacier National Park in Montana. This looks like the parking lot for the visitor center where they wouldn't let us park - thus preventing us from using it. They had to make room for all the oversized SUV's, I guess.
More mountain scenery from Going-to-the-Sun Road.
Note how the road runs along the side of the mountain.
Another tunnel!
This is Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, obviously.
Another view of the mountain and road.
More mountain scenery.
This is Mitchell Glacier. Like other glaciers in this park, human-made climate change is melting it at a strikingly rapid pace. Seventy-five percent of the ice that existed in 1850 is already gone. And when it's gone, it's gone.
More scenery on (you guessed it!) Going-to-the-Sun Road.
And more!
This is St. Mary Lake, which signals the looming approach of the eastern exit of the park (near where an out-of-order urinal at a sandwich shop got peed in).
But we weren't done with Going-to-the-Sun Road yet!
Another view of St. Mary Lake.
Looking back west along St. Mary Lake.
And another view, looking east.
And still another, looking south or southeast.
By this point, we're almost out of the park - if not out of the park.
A final view of St. Mary Lake.
Flat land with mountains in the background.
Probably north on US 89 in St. Mary, MT. This is within Blackfeet Nation. I'm still not used to SPEED LIMIT 70 signs, but I guess I'm not used to a lot of things, like cell phones and the death of disco.
This is definitely US 89.
US 89 again!
That could be Chief Mountain, but once again, I'm not sure.
US 89 entering Babb, MT. Something rather interesting almost happened after Babb, but you'll have to wait until the next part.