BEST DAY YET! (and longest)

We left our hotel in Kalispell and headed toward West Glacier.

After stopping in at the Alberta Welcome Center located there, we drove into the park.

I’m going to go ahead and warn you about the number of photos included in this post, but it was just such a “photo-worthy” day!

Avalanche Creek

Headed into the West Tunnel

Love a man in a uniform! Yes, even a park ranger. 😉

For those of you who have asked (and you know who you are) I have not thrown Paul off a cliff yet. This is my photographic evidence.

Can you see the Triple Arches? It’s amazing when you think about the engineering work involved in putting this road through Glacier National Park in the 1920-30s.

Lunchtime view. 😊

This is how we survive on the road… snack box. Enough said.

From inside the East Tunnel

Jackson Glacier

We exited Glacier at St. Mary and headed north, toward Canada! Here’s a note for future travel… when passing through Native American land beware of cattle on the road. Please mooooooove out of the road!

Chief Mountain-near the Canadian border

A few words about crossing the border into Canada… it was really no big deal. A few questions but more “have a nice day, eh” than when we returned. More on that later. Here are a few pics from the Port of Chief Mountain.

Oh Canada!… (that’s all I know). But I DO know the names of all the Canadian provinces and territories. ☺ Do you?

Waterton Lakes National Park

Prince of Wales Hotel

We got gas (or would that be petrol?) at Pat’s

Waterton is precious! I would love to take one of these bike contraptions to Cade’s Cove in the Smoky’s.

Prince of Wales hotel from Waterton

Just outside of Waterton (still in the park) we rode down Red Rock Parkway and guess what we finally saw! Two black bears! (I know, one is black and the other is brown but they are both technically “Black” bears)

Time was moving along and we had to beat it back to the border crossing before it closed at 6pm!!

The U.S. Customs official did a great job, we were proud. Nice guy but did a thorough job. Checked our passports, ran our license tag, even double checked what Paul did for a living. (Big Brother knows everything! Lol)

It was getting late but we couldn’t pass up the chance to check out Many Glacier Hotel. And I’m so glad we did. Hiker’s paradise. THIS is where I want to stay next time on a hiking trip!!

And check out the back porch!!

We headed back to base camp (Kalispell) but got caught for a moment in cow country.

It was very late by the time we got to our room but we wouldn’t have missed a thing! Best day yet!! Looking forward to more adventures. (And getting to the next hotel by game time! Geaux Tigers!!)