A Bend in the Road

Vivian here.

We woke up to a gentle snow shower. Phil had the stove fired up and the coffee brewed before I got dressed, reminding me of so long ago in Denver when he was called the "Breakfast King." He outdid himself for the last big breakfast with bacon, eggs, and gargantuan pancakes with trail mix and bananas for topping plus orange juice and coffee. I'm happy to say we're finishing up things in our larder pretty well.

I had an encounter with Phil's Blackberry trying to email my friend Ruth about the Dudamel concert at Disney Hall that she has tickets too. Downtown L.A. seems more than a million miles from here. Anyway, after many false starts and interrupting Phil from his writing once or twice, I finally managed to get the message to her that I couldn't make it. The manager of the place stopped by to say he had to "clear the sprinklers" and we went down to general store while he did his work. Turns out he had to plow through our pile of dirty clothes to get to the crawl space. Oops!

We did a circuit of the towns on the outskirts of Glacier National Park under a gray sky that occasionally sputtered out a little snow. At last, we glimpsed the much touted Flathead Lake and it is every bit as big as everyone promised us it would be. Bigfork is very self consciously prettified and clustered around a bay. We also happened by Eagle Rest, the premiere golf destination of Montana. Coincidence? You be the judge.

We cruised through Kalispell again and got a better sense of the layout. The old downtown has its charms but it's surrounded by a sprawl of franchises. Then we headed up to Whitefish and had a slice of pizza at Downtown Pizzeria and some coffee at Montana Coffee Traders. Whitefish is certainly not as developed at Kalispell, but it has enough business not to seem depressed.

I can feel myself pulling away from this place, wondering if I'll ever pass this way again. Its beauty is compelling but also remote and well sad. It makes our little human plans and schemes seem so petty.

A Dream of the West Fulfilled

We stopped in at the park headquarters this morning to find out what road conditions lay to the east. The ranger, a dapper older gentleman who held court for all the tourists, said, "You're in Montana. You're on your own up here." I was looking for something a bit more reassuring than that, so when we stopped for gas I saw a bakery goods delivery man and asked him if he had come from the East. He said no, but he said that travelling in that direction, "you might run into a squiff but the county's been out so it should be all right." I kept wondering what a "squiff" was but since it didn't sound serious we headed East again. There was snow on the road but the sky was clear so we sailed through to East Glacier about 56 miles away.

We had talked with a woman back in West Glacier who claimed she had been in East Glacier and had seen five bears and some long horn rams. Vivian was chaffing about this and said she seen one bear five times, or had seen a picture of five bears. Still, as we stepped out of the car in East Glacier the old fear of grizzlies set in. We were amazed by the view at the Two Medicine Lake where a spire of stone stood in front of us, across the lake, cloaked in clouds. When the view cleared the mountain looked draped in frost like some huge chocolate cake with white icing. Vivian said it looked surreal, like something from the Lord of the Rings movies.

We took a short hike to Paradise Point (through grizzly country) and stood on the shore admiring the view. We met two young women from Michigan who were on a cross country trip. They said that while hiking the previous day they had heard an ear-piercing scream which they were later told was a mountain lion. We hiked back and felt frozen in the 30-degree temperature. Since we had skipped lunch we had pie and coffee in a small diner in West Glacier which was run by two young guys who seemed like they didn't have enough to do. One was quite talkative and told me he had dropped out of University of Montana at Missoula (Go Grizz!) after discovering hiking and climbing. He said he had climbed 60-70 peaks in Glacier National Park and had seen all the wildlife that people like to talk about including a wolverine. Mostly, though, he spent most of his time, "trying not to fall on my head."

On the drive home we stopped by a stream to photograph the mountains which kept appearing unexpectedly above closer ridges. It was a sunny afternoon, very still, and I scrambled down to a riverbed of smooth stones. The river wandered away toward the mountains and a type of duck I didn't recognize was bathing in a pool of water. Across the river was a stand of golden aspen and a sunlit meadow. The scene in the still afternoon fit my childhood dream of the north woods which I had pictured so long ago, lying in my bed on Everett Street, staring up at a map of the United States on my bedroom wall.

Day One - Traveling to Missoula

Day 1 October 1, 2009

The first day of our 30th wedding anniversary trip to Glacier started at 5:30 a.m. We ate breakfast, then Drew and Tony drove us to LAX. The drive is my normal route to work only I wasn't going to the office! I was going to somewhere far more exotic: Glacier National Park.

At the airport the line for security was so long they had to pull us out of it to make our flight. Once onboard the captain announced that they got a "status message" that had to be checked out. We returned to the gate and the mechanics came back to install some part. It was funny because I seemed to be in vacation mode and not worrying much about anything. Vivian was worried that I worried though. That's the way things go in a good marriage.

Finally, the captain announced that everything was fine and we were ready for "push back" (I love pilot jargon and use it whenever I feel confident). We flew to Denver and had plenty of time to make the connection. We gave Kevin a quick call from the airport even though we can call him from anywhere at anytime anyway (a lot of "anys"). He was in Boulder for a meeting and a lunch. It made me feel closer to him just being in "his" airport.

We took a small jet to Missoula and flew over miles of snowy mountains. It looked so remote as I caught glimpses through the clouds. At one point I thought I saw the Grand Tetons in the distance. We began to descend and started banking and flew down a long valley into Missoula. As we stepped off the jet, rays of sunlight were slanting through the clouds and it looked idyllic.

We took a cab to our hotel (we'll get the car tomorrow) and the cabbie said he was originally from Dallas but hadn't been back there since he had "so many memories I cherish" and he didn't want to disturb them.

The hotel was great but we wanted to get out and explore so we walked into the downtown area. It was cold. But the walking was invigorating. We walked across a long bridge to the U of M area (Go Grizz!) and on an impulse stepped into an Italian restaurant for dinner. Halfway through dinner the man at the next table turned to Vivian and said, "Excuse me, but are your meatballs as good as they look?" This unfortunately broke the ice and he began telling us that they, too, were celebrating their anniversary, although it was only their 4th. We had trouble returning to our private conversation and even saw them again later on the streets!

We walked back through downtown which was pretty sleepy by this time. We saw the headquarters for Sen. Max Baucus who is a big health care critic. We later found that a smoking ban in bars had just begun so some patrons were on the sidewalks puffing away (one resourceful company is planning to build "butt huts" to keep smokers from freezing). Back in the hotel, I konked out and slept for eight hours without waking up once. I guess I really needed this vacation.