We had a couple more Glacier National Park adventures that I still need to post about, but I’m going to fast-forward to yesterday’s July 4th celebration.
Our friends, Dave and Lynn (fellow fulltimers from MI – Grand Rapids area), who we had first met back in the Redwoods and have crossed paths with several times, were also in the Glacier area this week.
We walked around town and enjoyed a pre-dinner ice cream cone.
They were staying just down the road from us, in Hungry Horse, and since their campground was having a fireworks display on the 4th, they invited us over for a BBQ and the fireworks.
Lynn wanted to host us for dinner, so she wouldn’t let us bring anything, but I did make the chocolate cake that I never got around to making for Nicolas’ birthday.
In the morning, though, we met our new neighbors, a fulltiming couple who are both retired from the Navy. They spent a couple hours talking with Tom and Nicolas, sharing many of their own experiences with him. Really nice people – nice to meet you, Bob and Dianne!
Later in the afternoon, we joined Dave & Lynn at their RV,
where we spent the afternoon visiting and sharing stories of life on the road. We had a great dinner, followed by a campfire, and then the fireworks display.
At 10:30, everyone gathered down by the pond to wait for the show to start.
The campground staff handed out 3D glasses to everyone – to enhance the fireworks – that was a new one for us!
They were shooting off the fireworks along the side of the pond, not very far from us,
and it felt like they were exploding right above our heads! In fact, we did have some bits of cardboard fall on us!
We’ve never been that close before, and it was a little unnerving!
They did a nice job with the display though, and it was very impressive!
We tried the 3D glasses for awhile (I took this picture through the glasses),
but that was just freaky – I felt like the fireworks were exploding right around my head!
It was bad enough that every once in a while, a firework would explode close to the ground and I would think of all the news reports you hear about fireworks shooting off in an unexpected direction and burning a bunch of people!
We were REALLY close!!
They finished the display without incident, though, and everybody was safe!
We headed home after that, and driving through the little town of Hungry Horse was another story! People were lined up along Hwy 2, and they must have been setting off fireworks in front of the Fire Station. By the time we drove through, the “official” display appeared to be over but people were running around, across the highway, and throwing fireworks everywhere! We had somebody throw one right in front of our car! It was crazy – we couldn’t get out of there quick enough!
Today was moving day for us, and it was time to continue our trek eastward. Our next destination is Bismarck, North Dakota, where we have a college visit scheduled on Wednesday. That’s 800 miles away, so we needed to plan for a couple of overnight stops along the way.
We’re taking Route 2 (also known as the Hi Line) all the way across Montana, and as soon as we put the mountains of Glacier National Park in our rear view mirror,
the road ahead of us was pretty much flat and covered with wheat!
We passed through the Blackfeet Indian Nation,
and several small towns,
until we reached today’s destination around 2pm.
We pulled into the Evergreen Campground (too bad it’s not a Passport America Park – it’s a really good candidate for PA), and got set up on site 6.
Tom and Nick washed the car (it had gotten pretty dirty driving on the Going-to-the-Sun Road),
and I did a couple loads of laundry.
There was a catholic church in town, so we went to mass tonight, then came home and had dinner, and now we’re settled in for the night.
Tomorrow is a longer travel day, and we’ll take Hwy 2 all the way to North Dakota for a Walmart overnight stop before dropping down to I-94 to get to Bismarck on Monday. We’re making progress!
Good thing the fireworks went off without a hitch.
ReplyDeleteSafe Travels and Enjoy!
It's about time.