West Yellowstone/Glacier National Park

Okay, so this post is going to be incredibly long. Sorry. If you don't want to read it then don't. Anyway, so I had guessed a couple of days before that Mom and I were going to Glacier. Finally on Monday, she told me where we were going. We headed up to West Yellowstone on Tuesday (after having lunch at TGI Fridays in IF --Vanilla Bean Cheesecake!!). On our way up it was partly cloudy until we were a little ways past Ashton (I can't remember when). This is when it started clouding up and the temperature dropped significantly. We checked into our hotel and walked across the street to the IMAX theatre. We shopped for a little while and saw the "Yellowstone" IMAX movie. It was incredible--my first IMAX experience. Once we got out of the movie it was snowing! On the tenth of June!! We did a little more shopping at the little shops down the road and ate at a place called "Petes" (it's an Italian restaurant). We walked around for a little while before going to the Playmill Theatre to see "Oklahoma!". I have to admit that when I walked in...I wasn't expecting much. The stage was tiny and the seating was really close up. The actors were all ushers and they would hop up on stage and provide some pre-show entertainment (singing, dancing, jokes). Once the show started...I loved it!! They did such an incredible job!

The next day (Wednesday) we packed up the car and headed for Glacier National Park. It was raining and snowing almost the entire way up there (we had a few breaks in the clouds). There is a cut-off that would have shaved about an hour and a half off of our trip that we would have taken if the weather hadn't been so nasty. As it was, it took us about 8 hours to get to Glacier from West Yellowstone. The scenery wasn't much to look at because it was all covered with low cloud cover. In fact, as we got closer to the park, I began to wonder where the park was! The mountains were completely covered with clouds! We finally got to our hotel (Glacier Lodge) and were a little disappointed. It is a really old hotel (the rooms are weird, floors squeak, no elevator). We had our massages that night (I got the hot rock massage and mom got a hand massage). It was nice, but painful. I thought she was going to dislocate my shoulder at some points. It loosened up my neck for a few hours, but I still have a really bad pain near my shoulderblade. She said that I was too tense and that she thinks I have knots all along that muscle that hurts so much. Great. Anyway, the hotel kind of grew on me. Of course, the pyro that I am...the main turning point for me was the fireplace. There was a huge fireplace that people just pulled their chairs up to and sat around. It was really nice.

The next day (Thursday) Mom and I went on the Red Bus tour. The busses that they use are from the 1930's. A few years ago they had them completely rebuilt. The body of the bus is made of wood and it's covered in a soft aluminum. Oh, it also runs on propane. Anyway, starting off we could see some breaks in the clouds and hoped for the best. Our first stop was still cloudy, but there was no rain or snow. Eventually it cleared up and we were able to get some pretty incredible views of the park. We saw a Saab commercial being shot around one of the tight mountain curves. Nuts. I thought it was funny that the Saab was being filmed by a Mercedes. Hahaha. Anyway, we had a good time.

On Friday morning we woke up around 5:30 and got on the road by about 7:00. We took the cut-off this time, so the trip to West Yellowstone only took about 6 hours or so. On our way I looked to the west and saw the incredible mountain views that we missed on the way to the park. It's crazy how clouds can cover that. I really liked the Playmill so I had told Mom that we should go back that night. She wanted to just check to see if they had tickets once we got there instead of calling dad for a phone number. Once we were in the car I spotted a phone number for them on my water bottle (they sell water in Playmill theatre bottles). I called, bought some tickets, and we were set for the 8:30 show of "See How They Run". We ended up in W.Yellowstone around 1 or 1:30 and walked to the IMAX to see when the movie on "Lewis and Clark" was showing. It was at 7, so we decided to go to the Bear and Wolf Recovery Center (something like that) and saw a presentation on Jewel the bear dog. If you want to know what a bear dog is, let me know. We also walked around and saw the wolves and bears. I love bears so it was fun to see them so close up. After that we went and bought some fudge, ate lunch, had a stagecoach ride, walked to the IMAX and then walked over to the Playmill. We hung around for a little while (we were there a little early) before the show started. It was really funny, but I liked "Oklahoma!" better. I guess I enjoy musicals a little more than plays.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I can think of our trip right now, if I think of anything else I'll let you know. Oh, and GO TIGER!