Glacier National Park - My Happy Place

It's been a while since my last blog and the winter doldrums (and this disgusting mini-blizzard/all day long sleet crap we got today in Maryland) have me missing my happy place.  We've been to Glacier National Park in Montana three times.  You can read about the most recent time (summer 2016) here, here, and here, so this blog will recap the first two times we were there.

It's no secret that Glacier National Park is my favorite, and I don't think any other park will ever change that.  It's not just its breathtakingly beautiful scenery, but (and this is hard to explain), I feel a connection to it.  If you ever have a chance to go there, which I highly recommend, you will not be able to use your phone.  You'll be lucky if you can connect to the weak wifi in the lodges and there are no TVs in the rooms.  You are forced to take the park in without any distraction and it's a wonderful, liberating feeling.  Even though all three times Steve and I have been there we have been "Go! Go! Go!" every waking moment, I truly do relax.  Except for when we ran into a bear on the trail - that was terrifying.  But I call it my happy place, because simply put, I don't worry about anything there (other than bears, which I already covered).  John Muir once said about Glacier that it is "the greatest care-killing scenery on the continent."  Mr. Muir was no liar!

The first time we went to Glacier was in August 2014.  We went with our friends Jamie and Craig who are also co-workers of mine.  This was so fun going on a trip with them because Jamie and Craig are up to doing any kind of adventure and they do it without any fear which is inspiring to me because I'm a very timid person.  Jamie had just turned 30 so we kicked off the trip with a yummy dinner and beer in small glasses at Tamarack Brewing Company, which is about an hour outside of the park.  I will never forget Craig's face when he saw just how many beers in small glasses made up the two samplers.  We now make it a tradition to stop here every time we go to Glacier.

Tamarack Brewing - there are two samplers here, and it was a lot of beer

Craig's reaction to the beers!

 Our first glimpse of the park was just after sunset at Lake McDonald, by the Lake McDonald Lodge.  This was the first moment I laid eyes on the park and it did not disappoint.  The four of us skipped the red and turquoise rocks for a little while into Lake McDonald and then headed to our hotel for the evening.

Our first look at Lake McDonald (it was very windy!)

The next morning at the sign (note the beginning of Craig & Jamie climbing things)!  :-)

We started the next day with our first hike in the park to Running Eagle Falls, also called Trick Falls.  Running Eagle Falls is a waterfall that comes out of rock year round, but early in the spring season, the snow melt also causes a temporary waterfall over top of it.  Sadly, we've never seen the "trick" part of it, but we will someday.  Running Eagle Falls is a very easy hike to do - it's flat and very short (half-mile one-way at most).  Here's a quick funny story about what I meant by Craig and Jamie having no fear.  Steve and I are very content to stare at a waterfall from a platform.  Craig and Jamie take it to a new level by navigating the rocks to get up close and personal with the waterfall!  We found ourselves throughout the trip asking where Craig and Jamie were and inevitably we'd find them scaling a waterfall somehow.

The group at Running Eagle Falls

Running Eagle Falls - and Craig & Jamie climbing (I do like how they give scale perspective though!)

After Running Eagle, we tried to do a few hikes in the Two Medicine area of the park, but most of the trails were closed due to bear activity.  We settled with getting some huckleberry froyo at the gift shop.  Steve dropped us off at the Rising Sun Motor Inn on the east side of the park so we could drop off our stuff and so Steve could head up to Waterton, Canada, to get our boat tickets for the next day.  Steve was the lucky one and saw a grizzly on the way back to Glacier, but all Craig, Jamie, and I saw was a deer.  Craig, Jamie, and I went to Sunrift Gorge and hiked to Baring Falls while Steve was on his adventure.

Craig & Jamie climbing on things at Sunrift Gorge

Craig & Jamie climbing to Baring Falls (again, I like the scale perspective)

The next day we drove up to Waterton, Canada, to catch a boat that took us back into the US so we could get to Goat Haunt in Glacier.  The reason we did this trip was so we could get the Goat Haunt stamp and go through the least stressful customs process ever - we literally signed a piece of paper, showed our passport, and then we hiked to Kootenai Lakes where we were supposed to see a bunch of moose, but we weren't that lucky.  The hike itself was really nice and a very flat 3 miles.  We enjoyed our lunch at the lake and then headed back to do another quick hike to Rainbow Falls, which are really more like a cascade.  It's another easy hike though and only about a mile and a half round-trip.  After that we boarded the boat to head back home.  On the way home, there were reports of seven different bear sightings on one of the scenic drives.  Steve, Jamie, and Craig wanted nothing more than to see a bear, so we did the drive and saw nothing but deer again.

The group at Kootenai Lakes

Waterton Lake

Rainbow Falls

The last day there, we went to the Many Glacier area where we took the boat ride on Swiftcurrent Lake and Lake Josephine to cut off some mileage for the Grinnell Lake hike.  That hike is another easy hike and about 3 miles round-trip (I think...).  Even if you don't want to do the hike, at least take the boat ride on Lake Josephine.  Lake Josephine is a hidden spot in the park, but so pretty.  Also, you have a pretty good view of one of the very few remaining glaciers - Salamander Glacier.  Hurry up and get there if you want to see a glacier because they'll be gone by 2020 (give or take a year or two).

Grinnell Lake

Lake Josephine - Salamander Glacier to the right

We ended our time in Glacier by driving from the east side of the park all the way back to Spokane, but we did so by driving all of Going-to-the-Sun Road, which is the most beautiful stretch of 50-some miles of road I've ever seen.  We made several stops along the way for pictures, including spending a lot of time in Logan Pass where we watched some bighorn sheep and mountain goats.

Black bear

Bighorn

Goats!

Fast forward a year when Steve and I flew to Seattle and drove all around Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon.  In that trip, we had to stop at my happy place for a few days.  Our first full day in the park was supposed to be on the west side, but when we looked at the weather, we saw that it was supposed to rain the last day of our trip and we had a 10-mile round-trip hike to Iceburg Lake planned that day.  So we changed our plans to hike to Iceburg Lake our first day while we had nice weather.  We were fortunate to catch the ranger-led hike, which made me feel a little more comfortable with a crowd of about 20 and a ranger with us through grizzly country.  The hike to Iceburg Lake is hard.  The beginning and the end are uphill, but the middle is relatively flat.  The nice thing is, on your five miles back, it's downhill or flat.  Even though it's a tough hike, Iceburg Lake is definitely worth it, and the hike itself is an excellent taste of Glacier's beauty.  After the hike, we had to have huckleberry ice cream...duh.  :-)

On the Iceburg Lake hike

Iceburg Lake - it doesn't get a lot of sun year-round here, which is why there are mini iceburgs

The next day was probably my most favorite day in this park out of all three times we've been there. We got up early and went to Logan Pass to hike the trail to Hidden Lake Overlook.  This is a 3-mile round-trip hike, but the way to the overlook is entirely uphill.  The overlook itself is typical Glacier providing lackluster views (I hope you can see for yourself in the picture below that that sentence is laced with sarcasm).  But while on the hike, we ran into a herd of mountain goats, with babies, that just let us watch them be mountain goats.  I could have stayed there forever.  When we got back to the parking lot we ran into a herd of bighorns which were fun to watch for a while too.  We spent our last night in the park at the Many Glacier Hotel where Steve splurged and got us a room with a balcony overlooking my most favorite spot in the park.  I highly recommend staying here for a night so you can take in the view.  We enjoyed some wine for a little bit on our balcony until a storm came rolling through so we called it a night.

And that's Glacier, my happy place.  If you're ever planning a trip here, let me know and I'll help you plan where to go...or I may just tag along.

Hidden Lake Overlook

Goats!

Baby goat!

Bighorn sheep

Black bear that we saw earlier in the day

My most favorite view from the Many Glacier hotel

Big Cypress National Preserve - 12/30/2016

This will be the last blog post of 2016, which brings me to our last park of the National Park Service's Centennial year.  We ended our Florida trip by briefly returning to the Everglades for an airboat ride.  This has been a bucket list item for me, and it was fun!  Initially I was let down because I was expecting a narrated tour, which our company didn't do (although there are some that do that).  But after we went 40 miles an hour and did a couple 180-degree and 360-degree turns I stopped being let down and enjoyed the ride!  When our boat captain gunned it for the first time, it felt like we were flying and we were going into the wind so fast that I literally could not breathe or contain my laughter!  The bonus was, we actually did two airboat rides - one was through the mangrove trees (which we learned a lot about at Biscayne) and the second ride was through the sawgrass (which is what I think of when I think of airboats in the Everglades).  We didn't see much wildlife on the first ride because it was quite chilly (low 60's) and the gators don't really find that to be comfortable, being cold-blooded and all.  The second ride, we did see a few gators.  I highly recommend doing an airboat ride if you are ever in the Everglades, and there are companies all over the place there, so you can really take your pick.

Airboat Ride

On the first airboat ride through the mangroves (we were flying here!)

Parts of the airboat ride were through curvy parts of the water - they still went pretty fast while navigating all the twists and turns!

Gator while on the sawgrass airboat ride

We caught this gator eating breakfast on the sawgrass airboat ride

After the airboat ride, we headed over to Big Cypress National Preserve, which brings our total park count to 226.  This park is a lot like Congaree in South Carolina or Big Thicket in Texas - it's basically a swamp.  If you have never been to a swamp, you probably have the same assumption I did about swamps - they're brown, ugly, smelly, etc.  Well, the smelly part is sometimes true, but swamps really are pretty!  I was blown away by Congaree and we were there in the winter when the leaves had already fallen, so everything really was brown - but it's one of my favorite parks.  Big Cypress was just as pretty as Congaree and this time, there was a lot more green to look at since it's Florida in wintertime.  My only complaint about this park is that on the scenic drives, which are dirt roads, there aren't really any places to stop and see it.  If you're like us, you make spaces on the side of the road to stop occasionally, but I'm not sure how frowned upon that is.

Us at Big Cypress (see the gator in the background?)

While driving to a different part of the park, we stumbled upon the smallest post office in the US!

Another Purple Gallinule

See, swamps are pretty!  (Actually, the pictures don't really do it justice)

How many gators do you see?

And that's a wrap on 2016 parks for us!  I hope the first year of our blog has inspired you to find your park in 2017!  Happy New Year to our readers!

Dry Tortugas National Park

We had a lot of fun today exploring Dry Tortugas.  In order to get there, you need to board a ferry in Key West, FL and spend 2 and a half hours on this ferry going through the 70 miles of open water before arriving at Fort Jefferson.  Fort Jefferson was built on Garden Key between the 1840's and 1870's and was actually never completed.  What's amazing about this fort is that it is built with over 16 million bricks - which are not found on the island - they were brought there!

Fort Jefferson as we entered Dry Tortugas

Walking around the moat

Inside the fort

When we first got to the park, we walked the .6 mile moat walk loop.  This takes you around the perimeter of the fort, where the water is clear enough that you can see some of the plants and fish.  After the moat walk, we had a 20-minute intro to the fort and then we walked around it ourselves.  We found Dr. Mudd's cell, which was neat to see.  Dr. Mudd is the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it from jumping from the balcony at the theater where he assassinated President Lincoln.  He was sentenced to life in prison at Fort Jefferson, but because of his help with the yellow fever epidemic, Andrew Jackson pardoned him after four years.

Dr. Mudd's cell

After the fort, we grabbed lunch on the boat and then Steve snorkeled around the fort and I caught some rays on the beach, taking a dip in the water to cool off every once in a while.

Snorkeling

Of course he takes a snorkeling selfie (I asked Steve to add the pictures tonight, so of course this one is chosen)

Snorkeling

The way back to Key West turns into a booze cruise!

Biscayne National Park - 12/28/2016

We spent all day today in Biscayne National Park.  I had high hopes that we would see a manatee here, but we didn’t.  We got to the Visitor Center just before 9:00 when they opened.  There is a ¼-mile trail that walks along the marina and the bay that we strolled along before the VC opened.  We spent a little bit of time in the VC and then boarded a boat through Island Dreamer to head over to Adams Key.  Biscayne is a unique park in that when you get to the VC on the mainland, that’s really all you can do on the mainland.  In order to see the park, you need to go across the bay to the islands, which are really the start to the Florida Keys.  We did the boat ride that takes you out all day.  Once we docked at Adams Key, we had a little bit of time to eat lunch and then the group of us from the boat either got in a kayak (us) or on a paddle board.  Captain Hans took us through a loop of the bay through the mangroves to a lagoon and then a small place to snorkel.  Steve snorkeled, but there was so much dirt kicked up from the other people swimming that he really didn’t see anything.  At one point while I was alone in the kayak, I crashed into a mangrove and found a land crab which was neat to see.  Neither of us got a picture of it though, oops.  While heading back into the boat, we just missed sightings of a sea turtle and a 3-foot shark.

Kayak selfie!

Kayaking through mangroves

Baby mangrove tree

Even though our water adventures didn’t give us a good showing of wildlife, we did find something interesting at Adams Key.  As we were docking, Captain Hans pointed out two rafts of Cuban refugees.  They were only about half a football field away from where we docked, so we went to check them out.  Steve and I agreed this had a creepy vibe to it, because these refugees made these rafts out of whatever material they could find.  The more interesting of the two was made out of newspaper and resin.  We asked how long they have been there and I was fully expecting him to tell me these were from decades ago, but one was from October and the other one was from two weeks ago!  He said people are still attempting to come over from Cuba in record numbers!

After our boat ride, we worked our way down to Key West.  Along the way we stopped at Florida Keys Brewing Company (recommended by Captain Hans) and we were very impressed with their beers!

Everglades National Park

Today was our first day in Florida and we spent it in Everglades National Park.  We got to the Shark Valley area around 11:00 am and the soonest tram tour we could get on was the noon tour.  While waiting for the tour to start, we did the quick .2 mile boardwalk loop near the Visitor Center.  When we first started out, we spotted several juvenile alligators.  Juveniles are about 3 or more years old and that's when the mother separates from them so that they don't eat her new hatchlings each year.  Fun fact that I learned today - the sex of alligators are determined by the temperature of the eggs while in the nest.  If the eggs are 90 degrees or warmer, they will be males.  If the eggs are less than 90 degrees, then they will be females.

Juvenile alligators

The Tram Tour is a two-hour tour that goes through a 15-mile loop through the Shark Valley area of the Everglades.  This tour was awesome!  It was a great introduction to the park, the ecosystem, and the abundant wildlife.  The Everglades isn't exactly what I would call a scenic park, unless you enjoy looking at sawgrass for miles, but what makes this park awesome are all the birds and gators!  I'm not even a bird person, but the birds here are much more interesting than what you can find in Maryland and we even had a few rare sightings today.

Sleepy gator

Great Blue Heron

I think this is a Tri-Colored Heron

Wood Stork - these were close to extinction in the early 2000's, but they've made a significant comeback.  They've been downgraded to a threatened species.

Rare sighting, because these guys are usually only seen at night (Black-Crowned Night Heron)

 

Anhinga

Super tiny baby gators - not pictured was the mother next to them

Another rare sighting - a Purple Gallinule - these are nicknamed the "Jewel of the Everglades."

Fresh kill!

After the tour, we drove to two other Visitor Centers in the park so we could get our stamps.  At the Flamingo Visitor Center, we stopped to walk around the marina where there usually are manatee sightings, however we were not so lucky.  I keep telling Steve I'm not leaving Florida until I see a manatee.  Hopefully we have some luck tomorrow while we are in Biscayne National Park.

We ended the night with dinner at Titanic Brewing.  Both the food and the beer were mediocre, with their Nut Brown being their best beer.

Titanic Brewing Company Sampler

Birthday Stamp - Hampton National Historic Site - 10/22/2016

When we drove across the country in 2012, it worked out that we were at the Jefferson Expansion National Monument (aka the St. Louis Arch) on July 12, which is Steve’s birthday.  Steve felt the need to gloat to me the entire drive home (which lasted 2 more days) about how he had a birthday stamp and I didn’t.  If you know me, you know that my competitive instincts kicked right in.  If you don’t know me, just know that this was killing me inside and Steve darn well knew it too.

We have the rule that we can’t go to a new park (or get the stamp) without the other one of us there as well.  So Steve’s gloating sort of backfired.  There is one National Historic Site about a half hour away from our house – it’s the closest park site to us.  For a few years now, we have had all sites in the mid-Atlantic region done, except for just this one in our home state.  I was never going to agree to go until we could go on my birthday.  This created a problem because with Steve being a teacher, we couldn’t go on October 22^nd until it was on a Saturday, which finally happened this year!  I had to endure four years of Steve’s gloating about this stamp, but it is worth it to finally have a birthday stamp (#222 on 10/22!), and I get the last laugh because it was in the National Park Service’s centennial year, which made it extra special for me!

That story aside – Hampton National Historic Site is a beautiful house dating back to the early generations of the Ridgley family.  They were filthy rich through the iron industry, and their wealth was prominently displayed throughout the home.  I should have written this blog sooner than I am now because I’m forgetting some of the facts already, but I think it took 7 years to build this massive house.  Hampton also has a bit of a dark history to it, although unconfirmed, about the mistreatment of their slaves.  We did a volunteer-led tour which was very interesting and the lady knew her stuff about the large Ridgely family.  It was hard to keep them all straight, but it helped that we would end up in the main hall with the pictures of the family members when she was switching gears to another branch of their tree!  All told, this was another interesting park site with a great tour!