June 4th continued:
We crossed the boarder at Roosville into Montana. We drove to Whitefish and found some good food and beer. Ahh, it felt good to eat real, non camping, food. We ate at Pecasdo Blanco. They had great fresh chips and salsa and tacos/burritos. We found a good campsite in Glacier National Park and were excited to drive the Road to the Sun.
Monday, June 5:
We woke up to learn the road was still closed due to snow, so drove as far in (16 miles) that we could and hiked up to Avalance Lake. It was a beautiful trail through cedar woods and next to Avalance creek. The lake was a shallow, calm lake fed by beautiful tall, long waterfalls.
We drove Southeast on 2 toward Helena and Livingston to see Matt and Jeanette. On the way, we went through the Blackfeet Reservation and stopped at the IGA to restock on food. We arrived at Matt and Jeanette's @7:30pm and we were excited to see familiar faces. They served us up some nummy elk burgers and we talked over beer and wine. We went for a walk along the yellowstone river and had much needed showers! We slept in their basement and had a great night sleep.
Tuesday, June 6:
We enjoyed breakfast in downtown Livingston at Pinky's cafe. Super good food and a cute and quaint downtown. We hit the road and drove across Montana and into North Dakota. 90-94....long, straight hwy. Broad ranch lands, buttes, painted canyons, rolling hills, rocky outcroppings. All fenced- lots of cows and some antelope.
We stopped in Theodore Roosevelt National Park and biked about 6 miles of the Maah Daah Hey single track trail. The singletrack is part of a 95 mile long trail. We started at Buffalo Gap campground and headed N. We had to pass through cow fences 2x to connect the trail- a first for all of us.
This marks the end of week 1. Each of us had a moment of reflecton:
Svea: "It hasn't been bad and I'm glad I don't know how to drive"
Sven: "This part is what we thought, ironning out what works/not with the van. Lots of ideas to fix in MN- upgrade to version 2.0 of vanhala coming up. The trip has been too heavy on the driving so far, we knew that would be the case. Maah Daah Hey added to Sven's bucket list."
Stephanie: "The van is great to sleep in, cook in, eat in and live in. We have seen beautiful scenery and the BC mountains have been my favorite, amazing! We have done a lot of driving, not enough time in the hammock reading. We are all getting along well and are having fun listening to the Stand. Driving has not been bad, in fact, it's been pretty easy to put on the miles"
