Day 8 - Friday, September 14^th

On the way to Glacier National Park

Brrrr. And I thought I was cold last time I stayed here! No wonder why I haven’t seen any mosquitoes around because this time, as Jerry and I woke up, we were in an ice cave – literally... The inside of the windows and the ceiling of the topper were all frosted over with a good layer of ice. We could barely scrape the ice off it had frozen over so hard. Jerry’s wrist watch, which included a barometer and a thermometer, had during the night read somewhere around 27°F, which meant that outside it had probably gotten as low or even lower than 20°F. The Cat’s Meow, a 20°F synthetic sleepingbag, had not kept me quite warm enough during the night, so now we were off in search of a warm spot to cook some hot breakfast!

                Jerry and I stopped by Lake Louise early in the morning. We were some of the first visitors there – even before the sun! It was cold there so we did not stay too long. Next lake was Lake Morraine. It was fun to visit there again. Jerry and I crawled on top of the huge pile of boulders and rocks that had accumulated at the end of the lake. Jerry with his black pants and blue jacket was all camouflaged against the blue and grey toned rocks – “Find Henry”.

                What a beautiful visit it had been here in Banff Nat. Park. I am so sad to leave, as I will miss the mountains here and all the exciting nature, well, I guess that will just have to be a good excuse to come back again another time.

                On our way to the Canadian/US border we stopped by our favorite (and only one) in fort McLeod, where we had good pizza and beer.

                How many miles can we go on yellow? The little yellow light indicating low fuel levels had been on for a while now, enough to where I started to get a little antsy out here among all the cow pastures and hay fields. “Don’t worry” said Jerry, we can go at least 60 miles on that light. What really worried me about that statement was, we were now past the point where the crows had turned around! Sitting very still in my seat I quietly counted the miles, 20, 30, 40, now starting to sweat a little, 50, go slow Jerry, it will give us better gas miles, 60 miles, here is the border but still no gas station.

                At least we reached the border. Today was the 14^th and tomorrow my passport would have expired on the 15^th. The border patrol officer was really friendly – and I thought really nice especially as he let me back into the US, contrary to what Jerry had hoped for! Only one thing better than being back home in the US was –a gas station one mile down the road. We pulled, in filled up, and breathed out again, no longer worried about the little yellow fuel light. I wouldn’t mind if I never had to see that light again on this trip.

                It was only 18:30 so we decided to go on to Cuttbank, MT. It was late before we drove through the town. There was no safe place to pull over and spend the night, so we looked around for a campground. A sign showing an RV park was all we could find. One sign after the other led us deeper into the neighborhoods, this can’t be right we both thought, then through an area that looked more like an industrial area, and right behind a huge building we find this little RV park. A tiny building was the office and I believe the Teepee was the bathroom. Everything was closed so we just crawled in our sleeping bags and called it a day.