Glacier Getaway Monday

Knee surgery again!  Winter sitting in my house and not being able to play in the snow at all.  3 plus weeks no work then back to work for awhile.  Spring break right around the corner and there was no way I was staying at home.  I love my home but I needed a break from it.  This was my plan.  Get in the car and drive with no plan except to end up at Dodger Stadium.  Sounded perfect to me.  I had the time off.  Mike didn't!  We started searching for a quick outing so I would not be a crazy person at home.  I stumbled on a Groupon for the Izaak Walton Inn in Glacier National Park.  We debated about the snow at Glacier.  Did we really want to do snow?   No decision was being made.  I got to thinking about our trip to Mt. Saint Helens a few years ago.  Lots of rain and we had a great time.  Let's go to Glacier.  Off we went for a short three night stay.  We left late and drove the roads in Idaho and Montana at dusk and at dark.  We dodged a lot of deer.  We figured we saw at least 200 deer on the way to Glacier.  No accidents occurred!  

The Great Northern Railway runs right behind the Inn.  They said there were as many as 30 trains a day depending on the day.  It was fun watching them go by while tooting their horn.  Of course we didn't see all of them because we spent our days exploring.  The railroad was definitely the theme of the inn.  Izaak Walton was an expert fly fisherman and had nothing to do with the railroad but the Inn was named after him.

 This was a great place to stay.  Built in 1939 and has remained the same since then.

 There was even a toy train that ran in the restaurant.

 Up we go to our room on the second floor.

 A passenger train goes by daily.  The Inn is a stop for some people.  Bo told us a story about a man that had come back to the Inn via the train recently.  He had ridden the train 20 years before and had always been looking forward to riding it again.  He did, 20 years later.

 Off we go to explore West Glacier and we were greeted by fresh snow.

The drive was so beautiful.  I must have taken a couple hundred pictures.  I have sifted through most of them and kept the ones I liked the best.

 There are pictures of this river later in the post and the snow has melted.  The snow didn't last at all.

We thought we would check out the Visitor's Center.  CLOSED.  Not much is open in April at Glacier National Park.

Going to the Sun Road.  Let's try it and see how far we get.  I have AWD so nothing could possibly stop us.  The road from start to finish is about 30 miles and it is a spectacular drive.

 Lake MCDonald ran along the road.  It was frozen in more places than it wasn't frozen.

 Well, barricades stopped us.  No 4 wheeling over those!

There was a lodge close to the barricades and we stopped and checked it out.  Of course it was closed too!  We were having a great time taking pictures and seeing Glacier in the early spring.  Just as beautiful as it is in the summer!

 Cabin rentals in the summer.

We are headed back on the Going to the Sun Road.  I think we were only able to drive up the road about 8 miles.  Too much snow to continue.  Someone told us that some years the whole road isn't open until July.

The reflection of the mountains in the lake.

 As we headed back to the Inn we noticed that Washington wasn't the only state dealing with flooding.

The same river that was a snowy picture in the morning and now the snow has melted.  I personally like the picture with the snow better.

 Snow capped mountains everywhere.  My heaven on Earth.

We are back at the Inn now.  These rail cars are part of the hotel.  You can stay in them.  We never checked them out but I am sure they are nice and comfy.

More places to stay!

We decided to take a walk and get some exercise.  I was a bit hesitant because of my knee and breaking it in the snow again.  No snow where we were walking.

We walked along the railroad tracks. We had lots of room in case we had to share the space with a train.

 All geared up to watch the Zags.

We wondered how they cleared the train tracks of the snow.  Here was our answer.  Snow plows for train tracks.

Now it's game time.  We had already asked about watching the game.  We would have driven as far as we needed to just to watch it.  Nope, didn't need to.  There was a bar downstairs and it had a nice size TV.  We asked if the game would be on and the nice person at the front desk said, "Well, you are the only two staying here so you can watch whatever you want to watch."  I taught the waitress how to pronounce Gonzaga.  There was a test.

 Go Zags!

This is who we watched the game with.  No one!  Workers would come down now and then to check on the game.  A few of them were fans!

It was a great day except for one thing, no national championship.  What a game!  It was a great season and we are very proud of our Spokane Zags!  Time to get some sleep for tomorrow's adventure.