Friday - Sept. 16 - Drive to Hungry Horse, Montana.

After standard motel continental breakfast, we packed up the Durango
(with Axim and Navi, sweet). Lucy pulled out a climbing clip to secure
the keys to by belt loop so I wouldn't lose the keys in the middle of
nowhere Montana.

We headed out through Big Sky country. It was about a 6 hour drive to
our next motel just outside Glacier National Park. The weather was
noticeably different than in Florida. 60's and dry air. Quite a relief
from hot, dripping humidity we are used to.

When we punched in Glacier NP into the navigation console, Jeannie our
digital navigator directed us to take the shortest route thru Helena.
We nixed that because a friend suggested we take a more western route
to travel on the west side of Flathead Lake. That turned out to be
great suggestion. We made stops at Montana State University in
Bozeman and University of Montana in Mezoulla. We took in a natural
history museum which reminded us that we were in dinosaur country (see
pic) and that this part of the country was under the ocean before
that, the reason for much sedimentary rock visible in the mountains
that were raised by tectonic plate action.

We drove northwest on the interstate and then due north heading toward
Kalispell. The ride was pretty with huge grass prairies turned golden
as fall sets in with beatiful mountains in the background. Many were
treeless which made them look like camel backs.

Most scenic was the gateway to Flathead Lake where you rise up over
a hill and then suddenly the lake appears with mountain vista on both
sides. The lake is 30 miles by 15 miles and 300 feet deep. The lake
just went on and on with various forks and fingers and beautiful
scenes around every turn. We then headed further north thru Kalispell
which is a cute little city for dinner. Then on to Hungry Horse where
we arrived about 8:00 pm.

Temperature was in the low forties by then. It's a small little one
light town, whose only fame is it's proximity to the Park. The best
thing about the town was that after 10:00 pm. the entire town goes to
sleep. We didn't here one car sound all night and we slept like bugs
in a rug; not used to such peace and quiet, it was almost too quiet.