“Close the door, they’re coming in the windows!”---E. Barzelay
“We got trouble. Right here in Glacier City. With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “C” and that stands for Crowds.”---W. Killeen
Montana is a roomy state. You can occasionally drive for miles and miles and miles without meeting another vehicle, spotting a human, encountering a traffic light. The vast open terrain appeals to the human soul, provides peace for contemplation, elbow room for agoraphobes, playing fields for bovine armies. Even the cities…Billings…Bozeman…Butte… are gridlock free, devoid of lines, noise pollution.
Driving north from Butte, the blessed motorist arrives at the southern tip of lovely Flathead Lake, the second-largest freshwater body of water in the country with an area of 1115 square miles. The road to the left heads along Flathead toward Kalispell, the one on the right bisects rampant cherry orchards on the way to little Bigfork, where Bill and Siobhan have tickets this night to Mamma Mia at the local Summer Playhouse. They have seen it when it first hit the stage in Las Vegas with seasoned pros treading the boards at New York, New York, now they will see how rookie college kids deliver the goods.
The town, as always in July, is flush with summer visitors. The shops are packed, the restaurants teeming, the streets awash in tourists. Siobhan espies an out of the mainstream rock shop called Keyhoe’s, which has bargains galore and will push our big bag just past the weight limit for free transport at Delta (though they magnanimously forgive an extra two pounds). If this suitcase had no clever little rollers, Andre the Giant couldn’t move it. Anyway, with the two-pound handicap we eventually made our weight and didn’t have to throw away any of Siobhan’s extremely valuable rocks. A load off my mind, for sure.
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| Puttin' on The Ritz at Bigfork's answer to Broadway. |
Thank You For The Music
As everyone knows by now, Mamma Mia, the play, is a thinly-disguised vehicle to present the best of Abba’s long list of songs. If you don’t like The Four Swedes, you won’t like Mamma Mia. The music of the Disco Era wore on many and fostered a large resistance army but Abba’s songs always seemed like more than mere Disco tunes. Critic Gary McAdam notes, “Their material was very well-crafted and easy to listen to but if you actually unpick the songs in detail, they’re surprisingly complex with complicated chord structures in the guitar parts and basslines that are often quite difficult to play. The recording techniques were also pretty advanced for their day, with multi-tracking used on many songs to broaden the overall sound, using the same idea Phil Spector did with his Wall of Sound. Studio engineering wizard Michael Tretow deserves a lot of credit for that.” The bottom line being that Abba topped the musical charts worldwide from 1974 to 1983 and again in 2021, like it or not.
The Bigfork Summer Playhouse was crammed to the gills, all 435 seats occupied, though only two with masked attendees. “It looks like we’re the local niggers,” Bill told Siobhan in a politically incorrect moment. The cast performed with aplomb, the music was wonderful, the audience delighted and noone threw lighted matches at us on the way out, which is my definition of a successful evening in Montana. If assaulted, of course, we had no fear. We had an unlimited arsenal of deadly rocks crammed in all our pockets and the willingness to use them.
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| Avalanche Lake at trail's end. Say cheese. |
We’re Off To The Glacier Zoo
Last year, we knew well in advance that reservations had to be made to drive into Yosemite National Park. That Covid feller, again. We called on the appointed hour of the requisite day, stood quietly in our nervous telephone queue and captured the brass ring. We foolishly assumed all of that business was over with by now and jauntily pulled up to the Glacier Park entrance booth, shiny senior pass in hand, only to discover another reservation was required. To quote William Bendix, “What a revoltin’ development THIS is.”
I remembered that when we were in a gift shop on the way to the park, a customer came up and asked to register for a pass, so I went back and told my sad story to one of the nice Asian girls working there. In no time, she smiled, whipped out a pass and chirped, “Have a nice day!” Game on again. We retraced our steps, entered the park and drove to the western entrance of the Going To The Sun Road at Apgar to wait for the shuttle. We were not alone. A host of other candidates—enough to fill a shuttle—were there ahead of us. Thirty minutes later, we got on the second bus. Still early morning and now an hour wasted on screwing around. Not long ago, the National Parks were begging for customers, now they’re dropping from the skies, filling up the parking lots and overwhelming the transports. There are no good answers to the overflow. Even if all vehicles are ultimately barred from entry, some enterprising citizens will construct nearby parking lots and the crowds will march on. Adjust or die. We decided to adjust.
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| Going To The Fun Road in Glacier National Park. |
On That Road Again
As most people know, the Going To The Sun Road is unexcelled for stunning beauty, left, right and center as it curls up the mountainsides to the Continental Divide at Logan Pass, then back down again to St. Mary’s to the east. The road is two-lane, with no room to fudge and deep drops if Uncle Charley goes over the cliff. In many areas, there are no guard rails. Your driver has his choice of paying close attention to business or eyeballing the spectacular scenery and taking a quick trip to Gloryland. Our first stop, however, was in the lower regions of the GTTSR at Avalanche Creek, and a trail which leads to one of the greatest sights in the park.
It’s a fact of life that the better, more glamorous trails will be very busy. The same holds true for the easiest paths, thus the level Trail of the Cedars leading to the adventurous Avalanche Creek Trail is double-busy. Your grandmother could negotiate her way through the former and would probably enjoy seeing the cedars and hemlocks which typically flourish mainly in the rainforests of the northwest. After the turnoff to Avalanche Creek, things get a little more rugged with a constant gain in elevation and no nice boardwalks. The Creek, itself, is a constant companion, roaring along beside you, jumping waterfalls and providing numerous photo ops. After a little less than two hours of marching (at least for folks in the Geezer Zone), the hiker is rewarded with a rarely equalled sight---five waterfalls slowly tumbling down the mountainsides on the far side of Avalanche Lake. It’s a camera riot as expert lensmen, cell phone amateurs and selfie shooters jockey for position. Others just dump their backpacks to relax and meditate on the nearby rocks. This is one of Siobhan’s favorites spots on Earth. This is where she sits down to eat her banana.
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Logan Pass
Back on the shuttle, we head for the top of the park at Logan Pass, elevation 6647 feet, with the intention of hiking to Hidden Lake. Two days earlier, the road to Logan was closed due to excessive snow and though the path is cleared, the white stuff is everywhere. 90% of the Hidden Lake Trail is covered and tough to negotiate. We have experience with this trail. Even under moderate conditions Siobhan requires a giant pole to stabilize herself on the snow and this trail once gobbled up the soles of my hiking boots, leading to the famous Episode of the Clown shoes. We decide to pass and catch a bus going back, the driver avidly signaling for two more customers. By the time we discovered it was going the wrong way---to the east---we were well on our way.
While the western leg of Going To The Sun Road climbs from stunning valleys past cascading waterfalls to snowy Logan Pass, the descent to the east is completely different. Now, the brilliantly aquamarine waters of St. Mary Lake come into view and stay with you for a good part of the ride down. Not far from the eastern terminus at St. Mary is the spectacular ages-old Many Glacier Hotel on Swiftcurrent Lake, a spectacle to be visited at least once in a lifetime. We got off a couple of stops earlier, looking for a ride back up, and we had plenty of company.
Among the multitudes, there was a cluster of youngish Amish girls, about nine of them, from Iowa. Preferring to ride as a group, they passed up opportunities on the 12-seat shuttles and stood off to the side, frustrated. Only one of them seemed interested in communicating with anyone not of the sisterhood. She sat next to me and asked how my day was going. The woman seemed more adventuresome than her colleagues, asking about places unseen and far away, expressing a hope to travel to them some day. She seemed in need of a kindred spirit.
“Is this the life you chose?” I asked her. She replied that she followed the ways of her parents, unquestioning and hopeful. “Is happiness a consideration?” I asked. The girl laughed slightly and reflected. “We have a different kind of happiness. We are happy if our group is happy. We have pride in performing our duties and being selfless.” I told her I respected her beliefs but she should give some time to thinking about something important; “You have only one life to live and one-third of it is gone. Make sure you get everything you can from the rest of it.” An odd half-smile creased her face. “Thank you for speaking to me,” she said. “I will give much thought to what you have told me. I think you must be a sage.”
Wow, I never thought about being a sage. I think I’m going to add that to my business card. “Bill Killeen---Writer. Faithful Friend. Eternal Optimist. Sage.” It has a nice ring to it.
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| Hungry Horse, the best little town in Montana by a damsite! |
Hungry Horse & Beyond
Having seen and done everything we came to Glacier to accomplish, we passed on the teeming crowds, the stuffed shuttle buses and the registration requirements on our last vacation day. Instead we visited nearby Hungry Horse Dam, as suggested by our friend, Boxcar Paco. The imposing barrier was well down a lightly traveled road and Siobhan had her doubts, but the Hungry Horse more than lived up to expectations. The dam rangers smiled to see someone so early in the morning, happy for conversation. They told us the engaging story of the dam, whipped out some data sheets which favorably compared the HH to its better-known bro, Hoover Dam, and promised they had the cleanest bathrooms anywhere (they did).
We moved on to Whitefish, a clever little town growing daily in population and notoriety. You could probably call Whitefish a resort town with its skiing facilities, mountain-bike trails and tourist-oriented shops but more people are moving in, the head count reaching upwards of 8000 as of last year. It is not a town for poor people and none were noted strolling the decorated downtown streets. Despite the average age of the populace, the town has a younger contingent and occasional hints of New Age activity. Near the end of our afternoon, a few grumpy clouds settled in, boding rain, which we had seen none of on our entire vacation. I pointed to the heavens and a tremendous flash of lightning shot across the sky. “Come on, sage,” said Siobhan, “let’s get out of here before we drown.” I merely waved my hand and the clouds parted. Some got it, some don’t.
The trip home was filled with early wake-up calls (try 3:30 A.M), the joys of airport security, and a late-arriving flight to Atlanta, which threatened our chances of making a Delta 4 p.m. hop to Gainesville. Miss that and you’re camped out at the airport waiting for the last plane out at 10:35. After a quick jaunt through the corridors and an angst-ridden train ride, we finally arrived at the gate, the last passengers to show up. The lady taking tickets even knew our names and endowed us with needed bottles of water. Snug in our seats savoring our accomplishment after running through airports, we were not gratified to hear we’d be waiting another 15 minutes for a Miami-bound pilot who was stuck in traffic. We could have crawled through the terminal and still been on time.
Thanks to Sharon of the Fairfield Home Guard for expert house and pet management and to Julie and Laura for not letting the business fall apart. We are not through with this traveling business yet, with a short trip to New York and New England on the horizon. Hopefully, there will be scads more memorable moments, exciting adventures and lobster dinners. In fact, we’re sure of it. The sage has spoken.
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| Above, scenic Whitefish; below, chasing the bright elusive butterfly of love. The flyboy photobombed our picture-taker at the last minute. What a ham. |
That’s all, folks….
