Thursday 6/4
Arrived in Helena, and set up our home-away-from-home at the Helena Campground, just five minutes from downtown. Helena is a great little western town - smallish but very friendly. We were here so I could do a 20K run with some of my pals from the Runners World Beginning Runners Forum (affectionately called BaRF to the members). I had a short 3 mile run when we got in, just to loosen up, and then we took it easy for the rest of the evening.
Friday we ran some errands, did laundry etc, until it was time to meet up with the "gang" for dinner. There was an all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner hosted by the local booster club for only $5, so we decided this would be the place to meet. At dinner were Scott (scottydog) Kabrich and his wife Gail, Cathy (cas) Sutera, and Kristin, Kyle, Tabitha, Lucy and Kevin Borland. Also in Helena (but not at dinner) were Kelly (saxy) and Scott Newell, and Mike (Mikey) , Charmaine, and Katherine (I hope I spelled that right! sorry if I didn't...). It was so good to finally meet folks! We had our dinner, and started getting pumped up for the morning. Kristin was running the marathon, attempting to qualify for Boston, Cathy and I were running the 20K, Mikey and his wife and Kelly were running the 10k, and Scott and Gail were running the 5k.
Saturday June 6th - Race Day
The Governors Cup! Scott, Gail and Kelly ended up running both the 10k and the 5k. Scott has to take a long break now because of his foot problem, so I'm sure he just wanted to go out with a bang. Cathy and I ran the 20k, including the long hill at the end of the course. It was a beautiful run - the first 10K was basically down a slight incline through the valley with the mountains always around you. The weather and the view were both excellent. I ended up finishing in 2:00:36 (watch time) and I think 2:04 race time. I haven't seen the official results, so I'm not sure. And even though Kristin just missed qualifying for the Boston, she set a new PR by around 11 minutes on a very challenging course. I was very proud of her - she looked so strong coming into the finish. I hope when I run my first marathon, I keep that image in my head - what a great inspiration. I know Kristin will get 3:40 at St. George. I don't know everybody's time, but we had a good dinner and party Saturday night at Appleby's, and a great buffet for breakfast in the morning (Kristin even got her Eggs Benedict!). Some of the lucky runners were treated to massages by Mike, unfortunately, I was using the hot tub at the campground, not at the hotel, so I missed out.
We all scattered our different directions Sunday morning - what a great treat to meet everybody and their families. These are people I am glad to be friends with, and I hope we get to meet IRL (in real life) again soon!
Sunday night we made it to West Glacier MT, and set up camp 8 miles from the park entrance.
Monday 6/8 - Thursday 6/11.
Words cannot describe this place, and I hope my pictures somehow come close. Everybody needs to come to Glacier National Park. Mountains, glaciers, waterfalls, snow, trees, animals, VIEWS. This is the most incredible place I've been (and we hear Alaska's and Banff are even better!). I really can't say how awestruck we were driving up the beautiful glacier valleys past raging rivers and waterfalls. We saw two bear - both crossing the road in front of the car, mule deer, mountain goats, and big horn sheep. The bears were reportedly very active, but we didn't see any on the trail thanks to Doug's singing and my shouting.
The park is split north/south by the Going-to-the-Sun Road, another marvel of engineering completed in 1932 as a trans-mountain route over the continental divide. It was closed off and on while we were here - but we did get to drive it both ways of the course of the 4 days we were here. We also made it to Waterton Provincial Park - the other half of the Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park. The 2 parks are administered separately, but have the same goals of protecting the greater Glacier ecosytem. The border through the park is the longest undefended border in the world. The Peace Park was dedicated in 1932 through the efforts of the Rotarians in both Alberta and Montana, as a symbol of the peace and cooperation between our two nations. The park is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We visited all the major areas of the park, took several hikes, a boat tour up one of the finger lakes, and drives everywhere we could over the course of the four days we were here. We are planning to come back and see the parts we missed, and to take longer hikes, a horsepack trip and a whitewater trip. We could easily spend a month here and not see the same things over. The weather, the landscape - everything changes moment by moment making things constantly new.
Drove to Seattle. We stayed in Spokane last night at Camp Yogi Bear – otherwise known as Jellystone Park. They had basketball, mini-golf, pool, etc. plus instant dialtone at the campsite – we finally got to upload web pages and check email.We stayed a week in Seattle, catching up on errands, getting the motor home serviced, and doing some hikes around the Rainier area. A lot of Rainier National Park was snowed in still, but had a few good walks. Also got in a couple of nice runs and bike rides – the KOA we stayed at was right next door to hike and bike trail along the Green River. We also made a day trip to Olympic National Park, but the weather was very overcast and rainy so we didn’t get the views we had hoped for. Doug did a little work here – he spent a few hours at the Admirals Club at SeaTac logged on doing some ‘puter things. We had a marvelous dinner on the sound at Salty’s – my first salmon of the trip and it was fabulous!
We left Seattle on Friday June 19 and headed north to Canada (52491). Going through customs in a motor home is a great experience. The customs agent would ask: "Do you have any liquor?" and we say "Tossed it!" or ask us "Do you have any fresh produce?" we say "Ate it all" or "Tossed it". I think we had it in the back of our minds that they would make us turn around and go home. But no – we made it through and spent the night in Boston Bar, BC at a great shaded campsite.
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