2015 Trip to Glacier NP - The First Week

Look at this, we have another trip to blog about. This time, we're towing our little camper to Glacier National Park. Other National Parks and attractions will be added after we get to Glacier. We want to get there before it gets too cold.

This account starts the day before our departure with the traditional King Crab party.


Monday, Sept 7, 2015     King Crab!

And the winner is... Josh and me! That's right, it was a two way tie. Each of us caught a 5 8/8 inch crab. Geoffrey was awarded the Most Valuable Person prize for his outstanding assistance for the summer. He was a huge help to Granny and me and accepted requests for help without question. Congratulations Josh and Geoffrey and a special thanks to Geoffrey for being the MVP!

Geoffrey has come to the realization that this might have been his last summer with us. He believes he will need to get a job next year. That's sad for us, but he is growing up. It may be more of an adjustment for us than for hom.


Tuesday, Sept 8, 2015     Glacier N P Bound!

At 1000 hours, we pulled out of the driveway towing the Popup (a Quicksilver 6.0 by Livin Lite) with the Caravan. Yes, we have a minivan. Not particularly proud of that, but all of the kids fit in it and it holds a lot of camping gear.

Our destination for the day is S. B. Elliot State Park (341 miles from home) in the Pennsylvania wilds. Camp was set up by 1730 hours. Drive time included a 45 minute lunch break and a 30 minute nap break ostensibly for the driver, but the passenger was snoring louder than yours truly. She must have been tired too.

The camping fee was $14.50 with the senior discount. and the host gave us a load of firewood and kindling that we didn't use.


Wednesday, Sept 9, 2015     Topeka, IN, Home of "Livin Lite"

Today's destination is the Livin' Lite Factory in Topeka, IN (6h 9m - 399 miles). We hope to purchase an awning, jack bar and a light/fan combo for the camper. We arrived at the factory at about 1515, after discovering that the Livin Lite website has the wrong address listed. As we pulled in, a gentleman asked what we wanted. We told him  and he said nobody is here. They all went home at 1500 hours (we were told that they close at 1600 hours. He asked us to wait and in a few minutes returned with the jack bar and light/fan combo but said the awnings are not in stock. That's not what the guy on the phone said, The man at the factory gave us the other items, free of charge!

It was easy driving on I 80 with several work areas that slowed us to 50mph.

We stayed in Paradise Lakes Campground a few miles from Topeka, IN. The facilities seem brand new and the fee was $41 and change including tax.


Thursday, Sept 10, 2015     Mill Bluff State Park, WI

Our drive of 375 miles included a stop at Cabella's. Although we tried, we didn't spend any money.

Driving through Chicago was challenging due to the volume of vehicles and the myriad work areas along the highway. In fact, one of the work areas was over twenty miles long! Generally speaks my, driving is much more relaxing my with Sirius radio. The music and NPR discussions help pass the time and take my mom needs off of details like hour much further our destination is and how fast we go during each hour of the trip. Until we got Sirius, I used to dwell on minutiae that actually made the day's drive seem much longer than it was. While drive my through Check Cato, I had to turn off the radio so I could concentrate on the signs and the first net ructions from the GPS.

We are camped at Mill Bluff State Park, thereby matching our pace with our 2013 trip with the grandchildren. We have logged just shy of 1100 miles in the three days we've been driving.

My back continues to ache. It started a couple of days before we left home. It seem to be getting slightly better but the relief has not been significant yet.
I'm hoping it gets better by the time we get to Glacier, which is still three or four days away.


Friday, Sept 11, 2015     Fargo, ND

 This is our first time since n North Dakota. We arrived in Lindenwood Park on Roger Marris Drive after traveling about 425 miles. That's our longest drive of the trip to date. A traffic jam (I know what you're thinking, traffic in Minnesota, how could that be, nobody lives here) caused by road construction, added an hour to our drive. For such a sparsely populated area, there seems to be a lot of traffic on the interstate.

When we finally made it to our destination, we set up camp in record time and headed to the movie theater to see "A Walk in the Woods." It is a very funny movie that we really enjoyed. Certainly wouldn't mind seeing it again.


Saturday, Sept 12, 3015     Theodore Roosevelt National Park

We broke camp at 0730, our earliest departure to date. We were facing another long drive and wanted to arrive in time to explore the park a bit. As the day wore on, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable. I felt worse after those delicious nachos.
By the time we found a campsite (we got the last one) in TRNP, I didn't feel like doing anything. We scored a pair of tickets to the Medora Musical, a "must see" on any visit to Medora.

The show was pure analyze, but we enjoyed it, especially the Chicago Boyz of 2013 America's Got Talent fame.

When we arrived back at the camper, I was ready for bed. It was a fitful night that left me drained the next morning.


Sunday, Sept 13, 2015     TRNP DAY 2!

I woke up feeling washed out and lacking energy. After an hour or so, I felt "cured." We decided to make it a light day with a trip to the Cowboy Cafe (save your time and money), a stroll through town with visits to some of the gift shops. Atypically, we even made a couple of purchases.

After lunch and the hustle and bustle of shopping,  it was time to relax back at the campsite. Following our respite, we drove the Loop through the park. Along the way we saw more prairie dogs, bison, mule deer and feral horses. We never found the trailhead that would lead us to the petrified forest. We decided to drive to a different trail that we could follow to our destinationj, but found that it was seven miles up a dirt road. We passed on that adventure.


















Monday, Sept 14, 2015     One More Sleep to Glacier NP!