Bears!

Had a great time in Montana and Canada. If you don't know where Glacier National Park is, it's in NW Montana up on the Canadian border. Glacier and Canada's Waterton Park make up the International Peace Park, the first of it's kind. Glacier was started in 1916, before the National Park Service. It was one of the first to be incorporated into the service.

They have these little red (big) buses which roll around the park with the top down and give you different tours. We took the one to Canada, and got to have lunch in the Prince of Wales hotel in Waterton, which is a huge old chalet, which reminded me of Switzerland. The mountains are huge, and covered in snow. It snowed while we were in Canada, big chunks of white, and then rained in Montana on our tour.

We camped in my little four season tent, and when it was 36 degrees at night we froze.

When we got there we picked up our rental car and the guy said, "Oh, do you have bear spray? You know, bears are out there in the park looking for food this time of year." We laughed, and he said, no, really. Then we went to the supermarket and the guy said, "Sorry we don't sell bear spray." We laughed again, thinking these people were just trying to scare us, and he said, no, really. "You should carry bear spray, unless you have a gun. If you see a grizzly just curl up in a ball on the ground and protect your head and neck, but a black bear you can fight off."

Bears! So we saw a grizzly and her two cubs on the red bus tour. They were frolicking on the side of the road. But no bears in the camp ground. Well, actually, I was driving back from the ranger station after I went to get more newspaper, and I didn't have my contacts on, but I saw something that looked like a lost golden retriever. I think it was a black bear. They come in cinnamon, they say.

We took a hike up to Dawson's pass, which was 7 miles straight up a mountain. There was a loop that went to the next peak and then back to our car, but it was about a foot wide and 2,450 feet down. Michael got a little vertigo, so we went back the way we came. 7 miles back down the mountain. My legs are killing me.

The whole time we camped, Michael drank. Well, not the whole time, but you get the point. And I didn't. Just talking to him after he'd had a couple beers and smelling it on his breath made me want to vomit. But I did also want to join in. Instead, I drank a 24 pack of diet Coke. Not bad for three days and sharing it with him. He was worried he was a drunk, and stuck to about 4 beers a night. I asked why he wasn't drinking that much, and he said it's because I used to egg him on and he was just keeping up. Oops.

So all in all, a great time in Montana. And no bear attack!