If you've ever looked into travel to the national parks, you've probably seen the name Xanterra. They run the big stuff...like the lodging, tours/excursions, and dining in many of the big or very popular parks. They operate a lot of the things at Glacier, but after our lunch experience, I'm guessing they don't handle everything. Before our trip, I'd read that Xanterra had opted to keep the various hotel dining rooms closed for the 2021 season and that there would only be take out options available in some places. This alone was incentive for us to not stay inside any of the parks this trip. Things felt a bit different over at Apgar, and I'm guessing our lunch experience MAY have been one of those cases of a private person/group getting their foot in the door inside park boundaries. You'll see what I mean by a sign I photographed that's in my pics below.
In any event, we were hungry...it was a little after 11am MT (our tummies were still on CT) and there was some little grill with a nice outdoor deck up the way. There was a group checking out the menu when we arrived, so we figured they were the front of the line...except the tables were empty outside and I could see they offered breakfast as well as lunch. A guy came out and said they were transitioning from breakfast to lunch and would seat us at 11:30. Considering there were really no other options that I could see and leaving the park would mean a long drive, we waited. The kids went off to do some more looking around the store, David went to look at something...so I held our place. Some guy behind me asked me a silly ? about the camera...which one is my favorite...to which I replied, the newer one. I realized I probably sounded like a jerk and not everyone would know what they're looking at. So, I explained that the newer one had more features and better settings and capabilities for just basic photography. When David came back, he was proud to show him all of his phone pics of amazing wildlife they'd seen that morning...in places we'd driven through. He saw a couple of moose, four grizzly bears and one black bear. I guess our timing was just off.
Oh well, 11:30 on the dot and we were seated. I'm so glad we waited and didn't wander off. The line was ridiculously long and by the time we were being seated, a tour bus had joined the mix. Oh well...time to focus on ordering. First thing...Moose Drool was on the menu and while I knew I'd regret it...I had to have it.
The rest of lunch was good...nothing exciting but good. The line for a table kept growing, so we felt pretty happy about our decision to just wait. At least we had a nice spot outside.
I think the length and distance of the trip was starting to wear on some of us. We were all getting a bit snippy with each other and I'd started to hear David's typical 5-6 day "I'm ready to go home" complaints. I am much more content to be away and don't get that feeling until at least the 2 week mark. He's more of a long weekend kind of person being forced onto longer trips. The kids are somewhere in between, but they're hitting that point where they'd probably prefer to be home all summer, being lazy and staying over with their friends. We hit a point this trip where we seriously started discussing leaving them with my parents next summer, and the kids liked the idea for a bit...thinking that would be more fun. Oh well, after lunch, David confirmed I was correct and that we'd need to drive to the Apgar Visitor Center...so we did.
Love seeing this guy in the parking lot, but hope it was all OK with his lights being on.
We went inside the visitor center to look around for a bit and the kids got another stamp, but then headed outside, because I'd gotten it in my head that our shuttle tickets were for today and we'd need to wait for our window to open. So, I sat for a bit...and took pics of what I could.
While I was sitting, I did notice some people dressed up much more than normal. I also heard a familiar voice. It was a rabbi from the Atlanta area. I typically stream their High Holy Day services, but he's also friends with some of my NJ high school friends (in real life). They were waiting on one of those red vehicles, so I suspect they were doing some kind of special something...like a wedding. I know national parks weddings have become crazy popular.
David decided to go check on the shuttle to see if we could check in early. The good news...they weren't policing check in times and we could have checked in hours ago if we wanted. The bad news...I messed up the day and found out that are reservation was for the next day. UGH! So, no shuttle back to Logan Pass today. At the very least...I just wanted to see what the fuss was about and see if I could convince David out onto some of the trailhead. Hopefully there would be time tomorrow...on the actual day of my registration.
We still had plenty of time left in the day, so we were trying to decide what to do next. I had expressed some interest in taking the road up along the eastern side of the park. I was driving and David was handling navigation. At the time, I assumed he was sending me the correct way...which involved a very rough gravely road that just kept getting worse. I turned around, retraced my steps, just to have him send me down a road that was even worse. I had put it into AWD it was so bad, but it just wasn't enough and a car frame just isn't designed for this. So, I slowly made my way back to the main road. I had debated about using my downhill assist (used it in Theodore Roosevelt once- interesting feature), but I just wanted to get out of there without killing the car or losing a tire. At the time, we bashed the poor roads, but after we got home, I was able to map where he sent us. Not sure if it's his declining vision or what, but he didn't read the map correctly and had sent us up some private road. We were so far away from where I was suggesting we go. Oh well, it's probably for the best. We did at least see this sign in the process. I think we were about 9 miles from the Canadian border at this point.
David assumed it would take forever to drive back through the park, so we opted to leave via the western entrance/exit.
I'm not sure why it came up, but people wanted snacks/treats. So, I decided to try and map us to an ice cream spot. I'm just going to have to assume it's because he was hitting his cranky part of the trip, but David wanted me to turn into some places we saw when we first exited the park to look for options. Most of them looked like rafting, kayaking and hiking places for private bookings and rentals. There are a few little things right around the park entrance, but like my research showed, you really had to drive west towards Kalispell to find more options...and that's where the NAV was taking us. If we're already cranky, the last thing I want to do is just start randomly looking for ice cream at every sign of civilization we find. We made it to the town of Hungry Horse...southwest of the western park exit, just east of Columbia Falls-which seems to be a popular area to stay, and northeast of Kalispell, which has a pretty decent sized population for the area. David got cranky again because I'd navigated us to Huckleberry Land, but pulled into the Huckleberry Patch. It really didn't seem like a big deal...both sell huckleberry stuff and ice cream, the one I picked was closer, and it turned out the one I picked had better reviews. We went in, we all ordered, they found a table, and I paid. Honestly...it was a madhouse and the process was bizarre, but we got our goodies.
After this, we navigated our way back to the hotel. Taking Hwy 2 was supposedly the fastest route, but we ran into heavy construction. We knew it could be an issue, but it's just such a pain when the road is fully stopped to allow only one way traffic to move. I want to say we sat and waited for 35 minutes. It still was probably faster than trying to drive through the park and back through Browning, but it was so frustrating. We just went back to the room and rested...and Sam modeled her souvenir...
I have a picture of her in these later that I like a bit better.
We rested for a while, watched Olympics stuff on tv, and discussed dinner. We wound up picking a Mexican place just a couple of blocks away. It broke our rule of getting Mexican in a place not known for it, but it was close and it's what we could all agree on. I think the walk was less than 3 minutes.
Nice sign on the front entrance to the place...
It was really busy and we wound up waiting close to 25 minutes for a table and another 10 for someone to get our drink order. The food was meh...but Sam's wasn't too bad.
It was kind of funny because our server also works over at the St. Mary's place we went to the night before. So, she was all curious about who our server was and what we ate.
After dinner, we walked back to the motel...
...and decided to make the quick drive to the Two Medicine part of the park.
*Side note, I previously mentioned the odd little parking lot. Odd as it was, it did afford us the opportunity to meet our neighbors from time to time. There was a lovely couple from Kentucky staying on one side of us. They wanted a true room, but their kids and grandkids were tent camping inside the park. On our left was an older couple, from CA I believe, pleasant...but not as much to say. And then next to them, a guy from Abilene, TX...which prompted a big discussion about how large the state is and how we practically live on different planets within the same state.
OK, right...coming up Two Medicine!
