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Adventures of the Spirit Eagle - Glacier NP - Day 13

  by Jim & Ginny Owen

Sunday - August 9, East Glacier Park -

Ginny: A lazy day, waiting for the train. The eastbound morning train was canceled. Last night’s 7:30 pm westbound train came in at 12:30 am - only 29 hours late (some bridges were washed out in Wisconsin). Tonight’s is only supposed to be a little late - we hope. We spent the day wandering around town (doesn’t take long, it’s a small town), sat on the balcony at Glacier Lodge admiring the mountains, sat on the porch at the general store and watched the trains go by every half hour or so, and ate. The cars were all rented out or we would have driven back to the park, but we were too tired yesterday to make concrete plans or reservations.

The hills are showing their best face - blue skies, green hills, blue mountains, very clear air. Yesterday when we were hiking was hazy, today is crystal clear - naturally. I really hate to leave, even knowing that we’ll be back. I contrast the peace and beauty of these past weeks with the insanity of living in the city, and I hate to get on the train. But discussions with Mark revealed the difficulty of living in a place where a 100 day season must provide the income for the next 8 months and the town closes up for the winter - Mark’s is about the only business still open after October. Some of the people here spend their summers in Montana and winters in Arizona. Not a bad life, but not much security either. Some do quite well though.

Jim: A long day of sitting, waiting and reading. We're not used to this inactivity but we probably need a day like this for our sore muscles and feet. And to give my cold a chance to die - although it looks like that's not gonna happen real soon. We packed and left our bags at Mark's place, then wandered around town and the East Glacier Lodge, bought a few things (i.e.- spent too much money), ate too much, read a little and finally caught the train to Whitefish (it was late again). Got to Whitefish, caught a ride to the motel and crashed. Waiting all day like that is really tiring.

Day 12 - Day 14

© Copyright 1998 Jim & Ginny Owen