After saying goodbye to our friends in the U.P. last week, we took off only knowing our destination was Glacier National Park and that we were going to stay on US 2 to get there. We didn’t know how far we’d drive, where we would stay or how long we planned on staying. This is what we have been waiting for. We want to get on the road, drive until we are sick of it, stop to see things when we want to and not care about sticking to a schedule or plan.
We have driven this same drive before so we knew we wanted to get through it pretty quickly. We had an idea of where we wanted to stop but we hit a pretty severe headwind through Montana that slowed us down tremendously. We didn’t get as far as we wanted and altered our plan. It’s amazing how many free campsites are available if you know where to look.
As we got closer to where we wanted to be, we found a secluded free campsite in the LOLO National Forest south of Glacier with some huge Ponderosa pines! We ended up staying for four days. It was off the beaten path and had no cell service. We really didn’t get service until we were on the main road for about 10 miles. It’s hard when you are used to being attached to your phone and getting updates from everyone but it’s also so freeing. We put our phones away when we were at the campsite and it felt great!
During the four days we drove around Flathead Lake and went to Flathead Lake Brewing, which was excellent. We drove both sides of Going to the Sun road in Glacier. The East side is so much more exciting and pretty. Logan’s Pass is still under ‘The Big Drift’ and probably won’t be open until the end of the month. We were bummed to miss it again. We were there for our 15th Anniversary and they closed it two days before we got there. But we had a great day touring and found some off the beaten path roads with amazing views. We did laundry and got supplies in Missoula, which was super exciting <insert sarcasm>. I think I’d rather wash my clothes in a bucket. We sat and read books and took Gus on some short walks. We cooked over the fire and watched the sun set.
We are adjusting to this new life. We have to remind each other that there is no rush for anything and when we get frustrated we have to step back and ask why are we frustrated. We don’t have anything else to worry about but it still doesn’t feel like this is our real life. We’ve been tweaking things in the trailer and getting into a routine with setting up and packing up. It’s really important to deadbolt the trailer door and put keys back in the same spot every.single.time.
We are both sleeping like babies. It’s amazing to me how I always thought I just wasn’t a good sleeper. At home, I would sleep 4-6 hours and I thought that was how I was. I’ve never slept more sound and slept in longer than I have the past two weeks. I remember having dreams about work stuff and it would play over and over in my head. Now I’m just having normal crazy weird dreams. It’s pretty amazing to feel the stress peel away.
So week 2 was good. We spent quite a bit of time in the truck and Jeep but we moved at our own pace and made up for it with some good slow moving days. Gus is doing awesome and seems to like the new routine too. His stitches come out today so we’ll see how happy he is after that.
We are excited to be in Canada now and traveling roads we’ve never been on.
Off to Banff…