Leaving Calgary, we were on our way to Glacier National Park.

It’s always fun to drive out west. I guess the winters are so long that they have to have a great imagination. Check out the baseball caps that decorated their fence.

Stopping for lunch, we found a ruin at Crow’s Nest Pass. This was coal area and we found that a key figure in the operations as “William ‘Billy’ Lemond Hamilton. Born in Ontario, he rose through the ranks of labourer, Pit Boss, Manager, and eventually the sole owner of the mine.

When we get home, we’ll have to check to see if this a relative.

Not too far from Crow’s Nest Pass, we came upon a disastrous area. It is the remnants of the “Frank Slide,” which happened on April 29, 1903.

Turtle Mountain collapsed, resulting in the greatest landslide in North America history. A combination of the mining and the tremors were the cause. In 100 seconds, 76 people were buried alive under tons of limestone boulders; ¾ of the homes in Frank were crushed; over a mile of the railroad was completely destroyed; and a river became a lake. An estimated one hundred million tons of limestone slid into the valley and onto the town of Frank. How devastating. It gives me goose bumps to see the remnants.

Closer to the United States, looking into a distance was a mountain that seemed to be smoking.

It’s so weird for us “East Coasters” to see such HUGE mountains. Our mountains are “hills” for sure.

We had some wonderful downtime in Glacier National Park, visiting with Bill’s cousin, Gail. Below is Gail’s son, Erick, Bill and Gail.

We did some motorcycle riding through the park. The Road to the Sun had just opened about 3 weeks prior to our visit. (It had been closed for snow). The day before our visit, the road was closed due to a rock slide from all the rain.

Luckily no one was injured too badly, but it did manage to strand about 20 cars. The road reopened in the afternoon of our ride.

Glacier National Park is one of the prettiest parks in the United States.

We took a day and went up to the lake. We stopped for lunch and photos near the ranger’s house. Below left is Gail, her boyfriend, Dan, and Bill. How would you like to have this view every day when you wake up?

We stopped at the falls for photos just in time to see some trail riders.

Such a beautiful area. We remembered picnicing here in 2009. The air was so much cooler down by the water.

We had a mandatory stop in the morning at the best bakery ever for some Huckleberry Bear Claws and in the afternoon for an ice cold beer . Students from all over the country were on a retreat. They got quite a kick out of us singing Happy Birthday (to their friend) with a YAHOO at the end. Detroit youngsters are not used to cowboy YAHOOs.

Speaking of Huckberry. We managed some time to do some Huckleberry picking in the park. Your allowed 2 quarts per person. We were lucky to gather a cup each, so Gail made us the best Huckleberry muffins! She is the best cook ever!!!!!

Before leaving Bill showed everyone that he had figured out the coke bottle puzzle which was given to us by one of our Calgary Stampede guests.

It took Bill a few hours to figure out how to get that dowel and screws out of the bottle. It was more challenging to put it back, although it didn’t take him as long to put it back together as it did to get it apart.