Happy Birthday Krista. Mom and Dad
Saturday was an extremely busy day. We left home at 7:30 am and returned home at 1 am on Sunday.
Our first stop was to stop at Quins Resort and Restaurant on Route 135 about 10miles from St. Regis.
We had a lovely breakfast and then we were on our way not knowing that the breakfast would have to hold us for at least 6 hours. You don't find restaurants just around the corner in Montana. It was cloudy and foggy along the Flathead River when we went in for breakfast, but, when we came out it was sunny and much warmer. In the mountains it was in the low 60.
Our first stop was the St. Ignatius Mission Church in St. Ignatius, Montana. The mission was founded in 1854 by the Jesuit Fathers following the request of the Salish and Kootenai Indians in the area. It was founded to serve the religious and educational needs of the Indian people. The murals in the church were painted by Br. Joseph Carignano, S.J. the mission cook. He had no formal training in art and did the paintings in his free time. The Mission was declared a National Historic site in 1973.
The Indian Artist painting of the Blessed Mother and Child
As we drove to our second attraction we drove past the Mission Mountains on our right. They are very beautiful mountains which have a very sharp profile.
Our third destination spot was the Kerr Dam. The dam is located near Polson, Montana, at the natural outlet of Flathead Lake. It was dedicated in August 1939 and it is 541 feet long and 205 feet high, 54 feet higher than Niagara Falls. The dam has 14 outlets which are opened according to the need to drain the water. They usually do not have more than 8 gates open but Saturday morning they had all 14 gates open due to the quick melt of snow in the mountains and the heavy snow on the East side of the mountains this year. The dam is built on the Salish and Kotenai Tribes Reservation and they have the option to manage the dam in 2015.
As we left the Dam we drove past more mountains on Route 2 to the East Glacier Park. These are three pictures I really have enjoyed.
The next stop was the two Medicine River Area. It had lots of snow piles and some beautiful mountains. We even saw a man digging a path to the restrooms from his shop.
After we left Two Medicine area we had to do a detour because 49 was closed. We took south 49 to route 2 and drove to Browning. From Browning we took 89 toKiowa and then turned north to St. Marys Glacier. This route was very curvy and th detour was 40 miles long, thus, loosing valuable time if we wanted to see Many Glacier.
St. Mary's Glacier was next stop.
This is a picture of the St. Marys glacier. When visitors came in the 1850 there were an estimated 150 glaciers. Today there are only 2 glaciers (the St. Marys Glacier and The Many Glacier) remaining and they are melting quickly. In fact they are estimated to be gone by 2030.
St. Marys Lake
Manys Glacier
Another water control
Now let me tell you about the part of the day that Walt was so thrilled about on this trip. It was the animals he saw when it was getting about 5:30 pm.
This is Walt's prize picture. We were driving to the exit of Many Glacier Park and a ram was standing at the side of the road. We also saw some moose cross the road in front of us but we did not get to that point and see them because they hide in the timber land. At the glacier site he saw huge amount of Mountain sheep and goats. On our drive out of the park we also saw herds of elk grazing on the green grass. It was paridise for Walt because he wanted to see sheep in the Bison Range but did not have that pleasure. This was icing on the cake. BUT--------it was almost dark and we had to drive home. The GPS said it would take four hours and we had not eaten since 2pm. We were lucky that after we passed thru Browning we happened to find a bar in the boonies for food. It turned out to be a very nice place. Then we had 3.5 hours of driving and we reached home safely.
We did have some close calls on the road. Remember you are in the wilderness----we encountered a deer crossing right in front of us at about 2 pm. Two loose horses on the road-then 2 deer-then 2 horses and a large mule. Quite an eventful day with the animals.
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