A BNSF train rolling east through Marias Pass, Montana.

Cameron Lake, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada.

Day Eight • Waterton Lakes
We checked again in the morning that Glacier National Park thru-route remained closed, and we embarked on our journey to Canada, to look at the other side of the same part of Rocky Mountains, which is called Waterton Lakes. The park's roads are found at much lower altitude and thus were open. We examined our route on our tablet; it seemed far (it's almost two hundred miles!), but we reckoned we would make it in one day. Perhapse we got somewhat spoiled by zipping along empty freeways of the West; here, we were to trundle on country roads.

The journey was certainly interesting. First, we drove through Marias Pass, famous among train enthusiasts. We even spotted a train there, which was very satisfactory. Our roadside picnic was framed by Glacier's peaks — by then we started thinking whether it was worth continuing on. We had traveled for two hours and had barely reached a one-way midpoint. The idea of spending total eight hours in our car appeared somewhat crazy. But in the end we stubbornly persisted, now that we had made it so far, that we would make it to Waterton — years ago we had planned to go there and then chickened out — and after all, how often we get to Montana?

Growl.

Bighorn sheep = Ovis canadensis.

And so we drove on. We passed through a small herd of cows, spotted some freely grazing horses with a foal. We wondered whether they were wild. A beautiful single rock pillar named Chief Mountain, kept us company along the last section of the road still in Montana. Soon we were stopping on the Canadian border. A customs officer asked about usual things, what we were transporting and why we were entering Canada; eventually expressed a wish to see our van's trunk. Well, it was his choice — WE had warned him that it contained our stuff, mostly smelly from camping. Indeed, soon he hollered to his colleagues that it wasn't worth inspecting (by the way, the car ahead of us was pulled over in a stall, and in the process of being dismantled).

Thus we had entered Canada without further problems. For some reason it impressed me like a passage from light and sunshine into darkness, but I attributed it to heavy clouds on the horizon. On the first viewpoint to Waterton I noticed a complete silence; although we could see lakes and buildings in the distance under the mountains, the usual civilization hum was quite absent.

Having finally rattled on a miserable road to the park's entrance (please compare the fastest speed limit of 80 km/h in Alberta with Montana's 75 miles/hours) and paid, I declared that after all this trouble I would expect at least see a bear. And so I did — after a moment one such confused teddy dithered in the road. It wasn't a grizzly, only a regular small bear, but I was not specific in my wish now, was I?

Vimy Peak at the exit from Waterton Lakes, Alberta, Canada.

Back home: Chief Mountain, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA.

We drove up to Cameron Lake and walked to Akamina Lake, where my little camera definively gave up its life. And since it had been only some twenty minutes to Akamina Lake, we decided to add a walk along Cameron Lake. As soon as we covered a few hundred yards on a tourist trail, we got completely rid of crowds — everybody was taking selfies at the parking lot and a small pier. We walked three kilometers to a bear meadow and a warning that we should walk any farther — that there was a terrain with limited visibility and the bears come there to eat plants, tubers and berries, and we could unexpectedly startle them. It is common knowledge that bears don't like surprises. Thus we turned around and walked back again — honestly — it was quite late and we still had an insanely slow route ahead of us.

The first part was embellished by a goat and later a herd of wild bighorn sheep. Soon we were crossing the border again, in this direction without a search — and were quickly back on home ground. The feeling really surprised me — from darkness we drove into the light. It took me several more miles before I realized what it was. Montana roads are wide and well maintained, with cleared stripes of forest and a ditch on each side. The road in Alberta was full of pot-holes, and more importantly, overgrown close to the pavement, evoking a claustrophobic feeling — not to speak of the fear WHAT may jump of the bushes onto this narrow blacktop. Going back, we glimpsed again a gray mare with a foal, this time in the company of five more horses — hence I claim that we had seen wild horses. The herd's size and composition matched mustang habits, and the animals moved in the countryside with the matter-of-fact air of locals.

Flathead Lake, Montana: the lake and many other landscape features is named after the local Indian tribe.

Day Nine • Kalispell • Kerr Dam • Butte
I hope it's not necessary to stress that by this time we were completely tired from all this perilous traveling. Fortunately, a weekend ensued and with it the cut-off time of the hotel breakfast moved to ten o'clock. Tom and I were up since eight, and we sneaked out with books to the eatery and read avidly, me with my tea and Tom with his proper waffle, till nine thirty. Then we wanted to wake up our sleepers, but there was no need; they were just getting up. Even so, we missed the eleven o'clock check-out deadline — having stayed for three nights, our stuff got spread around; we needed to repack and re-organize the whole car, and we also wanted to reserve a room in Butte.

Kerr Dam on Flathead River, Montana; a few yards taller than Niagara Falls; full overflow operation.

We had asked that our stay be counted within some program of Best Western's that would earn us a free night; local reception was as usual finding some corporate complication as an excuse not to do it. While at it, Hippo chatted on with the hotel's owner, who suggested that we stop at Kerr Dam. Montana was recovering from lots of recent rain water (just as we had experienced snow in Oregon) and the dam, taller than Niagara Falls, was said to be in full overflow. That suggestion proved to be another hit — there's a beautiful view point above the dam, and water from the stream sprayed all the way up to us. Besides, it was a nice opportunity to stretch out legs on our journey.

On the topmost floor of Orphan Girl Mine, Butte, Montana.

We kept on driving and driving, for the rest of the afternoon. That is, except for the moment when a hailstorm produced such globs of ice that I worried I get into a skid on the freeway, or that they would crack our windshield. We took the nearest ramp and shelter in an underpass, until the worst passed. Butte had welcomed us with rain and cold, but still the children rushed to the (indoor) swimming pool at the hotel. We chose a path of least resistance with dinner, walking to a diner attached to the hotel. Hippo was compelled to cause a bit of a scene there, when a server began seating people who had arrived long after us through a side entrance, while ignoring us (and at least eight more people in the line). Although it was not part of the plan, Hippo must have frightened the manager so much that we got a free dinner our of it.

Day Ten • Butte • Pocatello
Our program for the day was clear — visit to a Mining Museum. Hippo and I had come upon Butte twelve years ago more or less by accident and my association with a book (Kathleen Windsor: Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West). Back then we had fit in a brothel museum, into which we of course did not intend to take the kids, but we had missed a mine tour and seen only part of the mining town exhibits. This time we rolled, right after breakfast and packing, onto the campus of a local mining college, just in time to join the first tour of the Orphan Girl.

Ubiquitous junk and every heap of dirt around Butte is said to indicate a location of one of many old mines.

We had a very interesting guide who painted the whole colorful history of Butte. He himself is most likely a miner — I had the impression that his description of the mining baron Daly was a lot more heartfelt than noting the more business-oriented Clark, although both prominent historic characters were, as far as I can tell, comparably ruthless in building their business empires, and both equally important in transforming a gold-digger's camp into an industrial city of almost 100,000 inhabitants.

Orphan Girl Mine.

Most, we were looking forward to a visit in the only mine open to public, albeit dysfunctional. I had expected that its name (Orphan Girl) would be backed by some captivating story, but the name originates in the fact that in the beginnings the mine was the only one on this side of the town. And a mine is a female to the miners, and that's the rest of the mystery. Still, other stories of Butte are rather colorful. For example, rocks that might fall from the tunnel's ceiling were called duggans — after a local undertaker Larry Duggan. Or a mule name Annie, who had spent nineteen years working in the mine (literally: animals would not be ever taken back up alive), eventually earned a retirement by decree of the mayor, including free run of the city, thus becoming a locals' pet. She enjoyed easy life for six more years, thus having lived for definitely more than twenty-five. Given the average life expectancy of a mining mule was around five year, it had to be an exceptional creature. Of course, there are sad sides of Butte's history — the greatest mining disaster in Granite Mountain Mine cost the lives of 168 miners and led to a lengthy strike.

Here in the bowels of the "gallas", carts used to roll under the ore chutes.

When we finally emerged on the earth's surface again, we wandered through the exhibits. There are historic houses collected from other villages, illustrating quite well the lifestyle of some hundred years ago. A kraut factory, dentist's, pharmacy, Miss Victoria's room (there's a red lamp over the door, but no other description in otherwise very child-friendly museum), a saloon, undertaker, jail, sweets shop, a school, a church, a smithy — all here. Kids were probably most interested in spelling mistakes on the school's blackboard and an apparently broken teacher's mannequin — and in the swings in the schoolyard. Or so we thought for a few days, but perhaps other things had registered as well. A couple days after coming back home, Tom surprised us by musing that he would go to a college in Butte, for they study mining there. I think he got intrigued by the idea of practicing mining techniques in the Orphan Girl — indeed, students train their skills in building struts and such there.

The teacher in this historic classroom seems to be collapsing.

We had only two hundred and thirty miles to cover from Butte to Pocatello in southern Idaho, and when we spotted a pond with a sandy beach next to the freeway, we stopped for a while and let the kids swim — they had already begged to be allowed to splash in the rapids under Kerr Dam. We ran into a Thai restaurant right on the first intersection in Pocatello, and we decided to try our luck with Asian cuisine against better judgment away from the coast. This time it was not as bad, only very salty. We chatted with a local waitress — her sixteen years of age did not prevent her from having a bright and open mind, thus delighting us with her company. We asked her whether there was a good beer place in the town, and she recommended Portneuf Valley Brewery.

Notice how Hippo in the church gravitates towards a piano rather than a confessional.

So we left the kids with a cell phone at the hotel and took a detour to the pub. The barman let us explain where we come from, and served Hippo an excellent Ligertown Lager. I sais I preferred darker brews, and received Midnight Satin. In the second round, Hippo had Krystal Weizen, while Steve (the barman) maintained that I should stay with the Satin as I would not enjoy anything else thereafter — and he was right. Besides exceptionally tasty beer, we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the pub, and the man behind the bar, who knew his beers and his customers. Most patrons were with him on first name basis and he distributed desired flavors after expert discussions. He showed us how one makes a beer rainbow: five kinds of beer from the darkest to the blondest, carefully poured with the help of a ladle into a single glass without mixing up individual layers. The only bad thing about this bar is its being so far from where we live. But maybe, Hippo said, it's a good thing — having such a good pub nearby could be dangerous.

Kids playing on Bonneville International Speedway.

Day Eleven & Twelve • Pocatello • Bonneville Salt Flats • Reno • home
Portneuf Valley Brewery proved to be a distinguished conclusion of our road trip. What remained was a sad feeling of an ending of our vacation, but also the sense of having seen and experienced a lot, and very colorful lot at that. On Tuesday we had spent eleven hours just driving. With short breaks to buy some food, pumping gas and peeing, we covered almost seven hundred miles from Idaho across Utah and the whole Nevada.

Between salt and Interstate 80.

Bonneville Salt Flats, where speed tests are sometimes performed, were still moist from the rains, but it was possible to drive on them with our bus. It was an opportunity for the children to try driving it — there's nothing to crash into for quite a while in all directions. Lisa still could not reach the pedals, and so she sat on my lap and turned the wheel. Tom had already grown up to the lower end or Asian driver sizes, and thus he could drive our Toyota all by himself. After all, it's just an automatic, but he was driving well.

We reached Reno quite depleted, getting into a Best Western which we remembered from a ballooning rally — and took a room there mostly because we knew they have a decent restaurant and we get a hot meal right there; no need to get out again driving or walking, and we would be able to hit our beds right thereafter.

Our last two hundred and fifty miles left for Wednesday, seemed rather easy. Alas, gone was the time of careless coverage of vast distances on empty freeways: we found ourselves again in overpopulated California, a nervous traffic, and limited speed. Cute small towns where everybody seems to find time to chat and send strangers to their favorite places, where a barman first talks to the customer to be sure what they like, so they get the beer they deserve — all that was behind us.

Up came heaps of dirty laundry soaking with smoke, and twelve hundred pictures. Three thousand six hundred and thirty miles driven (5,840 km). Memories of seven different states and one province, two time zones. And little heaps of salt in our garage. We found them a day after we'd returned, and spent one whole morning scraping caked salt off the bottom of the car — we must have brought from Bonneville at least several pounds of it...

Remaining pictures can be found in the gallery.