Day 12 started early, 630am alarm to be exact, we have a long way to go and…get your passports ready kids…we’re going to Canadia! Yes, I know it’s Canada! I worked with someone from there who used to say Canadia and it stuck!
We’re going to Canada, but first…breakfast! Can’t go to another country on an empty stomach! So…we loaded up the bikes, loaded up the people and then went to the Laughing Grizzly Restaurant, Bar & Casino. It was close, the reviews were great, and supposedly the corn beef hash is very popular. We got in, got seated, it was crowded, a lot of Post Malone tshirts, a lot of college students! He had played the Washington-Grizzly Stadium, apparently it was part of the BIG ASS Stadium Tour Part 2, good on ’em. Our server was great! I know we’ve talked about good and bad servers before, but a good server can really make a meal. I wish I could remember our server’s name, but he was one of the good ones, thank you!
On the bikes, we rode through Wye, Polson, through Lakeside, Kalispell, Martin City, Coram, until we got to Glacier National Park!
Riding over a bridge in Polson. Riding through Lakeside. Riding past the Montana Vortex and House of Mystery.
Glacier National Park is a place that DJH, PSM, and I had been to in 2023, I don’t know if you remember me telling you about it back then…there was construction and I don’t mean a wee bit…there was NINE miles of dirt and gravel and we could only go about 5 miles an hour, if that. If you know me and my love of gravel you know I was miserable, but we survived! Thankfully, this trip was not like that!
This was VGT’s first time at Glacier and we were excited to share it with him because, the Going-to-the-Sun Road is 50 miles connecting West Glacier and St Mary and the highest point is Logan Pass at 6,646 feet. It can take about 2 hours without stopping, that is…if you are actually moving more than 2 miles an hour. One of the pluses 3 years ago, aside from the negative construction, was the timed entry. You had to sign up on recreation.gov to get timed entry for the Going-to-the-Sun Road. We had to do this for Cadillac Mountain in Maine, among others. The benefit is there are a limited number of tickets that you can get to cut down on the issues we faced…S L O W MOVING VEHICLES. We spent most of our time starting, stopping, inching, trying not to fall over on the bikes because we were going soooo slowly.
Even going back down it was excruciatingly slow. There were places we would have liked to have stopped to get pics, but everyone else had the same idea and there were no places to pull over. I’ll be honest, the scenery was amazing, but it was also exhausting. I would like to go another time when it’s not so crowded, not sure when that is. I asked a park ranger why they took away the timed entry and it was a bureaucratic answer that she had to give…
Riding through a tunnel. Can you feel how slow we were riding?! The videos don’t do it justice! Look at the snow on the side of the mountain! Green on both sides, snow above!
We rode out of Glacier looking for a place for lunch and ended up in Whitefish, at the edge of Glacier National Park in the Northern Rocky Mountains. We landed at the Bulldog Saloon, a bit bigger than a hole-in-the-wall type of plac,e but definitely a local hangout. There are bulldog pictures everywhere, college pennants and sports memorabilia, and the bathrooms were trippy!
The sign on the ladie’s room door had Notice: The men’s restroom and the first stall of the women’s restroom contain adult material. Please escort children to the second stall of the women’s restroom. Let’s just say, everything outside of the second stall was cheeky and one or two things could make you blush, but they were defintely funny!
Back on the bikes, riding through the Kootenai National Forest, located in the extreme northwest corner or Montana, bordered on the north by Canada and the west by Idaho, guess which one we were headed for?! Just before 7p we crossed the border into Canada! And Oh Canada was it a beautiful ride as we headed towards the Prestige Rocky Mountain Resort in Cranbrook, BC.
Riding into Canada. Look at the mountains! Not a bridge over troubled waters!
We rode into the sunset, but got to the hotel just before, but don’t forget…this is the summer, sunset is about 9p/10p, we have time! It really was a beautiful sunset. Our goal tomorrow is Canmore, BC, which is in the province of Alberta! because the day after, we are getting our bikes serviced in Calgary!
For now friends, it is late and it’s time to crash! Do you see how close Eunice is to 30,000 miles?! I am sooo stoked! I will definitely be getting a picture of that!
We did a lot today! Gotta get some rest, tomorrow’s another grand adventure!
Day 12: 354+ Miles, 9+ Hours, 2 Countries, 1 National Park, what more could you ask for!? Tomorrow…another province!
