DAY 17 I actually felt even more refreshed than the night at the hotel. I got almost a solid 8 hours sleep for the first time during this trip. The view from the camp site was not a disappointment at all, as you can see from the photo attached to this post.

We headed out to Glacier National Park without making any breakfast because we wanted to make the most of the day. En route to the park we were met with such beauty that we had to stop a few times to take some photos. We also had a short delay due to construction. Since the roads are so long with very few side roads, when they do construction they span in for miles; I think this one was about 10 miles of construction. They seem to have their system well developed, as the choreography of the operation was impeccable. Besides the roughly 10 minute wait to get into the line going our direction, we really had no delays even though we got passed off to two other pilot cars during the journey.

Once that was over with, we had only a short distance to the park. I cannot describe with words the magnificent sights that passed our eyes. It took us so long to get from the east side to the west side of the park since we couldn’t help but stop at the majority of the pull-offs. I decided we needed to take one hike while in the park; only a 3.5 mile round trip excursion.

Well the parking area for that trail was full so we needed to go to the next one. On the map it looked like it joined in to get to the falls about an equal distance to where the original trail head. It should have been about a mile. We bumped into a park worker that was maintaining trails and he informed us otherwise. Looks like the map isn’t exactly to scale! So the 3.5 mile round trip in the guide (which by the sign actually was about 4 miles) turned into a just shy of 6.5 mile trip. Had it not been for the guys advice to grab the shuttle to the next stop where we parked, it would have been more like 8 miles. Well worth it as you will see by the pictures.

After we saw all we could handle in an eight hour day, we headed out of the park to our camp location. On our way we decided to take one last short hike, under 2 miles. We stopped at a place call Kootenai Falls. Yes more falls, but also a suspension bridge. We got back to the car with about an hour to spare before it got dark. It is best to let the photos speak for themselves. So we made it to the Idaho Welcome Center. Idaho allows for a 10 hour stop as long as you remain in your vehicle while you sleep – no tents. We are set for the night!