GLACIER NATIONAL PARK.

As you leave Browning traveling West, the Blackfeet Reservation has a Buffalo Preserve within  a mile or two of town.  After seeing so many stuffed buffalo heads it was reassuring to see a healthy herd of the beasts on the range.

The Plains change dramatically as you enter  foothills of the Rocky Mountains, their peaks rising in front of you.

The eagle eye perch of an old homestead kind of reminds us of what life used to be like in this wild country.
Glacial rivers, so clear and clean, they reflect their surroundings.

We camp at Camp Apgar, the west entrance to the park. The Going To The Sun Road Jim drove many years ago with his smallish motor home, is no longer accessible to Motor Homes. It takes you up over the Continental Divide and into Calgary, Canada if you choose to visit that part of the park. This is the beautiful and rustic MacDonald Lodge that sits next to MacDonald Lake. We set up camp, had lunch, and visited the lodge.

I believe it was built in 1911, all of it from local materials.

Each corner is held up by three giant cedar logs. The park has a trail where one can see some of these 500-year-old cedars.
Lodge patrons enjoyed the pleasant heat from the giant fireplace.

The Lodge has a totem but the plains tribes, the Native Americans that once lived and danced here, did not build totems.

Directly behind the lodge is the boat ramp on Lake MacDonald. Blue, blue clean, clear water reflects the peaks.

We bought tickets at $16.32 cents at the boat ramp. If it weren't a National Park, that price would be double. Such a bargain. You can order your tickets and reserve ahead of time, as well. We moved away leaving a road-like water con trail on the still surface of the lake.  It made interesting abstracts on the water.
A close-up of our wake.
Cloud reflections on water ripples.
Rivers erode in a V shape. The U shape tells you a glacier once sat here. There are only two glaciers left in the park.

The boat carries us West toward the old  town of Apgar. Two horrible fires hit the park. The worst was in 2003 when the "new" fire wisdom was to let the fire burn out. It consumed 43,000 acres and nearly took the town of Apgar.
At one time, all the burned trees would have been cut down. Now, scientists know the trees provide insect homes, draw birds and provide ground shade. Recovery is better and natural.

Its kind of fun to concentrate on the ever-changing surface of reflective water, helped by an overcast sky.

On the opposite side of the burn, high up on the peak, a crevice is eroding as water cascades down this slope during spring melt. The peak is also home to Dahl sheep and grizzleys.

We head back to the dock.

The light changes.

The glacier cradle darkens.

The burn regenerates.  Not all trees die in a burn. A few remain and help the recovery and some trees fall on their own.

We return to the dock after a very pleasant hour on the lake the natives named, "Best Place For Dancing."  The guide couldn't say the Indian name, just the meaning.

I DID see wildlife. This little ground squirrel popped up on our way back to the parking lot.

FAIR WEATHER WALK.

Yesterday was a beautiful weather day. Jim fixed a blown fuse on the back-up camera, and a few other little chores. I lost my mobile home to an indoor flood and dealt with the related issues much of the morning and late in the day. Jim received news that Aaron Canvasser, a good friend of his died and he was feeling blue.



This is Aaron giving me a haircut on the first day that we met in 2010.  He came to visit us where we were staying in Yuma. Then I gave him a haircut. He was so much fun to be around. It is a haircut I’ll never forget.


We didn’t feel like doing much so we drove around the park, took more swamp pictures. The swamp was  gray and cheerless. I kept trying to find color.


Moving water and shadows produced an abstract.


This one tree near the boardwalk had three different pieces of tackle stuck in it.


This piece was hanging in the wind. The third piece was one of those yo-yos.


I talked to five fishermen on the board walk. This guy was using a baby crawfish for bait. He said he usually gets perch in this lake, and an occasional bass. None of them had fish yet. He told us about an alligator farm nearby.


The boardwalk here is lengthy and makes a pretty pattern.


A clump of iris. The green just emphasizes the gray of the cypress.


But, spring is just around the corner. I expect to see  green leaves soon. We spent the late part of the day sitting outside for the second time this winter. It was comfortable enough to read our books and enjoy the fresh air right up to supper time. Life is good.

ART TO SOOTHE THE SOUL.

While I wait on medical appointments and continue therapy at home, I’m never idle or bored. I like to have an art fix now and then but instead I’ve been busy with neglected chores around the house. Karen complained that plants were dying because they aren’t getting enough water. Each morning now for several weeks, we have ferreted out the tiny drip heads that get buried under leaves and caught under branches and get plugged and need cleaning or replacing. Karen has been hand watering in the heat.  A contributing culprit was the failure of an electronic clock I paid $40 for, two years ago. It’s a Toro. Don’t buy one. You can no longer buy a reliable mechanical clock. I still have two that work that are over twenty years old. It is maddening. They never completely fail, they just partly fail so you don’t know they aren’t working properly until you have dead plants.  Hopefully, the Rainbird at $65 will last longer than two years. I’ve got several units to  replace between home and the rental.

There is always art to soothe the soul. I pulled this abstract from the garden as I know I’m missing the great art in Taos, deliciously full of art galleries in a town famous for its artists.

If you were unable to tell, the abstract was part of this mottled pear, which tasted just fine for all of its skin problems.
Jim counsels me to “Give it up, let your kids have it and then they can worry about that stuff.”  I understand the philosophy and freedom of owning nothing but the necessities under your feet, but I’m too deeply rooted. And, while he didn’t care much for Taos, I thoroughly enjoyed the art fix I got from his pictures. And, he took care to photograph things he knew I’d like, as in the bench with the  abstract cover, and paintings and old buildings and flowers taken with his watercolor feature on his camera.  I enjoyed the bold quotes of Kit Carson and his house. So, today, back to the garden and a manuscript I’m finally finishing up from August 15th for the archive.

AIR CONDITIONED CARS

There was a time when air conditioned cars were an expensive add on from the dealer. We thoroughly enjoyed our 1972 Pontiac Convertible and didn’t get an air conditioned car until 1976.  In fact, in Southern California, you could buy a car from the dealer without a heater, which we did, once.  Who needed it?
A Bay Area friend of ours bought a brand new 1961, (I believe it was a Chrysler) with an  air conditioning unit, to take a trip from California to Boston. The device was a square container of ice mounted on the hump over the drive shaft with a fan attached to the cigarette lighter. The fan blew air over the ice to cool the air. It worked until the ice melted.  Every couple of hours, our friends had to stop and buy a new block of ice.  It was a  hoot and convinced us air conditioning would never be a standard part of a car. Now, I can’t imagine being without it. Which, in a round about way, is where I’m going this morning, to have my air conditioning repaired. A hose is plugged and condensed water wets the carpet on the passenger side when the air conditioning is running.
And carpet in cars?  Don’t get me started.
Yesterday, I experimented  with pictures around my yard to see what I could come up with and I can’t say that the following close-up has much appeal…

…when the leaf itself is so pretty.

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However, I liked this close-up shot of a gold pan.
Maybe because a gold pan wasn’t meant to be as pretty as a leaf.

The cables on Jim’s bike made an interesting shot. Kind of reminds me of when we were kids. Pageant magazine had a  monthly photo that required you to guess what the original object was from the close up. The answer was in the following issue, always a month away. No one in the family ever guessed an object correctly, but we loved trying.
The weather will soon turn wet and cold. We’ve enjoyed these sunny fall days.