June 27 Monday

This morning we're

heading to the west side of Glacier National Park (around the south side of the park on Rt 2). Once on the west side of the park we can't even get to the Visitor Center because it's on The Road to the Sun. This we find out after almost to the center to be stopped at a ticket roadblock. We get shunted to a HQ parking lot where we are politely told that we can't go to the visitor center because of traffic congestion (and we don't trust that you won't sneak onto the Road to the Sun). The ranger tells us the restriction in only until 4 PM and after that the Road to the Sun is open and no ticket is required. 

PLAN B

We spend to day on the West side and a 4PM we do the Road to the Sun 😉

First  stop: The Hungary Horse Dam.

This dam is wider than ghe Hoover Dam and is in a ravine cover facing up stream and convex from top to bottom. We spoke to a ranger at the overlook to see if she would give us a tour down at the bottom of the dam. She told us that there are 2 elevators built into the dam but not tours since 9/11. 

We passed The Huckleberry Patch Cafe, the home of the "world famous" Huckleberry pie. So guess where we had lunch.  While Bob was finishing his sandwich I faked a trip to the men's room and asked the wait staff if they did anything for customer birthdays. I ordered a hot pie of Huckleberry pie with a scoop of Huckleberry ice cream with a candle and headed back to the table. As soon as Bob fi ished eating the entire wait staff and a few customers sang happy birthday and presented him with his pie and cream candle burning. Never got a pic with the candle burning but got him to stop after the first bit.

We wandered around and through a back door found ourselves at the Visitor's Center about 3:30PM.

Got a passport stamp and headed out to the Road to the Sun. We drove about 30 miles to a place called Avalanche and came to a closed gate. Turns out the Road to the Sun has been closed most of the year due to avalanche damage. We turned around and headed back to Browning...

Great day even if we didn't do the Road to the Sun.