Touring around Glacier

After more rain during the night, it was still cloudy in the morning, so we decided to delay the famous "Going-to-the-Sun Road" trip until tomorrow in hopes of better weather.  We could see lots of mountain tops that were covered in clouds.  So, we took the scenic drive on US 2 around the south end of the park.  A lot of it follows the middle fork of the Flathead River.  The river is a really strange greenish color that looks artificial.  I tried to show it in some pictures, but it's hard to capture.  Plus, this road has very few turnoffs to stop for photos.  The speed limit on it is 70mph, and I'm sure I aggravated a lot of locals who wanted me to go nearer the speed limit!

We took the side road to Two Medicine, which has a lake and is a pickup point for the Red Bus Tours, which has used the same touring cars since the 1930's.  When we got out of our car, it was so windy we could hardly stand up!   As we left the mountains, we were amazed at how the landscape changed dramatically.  After the last mountain, the land instantly becomes prairie and you can see for miles.  We rode out to Browning and back on US 2.

We took a short drive to the Hungry Horse Dam and Recreation Area.  The lake is a beautiful blue color.  There were lots of dead trees still standing from a fire, and we saw osprey nests high on the tops of two of them.

While heading back to the campground, we stopped at the Huckleberry Patch and got cones of huckleberry ice cream.  Almost everything in there is purple....even the bathrooms!  This is a region where huckleberries grow wild, and all the tourist shops sell everything huckleberry you can imagine.

View of the mountains behind us
from US 2 south of Glacier

Two Medicine Lake
They had boat tours, but it was so windy we didn't even consider it!

Red Bus touring cars

Bear grass wildflowers are all over the park

The river actually looks greener than in this picture.

Hungry Horse Reservoir

Reservoir with dead trees from fire

Osprey nest

Osprey in nest