St. Mary, Montana

Sunset view across St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park

We arrived in St. Mary early this evening.  It's at the East Entrance of Glacier National Park.  We're staying at a campground just outside the park, Johnson's of St. Mary (http://www.johnsonsofstmary.com/).  It's a quaint little place that's celebrating it's 60th year this year.

Hannah and I explored the campground by bicycle after dinner.  There are beaver ponds here at the campground and the lady in the office said there is a moose cow and her baby that have been frequenting the ponds.  We didn't see them this evening, but maybe tomorrow.

Around sunset (9:30 - 10:00pm here), we took a brief drive into the park.  We saw a large herd of elk and took some really pretty pictures of the lake and mountains.  It's so beautiful here, and tonight was so nice and clear.  A Park Ranger we spoke to said that pretty nights have been rare lately with all the rain they've been having.  We can't wait to get into the park in the morning.

On a different note, I wanted to share this with you all.  We seem to get a lot of "looks" from the locals when we come through their towns in our rig.  I guess part of it is that we tend to like the rural routes so we end up going through a lot of little towns. Apparently most of the big rigs stick to the interstate.  Today we were stopped in a little town in northern Montana where the locals apparently thought we were quite a sight.  Three or four people outside a general store were talking and pointing at us.  And then, the guy on the tracker, pulling his kids on top a shredder.  I don't know if you can see from the picture, but the kids have life jackets on and are sitting on beach towels.  They stopped, went in the store, came out and looked at us like we were pretty unusual, and went on their way.  How funny is that?