011 A day on my own

October 3&4, 2008 – Friday/Saturday

Glacier National Park – Apgar Campground/Yurt Village

What a day!  (That was especially for Abby & Kat…)  But really, it was great.  I woke up today and took my time getting going, making a couple of pots of my French press coffee and restarting my still smoldering fire to warm up a bit.  I burned up the rest of the logs, read through the local paper (see my humorous photo from the police blotter section to the right!), had some beef jerky, a banana & granola bars for breakfast and packed up my camp after I dried things up a bit.  It did actually rain last night but I stayed quite warm, dry & comfortable during the night.  The rainfly on my hammock was dotted with water drops, so I wiped it down before packing it up.  I love my hammock.  Today, the sky was full of more rain clouds and I hoped that they would hold in the rain long enough for me to see what else I wanted to see in the park.

One of the park rangers came by while I was still at camp and I asked him if I could leave my car & trailer there while I ran around the park a bit more; he said that would be ok, as long as I leave a note for the other ranger who might come by later.  While reading the local paper by the fire, I noticed that in the events section, there was actually a jazz festival in nearby Kalispell over the weekend (a few of you may have gotten a text from me around this time, asking if anyone knew anyone in the area)…  I decided that it might be fun to check it out and see if there was any dancing to do, which meant that I should probably clean myself up a bit as well.  So, I did what I could with the cold water in the restrooms and brushed my hair with some water, managed to poorly shave my pits (better than not at all!) and cleaned myself up as much as I could before I left for the activities of the day.  I even put on my nice new clean pair of jeans.  

When I was finally ready to go, I biked up to Avalanche Lake & the Trail of the Cedars which I had been dying to hike around yesterday.  It wasn’t a big hike, only .8 miles which was easy enough to do in my motorcycle boots & chaps; anything more than that is ridiculous and I need to bring some other shoes.  I’m SO glad that I stayed another day to hike this trail, it was gorgeous.  

Peaceful & wonderful; as one of the signs by the waterfall says, “As you return to the parking lot, walk slowly and reflect on what you have seen.”  Especially, I enjoyed the numerous mushrooms growing all over the place.  Tis the season!  After that stop, I started biking back to the campground and stopped at just a couple of other places along the way as well.  It was gorgeous.

I packed up my bike just before the rain started in the campground and headed out of the park, stopping for a bowl of soup and a bit of journal writing at the same place we ate the other night.  The people working there also helped me figure out what the date was…

Anyway, I started driving to Kalispell, making a couple of phone calls along the way to catch up.  Just as I was getting into town, I called the number listed for the jazz festival and was directed right to the Red Lion Hotel where there was a swing lesson just starting up.  Unfortunately, it was an east coast lesson and I didn’t feel like taking part, so I enjoyed and observed.  After the lesson, I talked to the instructor who said that he didn’t do Lindy Hop; mostly ballroom stuff.  Then, I talked a bit to some of the younger kids who were there for the lesson and asked them if they or anyone they know does any Lindy Hop.  The reply: nope.  So, I started thinking about where I was going to stay for the night while having fewer and fewer hopes that I would be doing any dancing while in town.  

My mom called at one point and said that she saw a Yurt village somewhere on their way out of Glacier, so I started looking into that.  The front desk people at the Red Lion Hotel were extremely helpful and I found a number for the Yurt place.  It was located just outside of Glacier Park, where I just came from…  The choice at that point was to either stay in town and hope that I could find some place to sleep that night, or drive back to the Yurt village (nobody answered when I called) to see if I could still rent a Yurt.  I decided to drive back to Coram.  Overall, it was about a 30 minute drive back there; I could always head back to town for the festival after checking in & changing clothes.  

When I arrived at the North American RV Park & Yurt Village, I rang the doorbell and Lisa answered.  She said I could still get a Yurt for the evening, and that there were laundry, shower & lounge room facilities for my use.  I was quite excited!  After showing me around the place and helping me close my window flaps for some privacy, Lisa left me to my own devices.  I unpacked the things I would need for the evening and started realizing that I really just wanted to stay in and catch up on things.  Oh, I forgot to mention that there was wi-fi that reached out to the Yurt as well.  It was a really great night.  I made some dinner with my electric burner stove, Lemongrass soup & cous cous, had a couple of beers & caught up on uploading blogs, emails & phone calls.  It was really nice and relaxing, however I think I slept better in my hammock, outdoors, than I did on the futon, in the Yurt.  I didn’t feel badly about missing out on the jazz festival at all; I like my own company.

The next morning I ended up deciding that because I was thoroughly enjoying myself, I could use another day to relax and take some time on my own when I wasn’t just running around like crazy and going from place to place.  So, I checked in for another night and settled in even more.  The day was a simple one.  Since all the new premieres had started on TV for fall, I caught up on some of those while drinking a bottle of wine and breaking out some of my paints to attempt to record some of the images in my head.  My dirty, campfire filled clothes became clean with the laundry facilities and I became clean as well with the wonderful hot shower.  Finally having time to upload some of my blogs was nice, so I took the opportunity to post a few new ones that I had written already.  Dinner that evening was beef jerky & flavored rice, quite yummy actually!  Eventually, I realized that I needed to get some sleep since I had to continue on the next day, so I called it a night.

I loved my Yurt.