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October 3, 2009, a Saturday
Calgary (WalMart), Alberta, Canada, to Glacier National Park (Many Glacier), Montana, USA
— Back to the US
[You may view a map of Glacier National Park in PDF format.]
We didn't sleep well because of the noise in the WalMart parking lot. When we awoke, there was construction already underway next door to enhance the environment. There was an almost solid cloud layer — not good for solar-electric power. I had my normal breakfast and edited images from past days. J went into WalMart to do some shopping and she picked up a McDonald's Breakfast Burrito too. I processed images for the next blog entry and worked up the entry itself.
I got notified by email that my American Avocet Pair Mating image (left) was juried into the NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) 2010 Showcase. It will appear in the NANPA print journal Expressions, and be featured on their website throughout the year.
I had my normal lunch while continuing to take advantage of the net connection through J's Verizon USB stick that we were sharing through our Kyocera KR2 wireless router. We left at 12:57.
We went to a Gas Plus gas station in Calgary to load up the RV, then started heading south at 1:35.
I listened to two episodes of Car Talk while driving.
We made a short stop in Cardston at 4:18 so I could stretch my legs. We got underway again at 4:22.
We reached Montana and US Customs at 4:41. The customs official was really relaxed, and both J and I found him a bit unnerving. He would ask a question, listen to my response, then look at his computer screen for a while like he was pondering the full meaning of the answer, then he would ask the next question. The first question he asked was if we had purchased any items in Canada that we were bringing into the US, and I said some apples and processed lunch meat. Then he asked about tobacco, then about firearms. Then he asked about alcohol, and I said something like "Oh," to which he replied rather excitedly, "Ah hah!" I went on to explain that we had four bottles of liquor, each of which was about half full (that's a legal total amount of liquor to bring into the states), and he asked, "What do you do? Crack a bottle and drink half before opening the next?" So, I explained that they were four different kinds of liquor, and he was satisfied. We got underway at 4:46.
We stopped at 4:58 at the Sinclair gas station parking lot in Babb to go online using our Verizon USB sticks one last time before heading into the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park where there's no cell reception. We got underway at 5:44.
We entered Glacier National Park, through the Many Glacier entrance, at 5:55. The clouds got darker and it started to snow lightly.
We set up camp in Site 101 of the Many Glacier Campground which is right by the small stream with a nice view of the mountains. This late in the season, only part of the campground was open and it was operating under "Primitive" conditions. I'm not sure exactly what that means except that they were only charging $10/night instead of the regular $20/night. Because we wouldn't need any services, saving money was fine by us.
We had dinner of frozen J's vegetable beef soup and Texas Toast. We had dessert of fresh-baked (from a mix) blueberry and lemon poppyseed muffins. Shortly after we started eating the muffins, our neighbor guy, who was tent camping and had been mulling around our RV, knocked on the door. I talked with him through our intercom, and he wanted to let us know that a ranger had made another RV move from our site because it was blocking the path to the stream. I thanked him for his concern, and he left. I think he was really trying to get us to move away from his site because he was using the path to get to his tent, plus most tent campers don't like RVs because they're noisy: furnaces, water pumps, and even generators! J thought the guy was rather creepy because he had been standing just outside the window by our dinette for a while before he knocked. Because it was snowing and he was using an umbrella, we dubbed him "Umbrella Man." We finished eating, then I did the dishes.
I showered, then J showered. I had some Asbach Uralt while selecting and processing images for the next blog entry.
We didn't sleep well because of the noise in the WalMart parking lot. When we awoke, there was construction already underway next door to enhance the environment. There was an almost solid cloud layer — not good for solar-electric power. I had my normal breakfast and edited images from past days. J went into WalMart to do some shopping and she picked up a McDonald's Breakfast Burrito too. I processed images for the next blog entry and worked up the entry itself.
American Avocet Pair Mating
Antelope Island State Park, Utah, USA,
May 2009
May 2009
Canon EOS 1D Mk III, 500 f4 & 1.4x,
1/500 sec, f8, ISO 400
1/500 sec, f8, ISO 400
I had my normal lunch while continuing to take advantage of the net connection through J's Verizon USB stick that we were sharing through our Kyocera KR2 wireless router. We left at 12:57.
We went to a Gas Plus gas station in Calgary to load up the RV, then started heading south at 1:35.
I listened to two episodes of Car Talk while driving.
We made a short stop in Cardston at 4:18 so I could stretch my legs. We got underway again at 4:22.
We reached Montana and US Customs at 4:41. The customs official was really relaxed, and both J and I found him a bit unnerving. He would ask a question, listen to my response, then look at his computer screen for a while like he was pondering the full meaning of the answer, then he would ask the next question. The first question he asked was if we had purchased any items in Canada that we were bringing into the US, and I said some apples and processed lunch meat. Then he asked about tobacco, then about firearms. Then he asked about alcohol, and I said something like "Oh," to which he replied rather excitedly, "Ah hah!" I went on to explain that we had four bottles of liquor, each of which was about half full (that's a legal total amount of liquor to bring into the states), and he asked, "What do you do? Crack a bottle and drink half before opening the next?" So, I explained that they were four different kinds of liquor, and he was satisfied. We got underway at 4:46.
We stopped at 4:58 at the Sinclair gas station parking lot in Babb to go online using our Verizon USB sticks one last time before heading into the Many Glacier area of Glacier National Park where there's no cell reception. We got underway at 5:44.
We entered Glacier National Park, through the Many Glacier entrance, at 5:55. The clouds got darker and it started to snow lightly.
We set up camp in Site 101 of the Many Glacier Campground which is right by the small stream with a nice view of the mountains. This late in the season, only part of the campground was open and it was operating under "Primitive" conditions. I'm not sure exactly what that means except that they were only charging $10/night instead of the regular $20/night. Because we wouldn't need any services, saving money was fine by us.
We had dinner of frozen J's vegetable beef soup and Texas Toast. We had dessert of fresh-baked (from a mix) blueberry and lemon poppyseed muffins. Shortly after we started eating the muffins, our neighbor guy, who was tent camping and had been mulling around our RV, knocked on the door. I talked with him through our intercom, and he wanted to let us know that a ranger had made another RV move from our site because it was blocking the path to the stream. I thanked him for his concern, and he left. I think he was really trying to get us to move away from his site because he was using the path to get to his tent, plus most tent campers don't like RVs because they're noisy: furnaces, water pumps, and even generators! J thought the guy was rather creepy because he had been standing just outside the window by our dinette for a while before he knocked. Because it was snowing and he was using an umbrella, we dubbed him "Umbrella Man." We finished eating, then I did the dishes.
I showered, then J showered. I had some Asbach Uralt while selecting and processing images for the next blog entry.