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Do you ever have one of those days? A day where you start to do one thing and end up doing another? A place where you were want to go to point A but end up at point Z. Well, that is the kind of day that the group had.

They started out going to Waimea to watch for whales. Larry kept having the urge to yell out “There’s one!”. The other three were starting to answer with “I see it!”. So they loaded up the van and off they went to Waimea. Only a few minutes after they left, the check engine light came on. Sooo, quick direction change to the car rental place to get a different car. (Only 400 miles)

The group went to a different beach Kaloko Honokohau national park. They didn’t see any whales which made Larry sad. So they took Larry to Ali Drive to the Artesian Market. (We don’t really understand what that means. ) They finished the day with a visit to Walmart and Costco.

To sum it up: The car almost broke down – we got a new one – Went to a beach – got hot – didn’t see a whale – saw boys throwing rocks – went to Walmart bought stuff – went to Costco – got pizza – came home.

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Our weary travelers awakened at various during the day times as they acclimated to the time zone. Some were more successful than others. The group decided to take a drive north.

Almost as soon as the group saw water, Larry began shouting “There’s one and another one”. Jerry joined in that he saw a breach. All of this caused Joyce to whip the car off the road onto some awful lava rock road to look for whales. Debbie saw nothing. After a pause, the group bounced back to the road (Debbie would have taken a picture but she was too busy holding on tightly to the armrest with her eyes shut.)

They continued on the main road with people shouting more sightings (not Debbie). They stopped at windy Lapakahi state park to look for whales. Debbie finally saw a spout but feels that she is not really a good whale watcher. The other three and other watchers were shouting all around her.

After lunch, they continued down the road shouting “Whale! Whale – One O’clock, Two O’Clock!’. Debbie was somewhat annoyed. They pulled into another whale watching site, Kapa Beach. Larry had become a master. Every time, he opened his mouth the word “Whale ” rolled out. Debbie might have laid her head down for a minute with her eyes closed. She eventually saw a spout or either dreamed it.

Next stop Hawi and the King Kamehameha statue. This was the king’s birthplace. On the way to Hawaii, the boat that the statue was on sunk in the Falklands. The statue was insured so a second one was made. In the meantime, the statue was retrieved from the ocean with a broken arm. The statue was repaired and sent to Hawi since the replacement had been delivered to Honolulu. While in Hawi, they discovered that a 12 pack of soda costs $13.30. (Did not buy)

On to Pololu Valley overlook and the trail that they will hike one day. it is usually muddy. Stay tuned to see if this happens. Larry saw a whale here also. He seems to have some kind of whale bond.

The group began their way back traveling through the whale gauntlet with Larry shouting sightings from the back seat. They even stopped at Kapa Beach again. Yes, Debbie did see some of the sightings.

They continued on to the best stop of the day. Debbie has decided to specialize in shaved ice sightings. She has been practicing shouting “Shaved Ice”. These sightings are rarer than a whale sighting.

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This year in Hawaii, the travelers will not go into cultural moment details as you have been to the Parker Ranch and other historic sights.

 After arriving at the airport, Debbie discovered that she was not dressed like other travelers.   On the first flight, Debbie sat next to Jack Reacher or at least a man that size.  (Jack Reacher is a book character that is 6’5” inches 250 plus lbs).  Luckily, Reacher slept for the entire flight.  Debbie wanted to take a picture of Reacher  for the blog but Larry convinced her that would not be wise. 

The two travelers were diligent about following the rules to get into Hawaii. They wanted to be travel ready. They had gotten late updates at home the night before which triggered a flurry of activity on being “travel ready” . They got off the first flight and rushed to the United “travel ready” desk and showed their boarding pass with the green “travel ready” They proudly strutted through the SFO airport with their Hawaii wrist bands although Debbie was afraid that she would wash her ’bracelet off so constantly checked hers.

Debbie and Larry arrived in Kona at 3:30 in the afternoon.  A first to arrive in the daylight and the bracelets worked.  They went straight to baggage which arrived quickly not 3.5 hours later (National Lampoon experience).  Turns out that the daylight arrival was not particularly helpful as they fell asleep before dark.

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Larry likes dams and there is one close to us. It is called the Hungry Horse Dam. In fact there is a Hungry Horse town, dam, lake and various businesses because two horses ran away, stayed away and came back hungry.

The dam has a glory hole where water goes in to keep the dam from overflowing. You are lucky we only posted one picture of it. We were quite taken with it. We walked back and forth across the dam and then stopped at the antique mall.

The antique mall was tastefully done but Debbie remembered some of the stuff before it was antiques. Not sure how she feels about that.

Today we went to Polebridge a few miles from Canada. What is Polebridge you ask? We can answer that question in two ways:

1) The tiny community of Polebridge is a 27-mile drive from West Glacier on a primarily dirt road, and it’s less than a mile from the northwest entrance to Glacier National Park—from which you can access Bowman and Kintla Lakes.

2). A tiny community of Polebridge is a 27-mile pothole gravel road with a lot of dirt thrown in and less than a bumpy mile from the NW entrance to Glacier National Park followed by a 6 mile one lane (touted as a 2 lane) where one has to pull over in the ditch to pass a car on the drive to Bowman Lake.

It was such a bad road that the group assigned a theme song (Shake it, shake it baby).

To Continue: The town consists of a handful of houses, cabins, a hostel and small ranches along the North Fork Road, with the Polebridge Mercantile as its center. This shop is known the world over for its fresh baked goods, sandwiches and authentic personality.

Always one to eat a world famous pastry, Debbie and Joyce loaded up on pastries including huckleberry, chocolate, raspberry and cinnamon rolls.

The view from the lake was great but the hike not as great. Debbie says if she had not been sitting in the front seat then she would have been hanging out the window seriously car sick. After we bumped our way back down the road, the park service closed the gate to stop cars going to the lake. (Maybe they saw Debbie hanging out the window). Debbie thought that crossing into Canada would have been a better option. Of course you can’t go into Canada but Debbie was willing to chance it. It was only 20 plus miles away.

Travel Tip: Load up on emergency pastries at the Mercantile in case your car gets stuck in a pothole.

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Hard Hitting Reporter (HHR) here. I understand that Joyce had scheduled a difficult hike to make up for the two days off. Let’s follow up.

HHR: What was the hike?

Joyce: It was the Avalanche Hike. This area of Glacier National Park was named by an exploration team in 1895. The exploration group saw and heard multiple avalanches roaring down the surrounding mountains, and agreed  “that Avalanche Basin would be a most appropriate name for the place”.  Everyone is quite excited.

HHR: Did you hear or see in Avalanches?

Jerry: No, we did not see any avalanches but we started off super early when it was still dark so we could get a parking place.

HHR: Was parking difficult?

Joyce: Yes, we got a place but had to whip in front of other cars and Debbie gave out some stink eyes.

Larry: We started out on an easy Trail of Cedars which has a boardwalk.

Debbie: At first, we frolicked along the boardwalk which was easy. It was nice and shady but then the boardwalk ended.

Joyce: Don’t forget the issue where all the bathrooms were closed for the season. Debbie was really giving out stink eyes then.

Debbie: To continue, the trail left the boardwalk and we began to climb.

HHR: Debbie did you fall again?

Debbie: No, I told you it was a one time thing. Why don’t you ask the others? There was mud on the trail and they had super big roots and rocks on the trail trying to grab me. I didn’t have any problems.

Larry: Let me step in here and say that no one fell. There were a lot of people on the trail. Sometimes too many and they scared off any bears with all the noise. They were loud talkers. We are not fans of loud talkers.

Jerry: Some people were running on the trail. We though that they were showing off.

Larry: We saw people carrying axes and shovels down the trail. They passed us going down the trail at a fast clip.

Joyce: I asked where they were going and they said that they were going to dig a pit toilet.

Jerry: I guess they saw the toilets were closed down the trail and were going to dig a new one.

Debbie: Larry was a little upset that an older man stopped him and said that he was really glad to see someone older like Larry on the trail.

Larry: I am sure that he meant someone in such excellent shape.

Debbie: No, he said a senior like you.

HHR: Let me cut in here and ask what you did to celebrate your successful hike?

Joyce: Well, we went to the Lake McDonald Lodge to picnic and then home to eat hot fudge sundaes.

Debbie: Wait, you had hot fudge sundaes?

Jerry: I think you were napping

Debbie: If I was napping it was because, we left so early. We hiked over 7 miles. and I was tired.

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Today was the day to move to Colombia Falls. It rained most of the day. We stopped at the Izaak Walton Lodge. The lodge was built in the 1920s. Many of the rooms are railcars. We didn’t stay but it is very peaceful. we checked into Meadow Lake.

The next day it was still raining. Joyce was very sad but secretly Debbie and Larry were jumping up and down in their room. Joyce rousted everyone up and took them for a walk around the property which involved ping pong. Debbie was very impressed with changing leaves.

Joyce has promised a brisk hike tomorrow. Debbie and Larry are concerned

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Today is Debbie’s brother, Charlie’s Birthday. He is a faithful blog web fan. So a shout out to Charlie.

Debbie wanted to take the day off and eat Birthday cake but it was not to be. Joyce had plans for another hike. A shorter hike but nevertheless a hike. It must not have been super exciting as Debbie could not remember it and only took three pictures.

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Today was a hike rated moderate. The hike was the Aster waterfall and the Aster Overlook at Two Medicine. We arrived early to get the all important parking place. HHR: Hold on here, Debbie, just what did this trail involve.?

Jerry: I can take that question. Well, it went through an area where moose like to roam and had beaver ponds. It, of course, had a waterfall that we always look for.

HHR: What made it moderate?

Joyce: Well it started out flat and kept going up. It had switchbacks, rocks and roots?

HHR: Rocks and root? What is the big deal with that?

Larry: It is Debbie’s kryptonite. Roots and rocks.

HHR: Roots and rocks? Really? How difficult can that be?

Debbie: Okay, okay – I always said that I would trip over roots and rocks and I did so there.

HHR: Oh no, did you fall? I am shocked that someone like you would fall.

Larry: Joyce and I were behind her and saw her slowly go down on her hands and knees. I think that she may have said some inappropriate words.

Joyce: We got her up and dusted her off. She was fine.

Larry: I told her to pick up her feet and I think she might have said some more inappropriate words.

Debbie: I thank you for your concern, HHR, but sense some skepticism. We did go all the way to the end of the trail. It was a hard trail.

Larry: After we got in the car, we saw two moose.

Joyce: One moose ran to the lake right by a man that didn’t even know that the moose was there until the moose ran by.

HHR: Do you think that Debbie’s fall and the noise she made upset the environmental balance at Two Medicines?

Debbie: No but I would like to suggest that the HHR take a hike.

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Today, we left for East Glacier. (That’s a name of a town). We were ready to leave Babb, Montana. We noticed that we had been staying at what may or may not have been a biker’s hotel. Every night the motel did seem to have several large motorcycles in the parking lot especially around Debbie and Larry’s room. We nicknamed them the Wild Hogs. (Get it like the movies).

The Blackfeet Nation issues mandates outside the park such as mask mandates. We think that we have been staying on Blackfeet land.

We were excited to go to East Glacier because everyone got a bedroom and it had internet inside. At the biker place, Debbie spent time on the office porch in her coat using the internet. Internet was somewhat lacking but we were close to the park entrance.

We passed through the Blackfeet Nation headquarters in Browning, Montana on our way to East Glacier. Once we dropped our stuff at East Glacier we proceeded on to Running Eagle Falls. Educational Moment: Running Eagle was a female Pikuni warrior in the 1700s. Traditionally, only men fasted and went on vision quests. Running Eagle went on a vision quest and ‘found her medicine’ above the falls and became an influential and legendary leader of her people.

Blackfeet were named based on their black shoes that were colored by ashes.

Travel Tip: Wear a coat if you have to sit on the porch to get internet connection.

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