Made it to the train station just in time. If you don't have your bags checked at least 30 minutes ahead of scheduled departure time, they can't guarantee they'll be on the train with you. As we approached the counter, we could hear the workers talking about shutting off the baggage sevice so we made it just in time. Well, at least I think we did. Won't know 100% for sure until we arrive and have bags in hand.

Because we're in the sleeper car, we get to wait for boarding in the Metopolotain Lounge with TV and complimentary beverages, rather than standing in line with the throngs in the terminal. It's quite nice. If there was wi-fi, it would be perfect.

I'm really looking forward to getting on the train. We've never traveled in a sleeper car before so this is going to be an experience. Hopefully, the ride will be smooth enough and the stops not horribly jarring so we can actually manage some sleep.

The porter just announced they're going to start boarding in just a couple minutes. Gotta go!

All aboard! We're pulling out of Union Station. One minute down, 16 hours to go. This is so cool. Our sleeper cabin isn't huge, but we have way more room than we'd ever get on an airplane, even if we were in First Class. There's complimentary coffee, water and juice, and all of our meals are included, too. I'm not sure why, but there is no dining car attached to this train. Looks like we're getting boxed dinners. Our choices are beef tips, spicy shrimp or chicken caesar salad. I took a quick walk around the car to check things out. We're on the bottom level of the car. There are three bathrooms on this level and one shower, complete with towels. Unfortunately, we forget to pack changes of clothes in our carry-on bags so we probably will just wash up instead of showering until we get to out motel.

Just finished dinner. I had the beef and Mr Moo had the spicy shrimp. We're both bloated now and desparately trying to not fall asleep so we don't have trouble sleeping later. The ride is surprisingly smooth. I don't think we'll have any trouble sleeping because of the movement. What I think is going to wake us up is the stops. With the exception of a couple legs, this train stops every hour or so. I'm pretty exhausted though so I may not even notice.
Mr Moo went off the find the loo. I think we're going to play some cards when he gets back.

We're stopped in Pasco, Washington, for an 8 minute stretch your legs/smoking break. We went outside for a couple minutes. It felt good to get some fresh air. Well, until we were surrounded by smokers that is. Blech!

The sleeping coach attendent just stopped by and showed us how to make up the beds. There is an upper bunk that flips down from the ceiling. That's where I'll be sleeping. The lower bunk is form by pressing levers to release the seats we're sitting in. They flatten and slide together to form the bed. There's a pad with sheets and a blanket that lies on top. Mr Moo will be sleeping here becuase it's about 6" longer than the upper bunk. We learned from the woman in the next cabin that we're lucky to have a room on the lower level. She's taken this train overnight before and told us, when it passes through the mountains, the cars sway a lot and it can get pretty rocky upstairs.

We wandered over to the lounge car a while ago for a snack. It's really nice on the upper level of that car. There are big comfortable chairs to sit in along with floor to ceiling windows, which offer great views of the passing scenery. It's probably nice and quiet over there now, but, unfortunately, it's also pitch black outside. From what I understand, we'll be picking up a dining car in Spokane and that also has nice big windows. If we can get up early enough, we'll have breakfast there and get to enjoy the view for a little while anyway.

We're both starting to yawn so I think it will be time for bed soon. Josie, the little brat, will probably sleep on our bed tonight even though she knows she's not supposed to. At least we know Dr. Jones won't be sleeping anywhere he's not supposed to, unless he decides to jump out of his tank and kill himself. I wonder how Stuka will sleep tonight being in a strange place surrounded by unfamiliar faces. I hope he's doing okay. I miss them all.

Well, I think we've determined that sleeping on the train is NOT a good thing. Between the noise of the train, the light from the hallway, the rocking and rolling, and the obnoxious brats in the famliy room next door, I don't either one of us managed more than a couple hours total. Fortunately, I had ear plugs and a sleep mask, which helped a lot, but I still struggled to sleep. Oh, well. Live and learn.

We almost overslept this morning, which was all sorts of fun. Stupid me forgot to set my watch ahead one hour before I went to bed. We crossed into the Mountain time zone while we were sleeping. As I was lying in bed thinking we had loads of time to get up and have a nice leisurely brekkie, it dawned on me that it was an hour later than I thought. After a frantic, "Oh crap!", we both quickly got dressed and dashed off to the dining car. We thought about skipping breakfast, but our meals were included with our ticket and we didn't want to pass up a free full hot breakfast. Turns out we were worried for nothing. The service was very quick and we had plenty of time to spare afterward.

I think we pulled into our stop at East Glacier about 20 minutes late. It was a very quick stop. As soon as we got off, they let the few people who were waiting on and they left almost immediately. We wanted to make sure out bags came off the train, but they were all the way in the first car, which we couldn't see from where we were on the platform. After the train pulled away, they started driving the luggage cart towards the station. We couldn't see if our bags were on it or not. Insert lots of sweating here. As the cart got closer, we could see bags on the trolley they were pulling, but our bags weren't on it. Aieee! After our mild heart attacks, we finally noticed our bags were on the back of the tractor, which was pulling the trolley. Phew!

A very nice man from the car rental agency was waiting for us on the platform. He drove us and another couple over to the motel that serves as the car rental agency. Within a few quick minutes, we had our car (a Suburu Outback) and we were on the road to Browning, Montana, for groceries.

Browning had a nice large IGA grocery store. However, since the town is in the middle of nowhere, the prices were still pretty steep. We didn't worry about it too much because we had brought a lot of food and supplies from Portland and didn't need to get much besides produce, yogurt, bread and a ton of ice for the cooler. We have a large soft-sided cooler that travels really well and works great as a mini-fridge. We had to do some re-packing in the parking lot since we had clothes in the cooler, but we had everything sorted relatively quickly. Just as we were about to pull out of our parking spot, an old man approached us and asked if we could buy him some beer. I was afraid we wasn't ever going to go away, but Mr Moo finally talked him into stepping away from the car and we were on our way again.

We made a couple more stops in Browning to see if we could find bear repellent spray. It's number three on the list of things to carry while hiking in Glacier, after water and food. Couldn't find any in Browning though so we set out for the park.

Our first stop upon arrival was the St. Mary Visitor Center. We picked up a bunch of maps, asked a ranger a bunch of questions and bought a few things from the book store. We were totally dismayed to find the Swiftcurrent Pass trail has been temporarily closed due to bear activity. That trail is part of the 15 mile hike we were planning to do on Monday. They're not sure when it will re-open so we may not get to do hike at all this week. Bummer. We found out later from a different ranger that some tourists were caught approaching a bear on the trail and possibly trying to feed it, which results in them closing a trail for at least three days. And now, because of those completely idiotic people, my plans are all messed up. Needless to say, I'm not real pleased about it.

We drove to our motel next. We're spending our first three nights at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. On the way, we saw several cars pulled to the side of the road. It didn't take us long to see why. There was a black bear wandering through the field on the other side of the road. Less than two hours after arriving, we had already seen a bear. We definitely needed to pick up some bear spray.
We checked into our room (after buying a can of bear spray in the gift shop) and spent some time unpacking and organizing all of our stuff. While Mr Moo looked at the maps, I took a 15 or so minute nap because I was falling down tired. I was still shattered afterward, but it seemed shameful to waste what was left of the day so we headed out to do a little bit of exploring. It was already after 1600 and we didn't have a whole lot of time so we headed over to Many Glacier Lodge to take a peek inside and walk the 2.5 mile trail around the Swiftcurrent Lake.
We thought about having dinner at the lodge after our hike. However, after checking out the menu and seeing the prices, we decided to come back to our motel and eat at the Italian restaurant here, which is much cheaper. It was busy so we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. Quick funny story for my sister - Mr Moo gave them our last name for the wait list. When the girl came into the lobby to call for us, she butchered the pronunciation 10 times worse than the guy at your wedding. It took her about 7 tries before I even started to recognize it for our name. We had a really good laugh over that.

While we were waiting for our food, we noticed a large crowd of people, including a few rangers, standing in the parking lot with binoculars staring at the mountain behind the motel. I reached a point where I couldn't stand it anymore and finally went out to ask what everyone was looking at. Turns out, there was a grizzly bear and a whole herd of mountain goats way up on the side of the mountain. With the naked eye, the bear was just a tiny black speck. The rangers had some really powerful scopes though and you could see him really well through those. He was just wandering around eating up all the berries in the area. After dinner, both Mr Moo and I joined the crowd and watched for a while again. We got our binoculars out, but they were really lame compared to wonderful scopes the rangers were letting everyone use. I later learned this wasn't a one time thing. The rangers set up out there every night at 1730 to look for wildlife. They told us they saw a mother bear and her three cubs just a few nights ago. We'll definitely join them again before we leave.
We came back to the room after our wildlife watch and finally took showers. We hadn't had any since early Friday morning. I feel bad for anyone unfortunate enough to catch a whiff of us during the day. I attempted to download the day's photos from my camera to my netbook and got all sorts of error messages. Just what I needed - another heart attack. Mr Moo helped me for a while, but nothing seemed to work. He finally tried putting the memory card in his camera and managed to download the photos from there. Once he got the pictures downloaded, he found there was one bad one right in the middle. We think there's a bad spot spot on the memory card. Will definitely use the other one for the rest of the trip and pray that one isn't bad, too.

We're sitting in our motel room at the moment. My good friend, G, and his wife are driving down from Canada to spend the day with us today. They should be here any minute now. Mr Moo is trying to finish up some work. Supposedly, there's an internet cafe not too far from here. We're hoping to head over there sometime in the next day or two so he can upload a couple things and send some emails. Not sure if I'll even try to update my journal. We'll see how much it costs.

Guess I should start getting our lunches and packs together so we can head right out once G and Mrs G arrive. The plan for today is to drive the Going to the Sun Road and stop at all the scenic overlooks.

G and Mrs G arrived a little later than planned, but not a whole lot. It worked out just fine because it gave Mr Moo a chance to finish up his work. Mr Moo went over to the motel office to find out the hours for the internet cafe and see if there were any messages. Just as he pulled up, G and Mrs G walked out. Good timing.

We decided to stop at the Park Cafe for lunch since it is next door to the internet cafe. While the rest of us ordered food and chatted, Mr Moo ran next door to do whatever it was he needed to do. He got back just as our food arrived. By the time his food arrived, we had finished eating. Just so he wouldn't feel weird with all of us staring while he ate, we went ahead and ordered pie for dessert (twist my arm). I believe the unanimous decision was it all delicious. Pie for strength!

Once we were properly bloated from lunch and pie, we headed into the park. We stopped at several of the scenic overlooks, took lots of photos and even squeezed in a few virtual Geocaches. We made it as far as the Logan Pass Visitor Center, where we saw a whole herd of bighorn sheep next to the trail to Hidden Lake. We only hiked a short distance because it was getting late and G and Mrs G needed to get headed back home to Calgary. We drove back to the St. Mary Visitor Center, where we had left their car. We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. We had a really good time spending the day with them and only wish we had had more time.

After saying our goodbyes yesterday, Mr Moo and I headed back to our hotel. We had dinner at the Italian restaurant again, which came back to haunt me in the middle of the night. After the hamburger I had for lunch and the meatballs I had with dinner, I woke up at about 0400 with phantom gall bladder pain. Since I no longer have a gall bladder, I don't get actual bladder pain. However, I still feel like crap and have back pain when I eat too much fat. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well, which is not a good thing because we have a really long hike planned for today. Will be interesting to see how I hold up as the day wears on.

Ptarmigan Tunnel Hike. 9 hours. 12.5 miles. 2300 feet elevation gain. In pain. Praying for death.

Taking a long hot shower and great big cup of ice cream work wonders. My feet are still incredibly sore, but I don't feel quite as close to death's door as I did a few hours ago.

It was a brutal hike, but well worth the suffering. We hiked through the forest for quite a while. Eventually, it opened up and we arrived at Ptarmigan Lake. Because of their unique mineral content, glacial lakes are the most beautiful blue color. It reminds me of the color of the water in the Caribbean except the water is freezing cold. From the spot we chose above the lake, where we had lunch and a rest, we could see the final leg of the trail switchbacking up the mountain to the tunnel. I was not encouraged when I realized the tiny specks I was seeing were people, but I knew we hadn't hiked all that way to turn back before reaching the end. It took an age, but we made our way to the tunnel at the top. I counted my steps and stopped after every hundred to catch my breath. It doesn't sound very far, but if you knew how steep this part of the trail was, you'd understand what an effort it was to just make one hundred.
From Wikipedia: The Ptarmigan Tunnel was built in 1930 through the Ptarmigan Wall at an elevation of 7200 feet in Glacier National Park, near Many Glacier. The 250-foot tunnel allows hikers to avoid a strenuous climb over very steep terrain between Many Glacier and the Belly River valley. Two opposing steel jackhammers drilling from either side of the tunnel and a series of ten-hole rounds of dynamite gradually broke through the mountain in less than three months. A wide area, originally for guide and tourist horses, extends from each portal with a masonry retaining wall. Natural rock lines the interior walls. Heavy iron doors were hung across the tunnel adits during the summer of 1975. They remain open from mid-July until October 1, weather permitting. The 250' long tunnel is a unique man-made feature in Glacier. This trail tunnel embodies exceptional qualities of landscape architecture and engineering in a pedestrian-scaled tunnel, cut through a sheer mountain wall. The portals frame spectacular views.

They were not kidding about the views. They were absolutely amazing from both sides of the tunnel. If you ever happen to do this particular hike, make sure to continue hiking once you go through the tunnel. The view from the portal is terrific, but, if you go about another half mile or so and look back, it's even better. You'll be able to see Ahern Glacier, it's waterfalls and the surrounding area. We saw several people take a few steps out of the tunnel, stop, snap some photos and turn back. We kind of felt bad for them because they were missing out on what we were seeing.
After soaking up the sights for a while, we started heading back. We had allowed plenty of time and were in no hurry. It's a good thing, too. As grueling as hiking up a mountain can be, I honestly believe hiking down is more painful. Granted, it was nice to not be gasping for air every few feet, but my poor knees were complaining. A lot. We took our time though and stopped quite a bit so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Not long after we started the hike back down, we heard a bunch of rustling in the bushes right by the side of the trail. Given all of the warnings about bears in the area, we both froze in our tracks and tried not to panic. It didn't take us long to realize it wasn't a bear (thank goodness!), but something much, much smaller - ptarmigans! They are small grouse-like birds. It looked to be a mother and two chicks. We stood and watched them for a few minutes, since they were so close, before moving on to our next adventure.
The number one thing you can do to avoid getting attacked by a bear while hiking is to make noise. Contrary to popular belief, bears are not vicious man-eaters that stalk people. If they hear you coming and can run away, they will. We clapped our hands and hollered periodically, but, after a while, you start feeling kind of dumb shouting for no reason. Since Mr Moo isn't much of a conversationalist, I came up with a new twist on an old game. I called it "10,000 Degrees from Kevin Bacon". You start with Kevin Bacon. You name one of his movies and a co-star in said movie. The next person names a movie and co-star of that person and so on. As you can imagine, you can play this game for a looooong time, but that's the whole point. It kept us talking almost the whole way back and we had more than a few laughs trying to come up with some of the answers.

Mid-way through our game, Mr Moo, who was leading the way, came to a dead stop in the middle of the trail and started loudly whispering, "Back up! Back up!" Once again, flashes of being a bear snack ran through my mind and I nearly pooped my pants. Once again, it wasn't a bear. This time, it was a moose! And a very large bull moose indeed. Mr Moo is just shy of six feet tall and this guy was easily taller than him at the shoulder. Add in the fact that he was only about 20-30 feet away from us on the side of the trail, he was a tad bit terrifying. We assessed our surroundings, established an evacuation plan and began our mission to get around him. We made a LOT of noise, jumped up and down a bit, and threw some rocks around to see if he would startle. Turns out we were worried for nothing. He didn't pay us one tiny bit of attention and kept right on grazing. Since he was slowly inching his way towards the trail, we decided not to waste anymore time and scurried past as fast as we could. Once we were safely past him, we then turned around to take photos. Knowing that, if we had to start running at that point, we would at least be running in the right direction was a big relief. The moose continued to completely ignore us and grazed his way onto the trail where we had just been standing. What a beautiful sight he was.

The remainder of our hike back was uneventful. We made as good time as my bad knees would allow and still made it back with plenty of time. We saw a few people heading up the trail as we were coming down. Given the late hour, we're fairly certain they had to do at least part of their hike back in the dark. Not a very wise move given the area.