Day 14-15: Glacier National Park to North Dakota (yes, heading East)

Well, on Monday morning I got the call. Shortly after I left my AirBnB in Southern Montana and started heading North toward Glacier National Park, my wife called and told me that things were getting rough with my boys at home missing their daddy. I always knew that was a possibility— this whole trip was predicated on the idea that my kids aren’t yet old enough to come on a trip like this with me, appreciate it, and be OK being left alone while I ran the races (they are 4 and 7), but old enough that my wife could watch them while I was gone (they are potty trained, have friends they can go play with, can entertain themselves and each other, etc). As to how they would hold up emotionally without me around, well, that was an experiment, and apparently the answer is they had about two weeks in them and now they really want daddy to come home. I wasn’t going to argue with that, especially because the next big move of the trip was going to be a 6 hour drive further West to go visit my brother in Seattle, which would have taken me another day’s drive away from home. So, the trip was officially truncated. Instead of running 5 half marathons in 5 states, I am going to have to be satisfied with running 3 in 3 states. And I think I am.

That’s not to say that I immediately pulled a U-turn on the interstate and headed home. I did finish my drive up to Glacier and took in the sights there, because I was already most of the way there and getting back home is going to take several days no matter how you slice it. Glacier was impressive— I did the Going-To-The-Sun-Road, the big scenic drive that people talk about with the park. It was the first overcast day of the trip, which may have made the mountains a little less awe inspiring but it did create cool visual effects as the clouds rolled over the top of the mountains and spilled down into the valley below. The drive takes you up from the valley floor over the continental divide, and when I got up there we were effectively inside a cloud on top of the mountain, which was pretty cool (also it was cold, the first time I can say that this trip). To be honest, though, Glacier didn’t hit me as hard as Yellowstone and Grand Teton did, perhaps because my mind was already on getting back home to my family.

When I exited the park, I was almost two hours East of where I was scheduled to camp that night, and it was starting to rain (another first for the trip), so we headed East instead. I was able to book a little AirBnB in a little town in Northern Montana, we spent a short night there, and hit the road again this morning. Today was a very difficult day of driving— there is not much to see in Northern Montana except for flat emptiness and some very depressing Indian Reservations that made me feel bad about the state of the country, but it also rained the entire day. But, when we finally crossed over into North Dakota we saw signs for another National Park—- Theodore Roosevelt NP, which features the North Dakota badlands. It was drizzling rain and overcast for the entire drive, but the badlands are still very interesting and impressive land forms, and for the first time this trip I actually drove right up next to several different buffalo herds (the one thing I left Yellowstone disappointed about was the lack of famous wildlife that I saw). I understand why there is so much signage in the parks about not getting too close to the wildlife. I understand completely that its a bad idea to do that, but honestly, when I saw them, I had a very strong desire to jump out and take pictures. Fortunately, I was able to resist that urge and went ungored for another day.

Tonight, we drove as far as Bismarck, ND, which is an absolutely adorable town that seems like it would be a charming place to live… in the summer time. Tomorrow, we are going to put in the longest day of driving of the trip, hauling all the way from here to Madison, Wisconsin, where my aunt lives. But that sets us up for a much easier drive home on Thursday, when I get to see my family again! I have more complicated thoughts about ending the trip this way, so I think I will write at least one more blog post tomorrow or the next day about all that, but for now, I’m calling it a night.