Our Joad trip to Glacier National Park

Finally a month after our trip to Glacier National Park, here’s the story of the adventure.

Day One

A couple of months ago, soon after the Tardis camper remodel, the bride started talking about wanting to make a trip to Glacier National Park.  So I got Neal the truck ready, being named so after the Astronaut for going to the moon, my truck is on the return trip at 274 thousand miles.  So after a few smaller shakedown camping trips, we took off on a Sunday morning drove 30 miles stopped to get some ice and came back to the truck and the engine had seized up. 

You see, a while back ago on another adventure, one of my hoses had popped off and the truck overheated blowing the head gasket and I had not got around to fixing it.  Well, the final straw was tossed on Neal’s back and he wasn’t going to take it anymore.  So I called a tow truck and right when the tow truck arrived, I turned the key and he started up.  I paid the tow guy for his trip and drove home.   Guess the engine is at such a stage that it seizes when it’s hot.  Sigh.

We decided, well, I am on leave for a week, let’s just pack up the car with the tent and supplies and head out.  So, 2 hours later, after a very quick packing job because we had to cut down on what we were bringing.  We hit the road much later than expected and decided that Louise Erdrich’s, The Plague of Doves would be a good road tripping book.  It set the tone well for the first part of the trip.

Sunset behind us over my moonroof

11 that night, we were tired, I was grumpy because one of my cars was mortally wounded and we decided to stay at a Super 8 in Spokane.  One thing about owning dogs that you can’t expect to stay in a really nice place but Super 8’s are always accommodating to pets and give a military discount.  Sometime in the life of this particular Super 8, it looked like it had hosted regularly graduation parties and biker parties.  I’m okay with that.

Day 2

Next morning, bring shiny after a good night’s rest, we hit the road again and broke our fast at Dawn of the Donut, a zombie themed donut in Spokane.  

By the next afternoon after driving through some beautiful country in Idaho and Montana with a stop for Bear repellent we arrived at Glacier National Park only to find that there were only 2 campgrounds open after Labor Day due to the government sequester.  Apgar was full and the other, Many Glaciers was only taking hard shell campers and mine was still sitting at home hanging his hood in shame. 

When we planned the trip, we planned it for camper.   We kept driving because on our map, there were some campsites in this particular direction and the wife indicated a dirt road which we abandoned early on, deciding that it was too rough after a mile for the Fusion.  Instead, we turned around and drove down a different road, on which there was supposed to be another campground.  However we missed an important right turn at Polebridge village in the dark and ended up randomly wandering down some dirt road for over an hour, every once in a while passing a closed campground.  Until we saw the a campground symbol with an arrow pointing down a small one lane dirt road with a 10 underneath it.   So we drove those 10 miles slowly in the dark. 

Consider at this point, we had spent 3 hours of just driving in one direction on a dirt road and had not seen another car.  I had scary movie themes running in my head, considering how many Wrong Turns it took to get here and that we were totally cut off from cell service, it was to be expected.  Finally after a very long and slow 10 miles we were at this mystery campground, which wasn’t a mystery anymore.  It was called Tuchuck and it was just miles away from the Canadian border and we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was free, had 7 very large, clean camp sites and we were totally alone.  Added bonus, there was a stream singing merrily right behind the campsite we chose.  I could have kissed the ground but didn’t.

Picture of the campground sign in the daylight

Many people are horrified about having to set up tents in the dark.  To me, those people don’t practice enough, we were veteran campers and had the Montana 8 tent up in less than 10 minutes and started the queen sized air mattress inflating.  Okay, even though we were totally caught by surprise having to switch out of a camper with no notice.  We were used to tent camping more than anything else and it wasn’t that big of a shift to us. 

I made steaks that night with corn and home fires, and we enjoyed the fire and the music of the wind through the trees and water in the back ground.  This is life.

Our trip up Highway One and 101 from California to Whidbey Island Part 1, day one and two

First note about this trip, the bride planned everything out weeks in advance and put it all in a binder which I’m looking at for the first time.  She spent a week looking up directions, taking notes on what’s interesting everyplace along the drive and making reservations on the best spots to camp.  We planned on staying in a motel 2 nights but that ended up being 4 nights after a largish rainstorm and we were muddy and needed a bit off warmth.  Say what you want about Motel 6, but they gave us a military rate of 45 bucks a night and no arguments about two 50 pound dogs.  All of the campgrounds mentioned take dogs just make sure to clean up after them and keep them around you like a second skin.  So on with the journey.

We left out of San Jose on the morning of June 10^th, crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and drove up the 101 till it connected to the 128, which is also called the Tunnel of Tree’s when you get closer to the coast and we got to see our first redwoods of our journey north because like the name says, it was a tunnel of trees.  Very pretty and scenic, too bad I was driving or I would have taken more pictures. 

Our first night was at Mackerricher State Park which is located 5 or so miles north of Fort Bragg CA.  Basic campsite, running water and flush toilets but no showers.  A hundred yard walk to the beach and seals on the beach.  My first run in with wild life was here too, I was sitting roasting a marshmallow and a spotted skunk bumped into my leg as it stumbled by.  Glad the dogs were in the tent or it would could have been ugly, or is that smelly? 

this is a whale skeleton at the entrance to Mackerricher

To reserve a campsite online is 8 dollars and the fee for Mackerricher was 35 bucks which seems in line for most of the California campgrounds.  One thing I noticed was that Oregon campgrounds were cheaper and they all had showers which were free.  Camping in the Sierra Nevada’s last summer, none of those campgrounds had showers either.

Note 2: We’re driving in my 97 Toyota Tacoma with 270 thousand miles on him with a camper shell, his name is Neil, like the astronaut because he’s driven to the moon.  Our biggest problem is that we over packed and unloading and loading took up an hour or so each side of the day and my old knees feel it and there wasn’t much spare space, specially when you are married to a souvenirholic.  Our tent was a Colman Montana 8 which is easier putting up with 2 people but we could do it in 10 minutes by the end of the trip, we had a queen sized blow up mattress which we put a blanket on top of to keep sharp doggie feet from poking holes in it and 2 dog beds.  Note, always bring a patch kit with you when you have a blow up bed.

The next morning, I made breakfast of eggs, home fries and toast, we were off towards the Albee Creek Campground at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.   We drove north on Highway 1 till it connected again with the 101, but before we got on the 101 we went to see the Chandler Tree, a big redwood that someone had carved a hole that you could drive through and here’s Neil driving through it.

We then followed the 101 till the first exit of Avenue of the Giants and we followed that 20.8 miles, here is where the directions got tricky, you can’t really see the sign to turn so it’s important to turn left at exactly 20.8 miles, sure it would be quicker to take the 101 but you would miss one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever been on.  Drive past the turn to Weott on Avenue of the Giants, drive over a bridge over a river which goes under the 101 and take a sharp left, the campground is 5 miles down that road. 

Albee Campground has coin operated showers, you can’t take dogs on the trails so we stayed in the area. I made dinner, we took showers and crashed. The next morning on the way out, we checked out the Rockefeller Grove and Bull Creek, some of the biggest trees you'll probably ever run into. It's late and I'm done with typing for tonight, expect more posts on this over the next few weeks.