[Christina] Day 8: Glacier National Park and the K-T Boundary

We left Sally's place very early (thanks again, Sally!) and drove north to Glacier National Park.  We drove up through the fog, which we soon realized was just a cloud because we were so high up in the mountains.  As we drove through the park, the low-lying cloud lent an otherworldly feel to the landscape.  It was like something out of Middle Earth. [Elizabeth sidebar: This was easily my favorite part of the drive thus far. Glacier was both un-crowded, and just a beautiful alpine but not totally alpine forest. The fog made it magical, and it was so unbelievably amazing. It's a fantastic park, though definitely far from the beaten path.]

 Eventually we climbed high into the mountains as the road skirted along the peaks and passes.

As the name of the park promised, we did get to see a real glacier. [Elizabeth sidebar: sadly, though not unexpectedly, there was a sign at the glacier overlook showing pictures of what it once looked like. I do feel blessed to have gotten to actually *see* a glacier, and sad that they probably won't be around much longer... This trip's carbon footprint weighs somewhat heavy on my mind, but the Power Prius does get great gas mileage, and further, once I'm settled, I will be driving much, much less than I did in San Diego, so there is that, at least.]

Once we were out of the park, we cut across the length of Montana, which sure does have a thing for entertaining road signs,  I suspect some of these were unintentionally humorous.

We did have time for one spectacular roadside geology stop, though-- the K-T boundary!  The Roadside Geology of Montana had mentioned that there was an exposure of the K-T boundary in one particular place, and Elizabeth, connoisseur of the  K-T boundary, insisted we make a stop. [Elizabeth sidebar: I spent my dissertation thinking about the K/Pg basically all the time. While it must have been one really bad Thursday* afternoon for the planet, it really is fascinating from a paleobiological standpoint.]

We scrambled around the side of the road so I could check out the exposure up close and Elizabeth could do a handstand on it. [Elizabeth sidebar: I collect pictures of handstands at geologic outcrops. This is my second K-T boundary handstand - the other was at Gubbio itself, where I was able to put one hand on each side of the boundary. Here, I got to touch it!] Once we wrapped that up, we figured we better high-tail it back to the car so we didn't get shot or something.

We had planned to camp at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, just across the North Dakota border.  Their campground was full, so we ended up camping at a nearby commercial campground.  We were exhausted after a 13+ hour day of driving-- turns out Montana is really big-- so after setting up the tent in an especially efficient 20 minutes, we collapsed inside.  Ah, sweet relief.

Wait.

What was that sound?

THUNDER!!! [Serious thunder and lightning]

Pretty sure it was this massive thunderhead we saw on the way in.

We dragged our pillows and sleeping bags out of the tent back into the car and alternately napped fitfully and giggled at the absurdity of the situation as we waited for the thunderstorm to pass.

Finally, it did, and we got to zonk out in the tent for good.