The Road to Glacier

After seven days of non-stop adventure, we had a bit of a breather day on our 6 hour drive from Yellowstone to Glacier. If you ever find yourself driving from Yellowstone to Glacier, I recommend staying in Gardiner, MT – it will save you about an hour or more of driving if you stay there rather than any of the other areas in Yellowstone.

Knowing us though, we still made a few stops along the way. Our first was in Bozeman, MT to the Museum of the Rockies. The museum was originally affiliated with Montana State University and is now also part of the Smithsonian Institution. It’s known for its paleontological exhibits – housing the largest collection of dinosaur remains in the United States, including the largest T-rex skull ever discovered, and soft-tissue remains from the thigh bone of a T–rex (which is insane!!). They also have permanent exhibits focusing on the history and culture of the area and its people. The temporary exhibit they have currently was about Vikings, which was very interesting as I know next to nothing about them (except for the small amount of fictionalized Norse mythology I’ve learned from Marvel – thank you Thor and Loki!). It took us nearly 2 – 2.5 hours to go through the entire museum, and we could have spent longer, but a bus full of young summer campers came barreling in, and at that point, I knew it was time to go.

Click on the images below to see these amazing dinosaurs and other fun finds at the museum:

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Before leaving Bozeman and continuing North, we stopped at a food truck to grab some lunch. If you’re ever in Bozeman: Low Key Sandwiches – I had the Bahn Mi, and it was amazing!!

For those of you potentially wanting to take this route in the future, here are some things we didn’t stop to do because we didn’t have time but would have loved to do: Lewis and Clark Caverns in Whitehall, MT; Gates of the Mountains Boat Tour in Helena National Forest; detour to Garnet Ghost Town in Missoula, MT; stop at Big Sky, MT; detour to Butte, MT; and when you finally get to the east side of Glacier, visit the Two Medicine area.

When we finally made it to Glacier County, the clouds were so low, we couldn’t see the tops of the mountains. As the sky was starting to clear, it was funny because the road we were traveling on split the weather in two with clear skies on one side and dark grey clouds on the other.

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We pulled into the St. Mary Village Lodge and Resort, which was going to be our hub for the next two nights. It was extremely convenient – located right outside of the east entrance to the Going-to-the-Sun Road and the village had a gas station, grocery store, gift shop, and restaurant and lounge all located on the property. The room was nice, too, keeping on-theme with the quaint Western feel. And it had a back porch that looked out on a stream with mountains rising in the background. Couldn’t have asked for a better view.

Again, we capitalized on the convenience of having a restaurant at our hotel, so the Snow Goose Grill was our dinner spot for the night. And it did not disappoint! We finally tried some huckleberry!! Huckleberry margarita, huckleberry vodka lemonade, huckleberry jam, all the huckleberry. We also tried elk sausage on this incredible charcuterie board – this also had the best honey I’ve ever tasted.

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Stuffed with all things huckleberry, we were ready to get some sleep for our first official day in Glacier tomorrow!

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MILES DRIVEN: 380 miles

STEPS TAKEN: 3,507 (this is what happens when you’re in the car for over 6 hours)

NUMBER OF TIMES WE TURNED AROUND ON THE HIGHWAY BECAUSE WE DIDN’T KNOW THE NEXT TIME THERE WOULD BE A GAS STATION AND WE HAD LESS THAN HALF A TANK LEFT AND STILL A WAYS TO GO AND WE HAD NO CELL RECEPTION BECAUSE WE’RE OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE SO OUR ONLY CHOICE IS TO TURN AROUND: 1