The Great Adventure 2011 Montana – 7/29/11

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On the way to Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier today, we stopped at a sale in front of an antique store called Station 8 in Columbia Falls, MT. I found my first spinning wheel – a Louet S70! I wasn’t sure if I should buy it since we were so far from home though and I called my friend Caron (who doesn’t seem to mind if I keep bugging her for advice!) and she said the price was great so I couldn’t resist. We took some parts off of it to get it in the car. Now I hope I can get it back together again when I get home. We may need to stop in Kalispell on the way to Idaho to find a long box and then take it apart more to ship it home.

Then we arrived at the Glacier Park Lodge. It was supposed to be a grand hotel and we were pretty disappointed. First we got there at 2:15 and this snooty desk clerk told me that check in wasn’t until 3pm and our room wasn’t ready yet. I can understand that but I was surprised that no rooms were cleaned at this time and there was no one else checking in. I went to use the restroom and it was filthy. There was toilet paper and empty rolls on the floor. The trash can was overflowing with dirty paper towels. The paper towel dispenser was empty and a roll was on top. You had to get it with your wet hands to unroll some to dry your hands. In the lobby, the radiators must have had dust an inch thick because we could write our names in it! I was shocked that a “nice” hotel would look like this! I went back at 3pm and they told me that there were still no rooms ready for us and that we needed to come back in 20 minutes. By this time the train arrived and a ton of people came in to check in and there were no rooms ready so the lobby was full of people milling around. I went back at 3:20 and they told me that my room still wasn’t ready. Finally at 3:30, I was able to check in. (Now would they let me check out 30 minutes later since my check in was 30 minutes later? No.) When we got to our room (307), the room had 2 double beds and a small bathroom. It wasn’t anything fancy at all and it cost almost $200! I’m glad we are only staying here for one night.

After check in, we walked around East Glacier and checked out the shops. At 4:45 we got in line outside of Serranos (a Mexican restaurant) waiting for it to open at 5pm. The food was outstanding! We each had 3 large chili rellenos ($14.95) that came with black beans and rice and a pitcher of margaritas ($24). I would definitely go here again! I want to thank @GlacierMTGuy on plurk for recommending this to us!

After dinner we walked around the train station and back to the lodge. We met a really nice couple from Denver and visited with them for awhile. Then we sat out on the porch to enjoy the sunset which was lovely.

What I Learned Today:

· It takes about 2 hours to drive from Kalispell to East Glacier.

· Huckleberry ice cream tastes like blueberry to me.

· Serranos is a wonderful place to eat!!

· I would not recommend the Glacier Lodge to anyone.

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original Photo: by Pat Hensley