After our great hike up Apgar Lookout Trail on Mon. Sept. 16th we headed back to Apgar Village. It’s the largest village in Glacier, but all it consists of is a couple of gift shops a couple of hotels, and a restaurant.

The first place we stopped in Apgar is the best shop by far. It’s called Montana House, and it’s full of beautiful and amazing stuff made in Montana.

This stunning canoe was hanging from the ceiling.

It was built in 1995, and was paddled on Lake McDonald for 25 years. It’s a steal at $5,300. We couldn’t buy it because it wouldn’t have fit in our tiny cabin on the train.

There was a staggering amount of beautiful jewelry, and Kevin bought me these lovely earrings for our anniversary.

He’d forgotten to get me an anniversary card and when he woke up that morning i think he was pretty worried that he’d forgotten because i’d left a card out for him. So when i got up, he’d emptied one of the many boxes containing sugar-free hawaiian punch packets, and written a sweet note inside.

So the earrings were a bonus.

Unfortunately, i lost one of the them when we just went up to northern illinois to visit Kevin’s family in the middle of October. Luckily i have that photo of the earrings and am going to call the shop and get a replacement. I’d already been in contact with them because we’d seen some outstanding photos by a japanese artist who has relocated to Montana and takes so many photos of animals at the park. I’d seen a great photo that i wanted, but by the time I decided i should buy it on the last day of our trip, somebody had bought it. So the shop had the artist make another print and they shipped it to me.

we were hungry that evening because of our big hike and found the perfect spot for dinner at Edie’s Diner. A couple had just vacated this table so we had a fantastic view of the lake and mountains in the distance.

Plus the food was fantastic – i had a “charlie russell buffalo burger,” which was a bison burger with huckleberry aioli and blue cheese. Kevin had fish & chips which weren’t bad, but not as stellar as my burger.

I just looked up charlie russell…he was a western artist who had a summer home in Apgar. FYI.

One bonus about hiking is that it enables us to eat a hearty meal fairly guilt-free. a warm huckleberry cobble for dessert. Mmmmm good.

The view of the diner and the lone Apgar street. Behind me is Lake McDonald.

After eating we wandered over to the edge of Lake McDonald, and found a couple who we’d seen when we were eating and snacking before our descent down the Grinnell Glacier trail two days before. I’d been too tired up on that mountain to try to strike up a conversation, but now we talked. They were married (they looked too young to be married!), they had at least a couple of small children who they’d left back in San Diego for this vacation. Between Saturday and Monday they’d managed to go to the sister park, Waterton National Park in Canada. This seemed like a lot of driving to me, but I just looked it up, and to get to Waterton from the Many Glacier Hotel, where we’d started our boat ride to the hike to Grinnell, was only an hour and a half. but then they had to look around there in Canada and then drive all the way back to the other side of Glacier. Lots of driving I bet.

Dang, we should have gone to Waterton…next time!

Before we went to Glacier I tried to look at most of the stuff on their website, which is quite extensive. One thing i found fascinating was that they had webcams in different spots in the park, and i checked them every once in a while to see if there were big crowds anywhere. They’re all in real time, and it was fun to see what it was like at any given moment.

In Apgar, I showed Kevin the spot where one of the cameras were, and i had the brilliant idea of texting amy to see if she could see us on the webcam. I asked a few other people, but amy was the only one who was able to spot us and capture the photo.

Here’s the screenshot that she saved:

She said she knew it was us, because had figured i’d be waving like mad at the camera!

When we walked back to the lake, we had her try it again. it’s kind of hard to tell it’s us, but it is.

If you want to check out the current conditions at different places around the park, here’s the link to the webcams. you just click on whichever one you want to see; some of them have the current temperature and the elevation on them.

it was a super-fun anniversary, one that’ll be hard to beat…but i bet we’ll be up to the challenge by next year!

ok then,

mrs. still nice weather here in late october hughes.