We discovered that there is still a lot of freight moved by rail out west. There was a train that went by our campsite probably every half hour (thankfully did not keep us awake). Jim got some great footage of a long string of oil tankers going across the trestle bridge of the Cut Bank River on Saturday morning before we left.

We had about 40 miles left to go before arriving in East Glacier about 10:00 AM where we picked up a rental car. We were very thankful for some advice the car rental agent gave us about driving up to St. Mary where our campground is. He directed us back to Browning, MT for a route that was much more motor home friendly :-)

We spent some time at the Glacier Park Lodge - had our morning coffee break there in the lobby and enjoyed the beautiful flower gardens on the Lodge grounds.

We walked back to the village and had lunch at a nice cafe in town.

We were now driving two vehicles - Mary following Jim in the rented Kia Soul. The drive up to St. Mary was fabulous.

 And this time we get to stay at this beautiful National Park campsite …

Jim was very glad to park the motor home for six days and drive a car instead through the mountain roads (even though he had to force himself to drive a “sissy liberal” car).

We spent the afternoon getting acclimated to the area. We found out there was quite a bit available in the little village of St. Mary including a brand new grocery store and an ice cream shop (Jim was really craving some ice cream - no room for that in the camper freezer). We also discovered that we could get a wifi signal at the Visitor Center although our cell phones get no service at all. So we will plan on stopping at the Visitor Center once a day to get and send messages.

The good news that we learned about yesterday is that the Going to the Sun road through the park has now reopened from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm each day. Due to the Reynolds Creek fire on this end of Glacier NP the road from Logan’s Pass to St. Mary has been closed for several weeks. A couple of weeks ago the St. Mary Campground where we are staying had to be evacuated because of the fire threat. We knew before we left that the campground had reopened but not the road until yesterday. From where we are the only evidence of the fire is a few wisps of smoke over the mountain tops in the distance.