MONTANA MOUNTAIN TOUR DAY 6

Yes, it did rain on us again today, just in case you are wondering. Oh, and the Mountain Spirits have sent me a message. Henrietta the snake has been trying to contact me to say that she is well but not having much fun.

We left the mountain at 6:45 to go to the field where our Model T’s are parked.  Everything was dripping with dew.  Instead of that bright blue Montana sky, it looked like the Great Smokey Mountains, very hazy, fog strata everywhere. Someone commented that the moon was still up, but it was the sun looking like a pale pink orb in the haze.  Everyone packed up and had on several layers of clothing because it was very chilly. The Bratts and the Roeders decided to do the tour in their modern and give their T’s a well deserved rest today, but the rest of our hardy band fired up the T’s and away we went.

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That really is the sun in the haze.

Ivan doing a few morning repairs.

Today’s tour was  all around Glacier Park for a total of  200 miles. It was like our endurance run only the weather was cold, foggy and rainy but the mountains and scenery were still spectacular. We all put our tops down for touring, you just have to tour a place like Glacier with the top down to get the full effect because the terrain is so vertical.  It is a long Model T climb up the Going to the Sun Road from the west side, we managed most of it in high gear, chug a chug a chug.  Lots of traffic and construction, so the speed was just right for all the T’s.  When we stopped at Logan’s Pass, we were in the clouds and it was pretty wintery.  Mark put on his furry hat and Bob E. produced a jacket and put it on. Now you know it was cold when this happens. Most of us were wrapped in blankets and ski jackets and hats all plural.

Wow, what a spectacular place.

Chugging away up the going to the Sun Road.

There goes one of the Glacier busses disappearing into the fog.

Mark adding oil to his Muncie after the climb up the mountain.

We took many pictures but you can’t even begin to see the beauty of this park in a picture. There were many water falls and several small glaciers visible below the fog. Couldn’t see many mountains tops because of the surrounding fog. At St. Marys, we ran into a light rain, so all the tops went back up.  Had lunch at the beautiful hotel at East Glacier.

Then headed back west on route 2 to the Huckleberry Patch for home made huckleberry pie alamode. This was absolutely delicious. Of course some people opted to have chocolate milkshake at the huckleberry patch, can you imagine?Next stop an antique barn with junk flowing into the yard plus many out buildings filled with old stuff. Thank goodness the guys didn’t find anything that they didn’t already have.  Did I mention that Pat had to give Bob Edwards a push?

Faster, Pat, faster.

A model T tour always finds an excuse to have ice cream.

Now we continued on hwy 40 to 93 the home stretch. Just as we made the turn onto 93, Ray’s touring sputters and stops, out of gasoline. Would you believe that three cars behind him came the trouble trailer who just happened to have a container of gas.  That guy lives in a tree.  Dropped off the T at the field and got back up the mountain at about 8:00.  See, it really was an endurance run, but it was fun, didn’t realize it was that late until someone mentioned it.  Holy cow, what a day.  Day off tomorrow for R and R and tweaking the cars.

If you are still with us and not bored yet, here are a couple videos. When the video comes up on Flickr, click on the symbol in the lower right to get a full screen.

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