To my surprise, it didn't take all that long to pack in the morning. All the camping equipment had already been stowed, and it was just a matter of taking clothing out of the dressers (which were already sorted into soiled and clean laundry), and then systematically loading stuff into the bags for the flight. The drive out to Ross Creek scenic area was lovely, and the short 1 mile walk took us amongst trees large enough to crawl into, and walk into.
We got up at 4:45am on the 6th, got to the gate with about 5 minutes before our boarding was called, and flew an uneventful flight back to San Jose. From there, Arturo picked us up and took us home. What a trip!
All through our trip the guidebook would mention huckleberry bushes along one route or another, but we never saw any huckleberries whatsoever during our trip. The day started with a long 1.5 hour drive, first along long straight highways and then on a dirt road that then turned into a one way route. By the time we arrived at Trail 656, I was worried that we were too low and the day would be hot, but it wasn't too bad.
After that, it was a change to swim suits and application of more sunblock before heading down to Big Sky Waterpark. The prices were high but by entering after 3:00pm we'd gotten the twilight discount and also the $2 per person discount that was on the web-site that just had to be mentioned to get it.
As anticipated, the boys immediately had all the energy in the world, with Boen and Bowen making full use of their 2.5 hours to do every slide multiple times. My feet got sore from walking on the concrete ramps, but I had to admit that the slides, while old and kinda bumpy, were even faster and more thrilling than the ones we'd tried in Germany. In particular, they had 2 tube slides that required that you carry the tubes (and I did not even try to help Boen carry them --- he enthusiastically carried them himself), that because of the nature of tubes on water were much much faster than any of the body slides.
We made use of every second of the slide time, and then went for dinner in Whitefish, finishing just after the huckleberry ice cream shop closed. The kids cried so much that I had to stop at a MacDonalds to get them some vanilla ice cream to placate them.
The one advantage of the water slide was that after all that the kids slept easily. I had a ton of packing to do the next morning before the drive back to Spokane, but I too was worn out enough that I opted to sleep first and pack the next day.
All my prior practice driving on dirt roads now paid off, as we left the hotel at 6:30am, and arrived at 7:50am in Polebridge after quite a bit of dirt driving. The Outfitter's staff had just arrived, and they quickly brief'd us on the use of the kayaks, gave us oars, mounted the kayaks onto the roof of the Subaru, showing me how the roof racks worked, and had us on the way. The watercraft inspection was smooth and they tagged the kayaks with a permit.
We arrived at Bowman lake at precisely the right time. The lake was still as a mirror, and was as breathtakingly beautiful as everyone had said it was. By the time we finished shooting pictures, unloaded the kayaks, and got Bowen and Boen into their wet-suit, there had been just enough wind to take away that mirror-like finish on the lake, so clearly getting up in time to leave at 6:30am was the right thing to do!
We headed out to the Great Northern Rafting Resort, which ran multiple whitewater rafting trips. On the way there, Bowen kept telling Boen that he promised that Boen would like it. We got fitted with life jackets, water shoes for the adults, and everyone had plenty of sunscreen on.
Xiaoqin had picked out a restaurant with a great open-faced steak sandwich, and after that we had Huckleberry Ice Cream downtown Whitefish, which was great and would be the best ice cream during the entire trip.
I looked in the book to see what hikes we could do on Sunday, but everything was a long drive. We ended up deciding on the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness, since that was an easy hike, had the shortest drive, and while I had originally thought it would be a great hike to do on the way back to Spokane, I realized that I didn't want to add time pressure on what would be a long driving day.
The kids woke up in the morning declaring that I had snored like a bear the night before. "Well, that's why I have a CPAP machine the rest of the time, I told them." Just before getting out of bed, Boen said to me the words every parent dreads: "Daddy, I peed a little in the sleeping bag," It wasn't a little (I used a towel to mop up the spills), but at least he did it the last night of the camping trip!
Without the food, and with my load lightened and the cool morning air, I was raring to go and moved fast.
I slept on and off throughout the night, finally awakening just in time to see alpenglow off the surrounding mountains.
But the angle of the sun was far different at Noname Lake, so sundown didn't happen as quickly as we thought, but it turned out that the toll of the last couple of days had done its work, and we all fell asleep by 7pm, only waking a couple of times after dark to see the stars.
After I killed my Stephenson Warmlite last year, I was forced to look into a tent that could replace it, or at the very least allow the entire family to go backcountry camping together. Here's the deal, my MSR Freelite could sleep 3 of us, but for the fourth person, I'd either have to use a hammock if the weather was good and there were trees, or a single person tent. I decided that the Warmlite was too heavy and too expensive for a single person, and that modern solutions were actually better designed.
During memorial day, I scored a Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL1 single person tent for about $286 (including taxes and shipping). I didn't end up using it on the Chiluana Falls backpacking trip because Xiaoqin got food poisoning.
At Glacier National Park, I could have used the hammock, but the rangers discouraged me from doing so. Knowing what I know now, I would have preferred to bring the hammock with the bug net rather than a second tent, but that couldn't be help.
The tent is light, and the single pole design meant that it's easy to setup. It's not easy to set up without a fly, however, since the tent design depends on the fly being present to stiffen up the shape. Xiaoqin sleeps cold anyway, so having both fly and tent would keep her warmer. I did bend some stakes because invariably Boen tripped over one of the stakes and crashed. But the tent had no condensation because of the warm dry conditions, and kept the bugs out.
The floor of the tent looked really flimsy. Despite being used only by an adult, I could see stones, etc through the tent floor. I no longer consider a tent footprint optional for this tent. But seriously? A 2 pound tent that's easy to setup, spacious for one person? It's more than good enough. I could only have dreamed of tents this light in 1993 when I first set off on my very first bicycle tour.
Recommended.
All the cajoling in the world could not get my family ready to leave the resort until 8:30am. From there, it was a 2 hour drive along the perimeter of the park to get to East Glacier, and we arrived at 10:50am. "Just in time to catch the 11:00am Ferry!" declared Bowen, who had read the time table. To our horror, there didn't look like much parking at the boat launch parking lot, so I hurriedly let the kids and Xiaoqin and their packs down so they could line up to buy tickets while I searched for parking. I found an empty dirt parking lot and within minutes of parking, other cars would show up and take up most of the spots!
We ate dinner, which was conveniently at the food preparation area, which had a food storage locker which was bear proof. It really was only big enough for one party, so that could have been one reason the site was one party per night. As soon as the sun went down, mosquitoes came out, and we discovered that our citronella based insect repellent was next to worthless, so we retreated into the tents. It being so warm, I decided to setup our MSR Freelite 3 without a rainfly. That meant that whenever any of us woke up in the middle of the night, we could look up at the sky and see plenty of stars. The cooler temperature made me sleep better in Glacier National Park's backcountry than on any of the nights at Flathead Lake Resort.
"Which site are you here for?" I asked when he poked his head out of his sleeping bag. "Bowman Lake." "Woah. You're aware it's projected to be 100F tomorrow there, right?" "Yeah. There's 9 of us, and it was the only site big enough. My buddies are already there, and there's one site left so I have to be here to grab it." I gave thanks. He perked up and I discussed my site selection and reasoning to him, as he seemed very familiar with the park. "That sounds right. The East side is cooler than the West side, and Upper Two Medicine is 1000' higher, which is good for 5 degrees Fahrenheit. And Noname is even higher!" "How long have you been here?" "Since 4:45am." OK, I wasn't behind him by a little bit, I was behind him by a lot!
At 6:30am, a woman dressed in the Park Employee's uniform showed up. "I'm so bummed I forgot to pick up my permit yesterday!" She tried calling the on-duty ranger but they didn't make any exceptions for her. At 7:00am, an Escalade showed up and disgorged a group of women. I counted their numbers and to my relief they were more than 4 people, which meant that they couldn't compete with me for my desired itinerary. They introduced themselves as a bunch of folks from Texas, and apologized with cheer for bringing Texas weather with them. "I need some coffee. Can one of you go for coffee?" one said to another. "OMG, can you get one for me too?" I asked. I looked so pathetic that they assented, and brought me back a cup of black coffee after a while. At age 51, I finally got a woman to buy me a drink!
The ranger office opened up as more parties arrived, and when I went in I indeed got my site: Upper Two Medicine on June 29th, and Noname for June 30th. I asked the ranger about possibly camping in a hammock, but he discouraged me --- I would be allowed to use one inside the established site, but it would be against the rule to just tie my hammock to any tree to sleep. Despite that discouragement, I felt great, went down to the camping store to buy a gas canister at an exorbitant price of $8, said goodbye to the ladies behind me, and drove back to Flathead Lake Resort to pick up the rest of the family. I still didn't have a park entry permit, but I realized that I had the e-mail about picking up the backcountry permit for Cracker Lake, so I picked up the wife and kids, drove back to the entrance, and used the e-mail to enter the park under the excuse that I was picking up my backcountry permit!
Not needing to pick one up any more, we drove straight to the trailhead for Avalanche Lake, an easy hike that I remembered from 2010 that I wanted to repeat, because the last time I did it I saw nothing at the lake!
By the time we were all done it was too late to go to any place fancy for dinner, so we settled for take out Mexican food near the resort, as I wanted to go back and pack for the backcountry trip. While waiting for food, I realized that we couldn't re-enter Glacier National park any more, so I had to have a plan for Friday. The forecast was for continued heat, and but I noticed that there were Rafting companies near the entrance of the park. Most of them were booked solid, but one had availability for Friday, so after consulting with Bowen and Xiaoqin I booked a half day trip with them as a recovery trip.
The Mexican food was nothing special, but I got a chance to pack that night. This time, I had the disadvantage of having to carry 3 days worth of food, but the advantage of not having to carry a bear canister. To my dismay, I had to attach an accessory bag to be able to carry all the food. I had no room left to carry the hammock, or the CPAP machine and battery. I packed my backpack, Xiaoqin's backpack, the kids' camelbaks and filled them with water. I cajoled everyone into getting into bed early in the hopes of getting an early start --- it was at least a 2 hour drive into Two Medicine from where we were the next morning.
In the opening to Premonition, Michael Lewis claims that he wrote the book intending to find malfeasance behind Trump, but discovered that the bigger story was that Trump was just "a co-morbidity" at best. I think he way over-sold this conclusion.
The book focuses on Charity Dean, California's deputy head of Public Health. The reason she wasn't the head of the department was because she was white and blond, and Newsome apparently wanted a woman of color in charge because of concerns about racial justice. It's quite clear that in the world of politics, being the best person for the job isn't good enough, and Dean was continuously being asked to back-pedal her conclusions or make it look like her boss's work. My sympathies (and yours too) are of course with the technically competent person who's not allowed to do the right thing.
the state’s personnel management was bizarre. “There was something seriously awry,” Markovich said. “Everyone I called about Charity tells me she walks on water, and it was pretty clear that she was running the show but, like, wait a minute, she’s the assistant health officer? She’s not the head health officer? Where’s the head?” He asked around and learned that the head health officer was a woman named Sonia Angell, but he never met her. “It started to be impossible to miss,” said Markovich. “This is the biggest public-health crisis ever, and she’s nowhere to be found.” (Kindle Loc 3827)
But the rest of the story isn't really about how Trump wasn't part of the problem. It was quite clear that for instance, Bush actually thought about pandemics and at least asked someone to write up a plan. And in fact, the whole concept of social distancing was thought up by a white-house driven initiative, and the book includes a story about how that group overcame resistance within the CDC and got social distancing accepted as one of the tools for pandemic control, along with school closures and other measures. This was huge, and a clear example that government can come up with ideas.
The rest of the book takes potshots at the CDC for its inability to take risks and manage pandemics, which I might agree with, but again, the solution for that is to fix it and put risk-takers in charge. Instead, we get paragraphs like this:
He’d been born in Poland and moved to the United States as a child. He had memories of Poland as a communist regime, and of the total breakdown of the government’s ability to be useful to its citizens. What he saw in the local U.S. public-health offices remined him of public services in Poland, but before the collapse of communism. “Poland now is not like this,” said David, after seeing the inside of a U.S. public-health office. “Poland now is more functional. Eastern Europeans are tough and kind of not shocked by a failed state. But these are the symptoms of a failed state.” (Kindle Loc 3605)
To be sure, the past couple of years have shown that US governments are incredibly deficient in many ways. But to get to this point took about 40 years of constant Republican propaganda about how "government isn't the solution, government is the problem." And even then, it was quite clear that states like California and Washington did manage to avoid the worst of it --- that was, until California's right-wing citizens got antsy about the social distancing. Make no mistake, I think the ridiculous lockdowns that shutdown beaches and public outdoor spaces were insane, but again, the solution there isn't fewer scientists in government!
The book ends with Charity Dean leaving her job in government to do a startup:
Once she’d become a public-health officer, she’d imagined an entire career in public service. Now she did not believe that the American government, at this moment in its history, would ever do what needed doing. Disease prevention was a public good, but the public wasn’t going to provide anything like enough of it. From the point of view of American culture, the trouble with disease prevention was that there was no money in it. She needed to find a way to make it pay. (Kindle loc 4206)
The saddest part of that is that if everyone competent in government thought like this, we'd be in a worst state. We need more institution building, not less, and as Obama once said, "Private companies can and should pick the customers they serve, but governments cannot!"
The book is as well written as any Michael Lewis book is, and has all sorts of great stories in it that makes it well worth your time. Just read it carefully, keeping in mind Lewis's agenda.
With both adults vaccinated, in late June 2021 we finally felt safe enough to travel. We didn't think the kids could keep their masks on the plane for a transatlantic flight, so we opted for visiting Glacier National Park. This is the index page for the day to day travelogue.
After doing laundry in the morning, I got back in time to pick up the kids and then drive to the rendezvous location to pick up Arturo. Both Arturo and Peter had gotten entry tickets, so Arturo could do the switchero: get into my car wearing a mask, get us through the entry gate, and then get off and get back into Peter's car. We caught up, and I told him about the book we'd use to do that wonderful hike the day before. "Oh, so it was you who checked out that book. No wonder I couldn't get it." It spoke volumes that both of us never even considered buying the book rather than checking it out from the library.
To our surprise, there was no 2.5 hour wait time to get into the park as feared. We basically just zipped through the checkpoint. To my dismay, there was also no hang tag. We would have to show ID and the entry ticket every day we wanted into the park! Well, that meant we had to make the most of the one day we had.
Back at the car, we left the crowded parking lot, went through a tunnel, and found a pullout with such scenic beauty that we were content to eat lunch there, staring at the waterfalls coming down the mountain.
That night, Xiaoqin picked Cowboy Up restaurant in Somers for dinner. They had outdoor seating but it was hot, and the owner was packing heat, and not the kind used for cooking. nevertheless, the food was awesome and we ate everything with relish. I was very pleased with the food!
