I've been gone too long...had to ask someone in the laundromat what day it is!!!

 Tuesday, Aug. 1 and Wednesday, Aug. 2

I'm sitting in the laundromat at the campground outside Glacier National Park, charging my laptop and tablet. I was sure today was Tuesday, but asked someone who said it was Wednesday. Wow! I'm really losing it. 

Yesterday was an exciting day, but not in a positive way. We left New Town, ND (05D) and the morning flight was fairly uneventful, more beautiful country to see and the plane responding well.  We had an amazing tailwind: I was averaging 105 kts over the ground and at times reached 110 kts! Air speed indicator showed 70-75 kts.

The farther west we went, the more the ponds, lakes and rivers began to disappear, and rolling hills took their place. The land elevations began to slowly rise. This is north-central ND.

These show the gradual changes as we flew farther west.

We landed in Malta, MT (M75) to refuel after a 2.75 hr. flight. I asked Dennis to stop at the Dinosaur Museum, which is apparently famous for the most complete dinosaur ever found. It's now being studied in Japan. 

The lunch menu was interesting: fried pickles, fried green beans, and fried Mac 'n Cheese!

We took off again, heading for Cut Bank, MT. (KCTB) (For those of you who are confused as to why I sometimes put a K in front of the three-digit airport identifier and sometimes don't, it's because the system for issuing airport identifiers is very inconsistent.)

Our 2nd leg was a real roller coaster. Very rough air regardless of what altitude we tried. Dennis went to 10,000' and I waffled between 4500 and 5500". It didn't seem to matter. We both got really tossed around. I never felt in danger; it was just real work to keep the plane as straight and level as possible. I'd be at 4500' MSL (about 2500' AGL) and suddenly my vertical speed indicator would go crazy and I was in a thermal lifting me up at 1000'/minute and my airspeed indicator was streaking back and forth between 70 and 90 kts! Then a few minutes later I'd be in a sink. The sinks never were more than 500'/minute and I was able to put in some power and get back to my desired altitude. But the "free lift" was another matter. At times I'd have the nose pushed down and I'd still be climbing! So obviously I wasn't taking photos. 

I was pretty worn out when we finally landed at Cut Bank. The wind was really blowing and I felt pretty proud of myself when I made a respectable landing.

Here's my track for Tuesday, in two-parts since it's so long.

We had already decided we wanted to see Glacier National Park. We rented a car, packed up our camping gear, and took off for the KOA campground in St. Mary, MT which is less than a mile from the East Glacier park entrance. We found out that there is now a reservation system to get into Glacier, and the only way we - reservation-less - could get in was to enter before 6 a.m. And that there is often a line of folks who want to enter without reservations. So we agreed to meet at 5:15 a.m.

Wednesday, Aug. 2

All I can say about today at Glacier is that watching the sun rise over the mountains made our 5:15 a.m. departure from camp absolutely worth it.

It was still dark when we entered Glacier, along with lots of other folks. Dennis pulled into a turn-out inside the Park and we napped until sunrise. The day was absolutely wonderful and we didn't get back to camp until almost 5 p.m.