Around 9:30, I rolled out of bed after a comfortable night's sleep in Glacier National Park. I was bundled up in my sleeping bag and was quite warm despite the freezing temperature outside the tent. It was a beautiful morning as far as I was concerned. The feeling was not shared by my wife, however. She had been up for two hours and was freezing despite going to buy herself hot chocolate. She said she woke up around 1:30 AM and her teeth were chattering. True to our agreement, I conceded to striking camp and pursuing a cheap motel room. We first went to a motel inside the park that was just down the road from our campsite. Their rates started around $90. Too rich for our blood. We drove out of the park, past a few no vacancy signs until we found a place with rooms. It looked cheap as hell. Surely, they'd have something we would consider to be a reasonable rate, right? After failing to find the office for a couple of minutes, we saw a sign that said "Rates starting at $90." Fuck. There must be some sort of conspiracy going on, right? We drove a little more and saw the KOA where we had been told we could take a shower. At this point, I was working up my nerve to haggle a little bit. I figured the hotels might be willing to make a deal given that it was at the end of the season and business was slow. We drove into the KOA not knowing if they even had anything other than traditional campsites. Surely, if they had them, they would advertise it, right? We drove down a wooded road thinking that we might just be wasting our time. Then, we saw cabins. Awesome. We walked in and talked to the woman jn the office. I expected her to say "The cabins start at $90" and I'd offer her $40 and maybe I could get her to let us pay $60 since we looked so pathetic. To our surprise and delight, she said, "The cabins start at $49.99." "SOLD." They also had wifi. This was pretty much following the exact fantasy story line that Kate had outlined before we left the campground.
So, we spent the morning screwing around on the internet and SHOWERING. This brought the shower to bear ratio back to 1:1. Thank God. I felt like a new man after my shower and a little contact with the outside world.
After lunch in the cabin, we drove back into the park to take a hike to Avalanche Lake on the west side of the park. The hike was through gorgeous pine forest and followed a mountain creek for most of the way. Part of the stream went through a very dramatic gorge with smooth red rocks and multiple waterfalls. The hike was about two miles long and was quite hilly. In the end, we gained about 500 ft of elevation according to our guide but covered more ground than that with all the ups and downs. It was a pretty good work out and I was feeling pretty good about myself until I overheard a woman at the top of the trail who claimed to be 83 years old and was also waiting on her niece to finish the trail. 83! If I can still walk at all when I'm 83, I think I'll be doing good but this woman just DESTROYED this mountain hike and was waiting on her (presumably substantially younger) niece to get her lazy ass up the trail. Damn.
After our hike, we came back to the KOA for a poorman's dinner of ramen. We then watched Monday Night Football, drank a few 7 & 7s and went to bed happy.
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