Lindsay covered most of the highlights of Glacier National Park. I was severely disappointed I could drive to the sun on the “Going to the Sun” Road after I had heard so much about it. And it put a kink in my plan to drive through to get to Canada. But I guess it all worked out in the end, since we ended up finding a place to go horseback riding. For the record, I have been horseback riding before…granted it was girl scout camp and it didn’t end well… the horse nearly bucked me off. Hence why I haven’t saddled up since. But Lindsay would’ve left me in Montana if I didn’t get her a horseback ride and I wasn’t going to deal with hearing about how I didn’t let her ride a horse in the true West. We’ve gotten better at this whole communication thing. So far peace in the car. Now I may be a city girl, but I am a sucker for a cowboy. Authentic ones in fact. When Taylor started singing “How Bout That Cowgirl?” while we signed our waivers, I knew we were in business. I’m pretty sure Taylor found us equally entertaining as we found him… we swapped life stories, him being a corn fed Texan who hates condensed milk, and me, from Chicago, starting as an accountant in the fall. His immediate reaction was “Why do you want to be an accountant?”. The common reaction. I laughed and said I didn’t know. My common response. Lindsay added her two cents in… and I think Taylor got a good glimpse of our relationship. We somehow got on the topic of how Lindsay thinks I’m funny, and funnier than she thought I would be. Which led to her explaining how I was a timid child, and now I’m funny. He got to singing…after making sure we knew what REAL country is. I told him that I saw Garth in concert last winter, and he agreed to my legitimacy. When he suggested Zac Brown Band, I said yes. It is in fact the simple things in life…like riding horseback through the Montana mountains while some original Texan sings to you. He kept grilling us on the names of our horses, which we both knew. I have better manners than to forget the name of the person/thing carrying my ass around the forest. He had told us that they call him “Mule” due to the fact that some old lady thought a male mule was called a Taylor. I told him if I had a nickname I’d choose it to be Bandit…since my horse’s name was Smokey…Smokey and the Bandit. He replied that I was funny. He made us YEEHAW when we got back to the barn…. I really need to work on my YeeHawing. Not too impressive. Other than that, Glacier National Park was beautiful, full of waterfalls and mountain backdrops. We saw a line of corvettes driving through the park..apparently you can rent a corvette to drive through the park. That is the only way you’d get Brent to visit a National Park.
The detour was awful. Raining, dirt roads, potholes. The dirt road would’ve been fine if it hadn’t rained all day. But it made it treacherous and not an enjoyable 10 miles of driving. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see pavement. And welcome to Canada! First timer here. Apparently they frown on road sammies… but the officer was nice enough so off to Canada we go. Throw up some maple leafs.
We made it to Okotoks like Lindsay said… So far impressed with Canada. It’s very clean and modern. Not impressed with the Riverbend Campsite however. There was no one at the office, the directions were confusing, and all I wanted was a flipping hot shower. I had thought about it for hours. It got me through putting up the tent and helping with dinner. So when I got to the bathroom, all ready for a hot shower, I was just plain annoyed when it said you needed LOONIES to pay for it. First of all, what was this? What did our campsite fee get us? The use of toilets and some sandy land to place our tent. The sand ended up everywhere and you couldn’t even use the tap water because they had a “MUST BOIL” sign. Moreover, I was damp and chilled to the bone and just wanted to get the chill out before I got it bed. Plus it had been like 3 days without a shower… including a rainstorm and being on a horse. So yes, I was crabby. So I removed myself from the situation, put on like 3 layers of clothes and went to bed, hoping to get the chill out.
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