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We are here
Aug. 10th, 2013 09:24 amWe're here. We had a really nice trip through Glacier on our way. We saw almost no animals, but the landscape was gorgeous. Alas, you really need to ride the shuttle if you want to do any hikes, because there is no parking. And of course we needed our car because we were moving. But if we ever go back, we'll have to do the shuttle, because we missed some hikes we wanted to go on. There were a few less-traveled roads with nice hikes, though, so we still got to see something.
Interesting things about Glacier: it's an international park (the Canadian part is called Waterton), and so there is a lot about international brotherhood and cooperation. However, the Blackfeet, Kootenai, and Flathead tribes originally owned it, and they say they leased it and the US government says they sold it to the US. You can sort of feel the resentment underneath it all--they want their mountains BACK. It's a very different vibe from say, Yellowstone, where sure, Native Americans have been going there for generations--but nobody really LIVES there--not over boiling vats of acid!
So far, North Dakota is flat and green, but with more trees than I expected. The only places we've seen so far are the house and the library. The library is fantastic, and we already have stacks of books checked out. The house is...sorry, but gross is the only word to describe it. The floor slants steeply (but the rental agency assures us it's stable), and the basement looks like the creepy haunted one in the Hex Hall books. There's a ton of mold everywhere, and upstairs smells of dog. I guess the good thing is that the street itself is the town's historic district, and the other houses around look quite nice. We are going to have a lot of cleaning up to do (not that all of it is within our scope--we can't do much to the basement without starting over, and we can't rebuild the decaying window frames or fix sagging floors). But we can at least sweep the porch and weed the flower beds and kill the poison ivy. Yesterday we spent all day unloading the truck and getting the washer and dryer down to the dungeon (what the kids are calling the basement--I'm thinking the WD is going to get donated to the house at the end, because there is no way we can bring them back up.) Now we have trails through tottering towers of boxes. We need to get bunk beds for everyone, because they don't fit otherwise--or at least, there is no room for anything else, and we have GOT to get things out of the living room!
It's also a little weird to move back to a place with lots of stores. What do people DO with them all?? All you need is a grocery store and a bookstore, right? It's a little overwhelming...
The one kid who is really enthusiastic about all this is the 5YO. He can't wait to sign up for school (just down the road), and is loving the new sticks and new house to explore.
There is still SO much to put away, with nowhere to put it. (We moved from a 5 bed/3 bath house with lots of storage to a 3 bed/1 bath house with no storage--you can't put anything in the basement, and the space in the garage is limited.) But first--laundry and bed-shopping.
Interesting things about Glacier: it's an international park (the Canadian part is called Waterton), and so there is a lot about international brotherhood and cooperation. However, the Blackfeet, Kootenai, and Flathead tribes originally owned it, and they say they leased it and the US government says they sold it to the US. You can sort of feel the resentment underneath it all--they want their mountains BACK. It's a very different vibe from say, Yellowstone, where sure, Native Americans have been going there for generations--but nobody really LIVES there--not over boiling vats of acid!
So far, North Dakota is flat and green, but with more trees than I expected. The only places we've seen so far are the house and the library. The library is fantastic, and we already have stacks of books checked out. The house is...sorry, but gross is the only word to describe it. The floor slants steeply (but the rental agency assures us it's stable), and the basement looks like the creepy haunted one in the Hex Hall books. There's a ton of mold everywhere, and upstairs smells of dog. I guess the good thing is that the street itself is the town's historic district, and the other houses around look quite nice. We are going to have a lot of cleaning up to do (not that all of it is within our scope--we can't do much to the basement without starting over, and we can't rebuild the decaying window frames or fix sagging floors). But we can at least sweep the porch and weed the flower beds and kill the poison ivy. Yesterday we spent all day unloading the truck and getting the washer and dryer down to the dungeon (what the kids are calling the basement--I'm thinking the WD is going to get donated to the house at the end, because there is no way we can bring them back up.) Now we have trails through tottering towers of boxes. We need to get bunk beds for everyone, because they don't fit otherwise--or at least, there is no room for anything else, and we have GOT to get things out of the living room!
It's also a little weird to move back to a place with lots of stores. What do people DO with them all?? All you need is a grocery store and a bookstore, right? It's a little overwhelming...
The one kid who is really enthusiastic about all this is the 5YO. He can't wait to sign up for school (just down the road), and is loving the new sticks and new house to explore.
There is still SO much to put away, with nowhere to put it. (We moved from a 5 bed/3 bath house with lots of storage to a 3 bed/1 bath house with no storage--you can't put anything in the basement, and the space in the garage is limited.) But first--laundry and bed-shopping.
