Wisconsin Trip Recap Part 1: Days 1 & 2 in 2020 Vision

As I begin writing this entry, I already know that I won’t be able to recap my entire vacation home to see family in just one entry. I don’t know how many entries it will be, but this is the first. This was truly probably the best trip home I’ve had since I left December 2006 to join the Navy and get the hell out of Dodge. I legitimately enjoyed this vacation, but it did start on a ROUGH start (to be partly covered in this entry!) But because I actually enjoyed my time home overall, I want to make sure I document it properly because its full of good memories I don’t want to forget. I think I’ll approach this using the day-by-day method and write about each day beginning with the first to help break things down into conquerable segments. So here we go!

Day 1: Tuesday, August 4th
This technically wasn’t a vacation day because I worked until 5, but I spent a lot of my work day packing, sending last minute instructions to my cat sitter/friend who was a real godsend during all of this, and buying two weeks’ worth of groceries in the event I had to quarantine upon my return. I really wanted to visit Glacier National Park on my drive to Wisconsin because The Young Buck tried to go on his trip to Ohio, but it was a failure for him. He was towing his UHaul and a lot of the park is closed off to trailers, and he went at the worst possible time (noon) and it was so busy that he couldn’t pull over anywhere to take pictures or find a parking spot. He literally had to keep driving and got no pictures. Since Glacier National Park borders on Canada in Montana, I didn’t want to risk driving all that way only to not be able to see anything and get no pictures. I was committed to showing up at sunrise when it wouldn’t be busy yet. So I left my apartment at 6:30 pm with dog (my supervisor) in the back seat and began our overnight drive to Glacier National Park.

Day 2: Wednesday, August 5th
My dog and I rolled up to Glacier National Park at about 5:30am after a long night of driving. I was so excited to see the park that I wasn’t even tired. I parked in an empty parking lot until about 6am waiting for the sun to rise. Literally as the sun began to rise, the park began to get super busy! I couldn’t believe it. Not so busy that I couldn’t pull over or take pictures or do some exploring, but it was crazy the flood of vehicles that came promptly at 6am. We drove the entirety of the Going to the Sun road and back (!) because the east entrance is closed due to COVID closures. So we got to see the Going to the Sun Road heading East and again heading West. Here are some pictures:

Wild Goose Island in the middle of St Mary Lake on the east end of the park.

I can now say I went to Heaven

\

Heaven on Earth

The last remaining signs of winter

This black bear ran out in front of me as I was driving and then ducked and covered in the woods alongside the road, and I got a very blurry pic of it lol

Lake McDonald on the west end of the park

Watched the sun rise along Lake McDonald

Saw this guy roaming the Logan Pass parking lot at the very tip top of the park

Jackson Glacier Overlook

Overlook sign

I would love to go back and do more sightseeing without my dog in tow. I was somewhat limited on exploring with having him there and having him dog tired from the overnight drive, but I am very happy with the amount of exploring we got in during this first visit there. A LOT more than The Young Buck! Not that I was feeling competitive, but I was. I mean he didn’t even do any pre-trip planning research to see where in the park trailers were allowed (not very far inside the park!) We left around noon and by then I was more than happy to be exiting the park as I saw the crowds that The Young Buck was talking about.

My next stop in my roadtrip home plan was Badlands National Park in Bumfuck, South Dakota (its actually called Interior, SD, but its in the middle of nowhere). I left Glacier National Park on a mostly full gas tank and typed in the directions to Badlands National Park into Google Maps on my phone.

Y’all. Google Maps took me a really weird back country way, and I. HATED. IT. I get extreme anxiety when I’m driving alone on long haul trips and don’t know where my next gas station is going to be. Usually when I make this trip home, I don’t do any sightseeing and stay on I-90 the whole way through Montana and go through all the big cities where there are gas stations-a-plenty (Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Butte). This backcountry way took me through NONE of those AND AND AND AND (!!!!!) I didn’t have cell reception for about two hours while I went through half a tank of gas without seeing a gas station. At that point it was either (A) use the remaining half tank to go back to Glacier, fill up, and find a different way or B) keep going and hope for the best even though I didn’t have cell reception . Since I was having doubts that I might not even make it back on the second half of the tank (lot of uphill to cover going back) I picked option B. About 15 minutes later, I came across a flagger dude by some road construction and asked him how long it would be until I came to a town with a gas station. He said 20 minutes and that made me elated.

Twenty minutes later I came to the gas station. My elated feeling depleted as I realized that I was now in Blackfoot Tribal Land, and all of Montana’s reservations are under strict stay at home orders, and non tribal members (me) are not allowed to stop an use any of their facilities. I stopped at the gas station, and used the pump only. I had to. I didn’t know when the next station would be or when I’d have cell reception. Also, if you lose your Google Maps route when you don’t have a signal, you are screwed. My anxiety was at an all-time high. So I half expected someone to rush out and arrest me, and I half expected to find a fine in my mailbox or a notice to appear in tribal court but so far, neither has happened. Knock on wood.

I finally got to Great Falls, Montana, my first sign of civilization since leaving Glacier, and I called it a day at around 2:30pm. I didn’t care that I was missing out on daylight driving time. I was exhausted from the anxiety over the gas station/no cell signal situation and the tiredness from the overnight drive and exploring had caught up as well. I checked into a hotel and went straight to the gas station to buy booze. I watched shitty tv for the entire afternoon and drank to calm down. It was amazing to cell reception back, and my dog got his own queen bed.

Stay tuned for Part 2: Days 3-?

Last updated August 19, 2020