Wow! My last post was 3 years ago!!!
I have dusted my DSLR and decided to revive my blog again. I am on a leave of absence from work (waiting for my work visa to come through) and think this is the perfect time to get back to taking photos. My husband and I planned a long fun road trip for this time off but the unusual amount of rainfall we’ve had in Denver this year seeped into the basement.Sigh. Thankfully we were able to do atleast a quarter of the trip that we planned. I was going to post live on Instagram (oh I have a new Instagram account:studiojangram) and on my blog at the end of each day (Travel blog style) but T-Mobile sabotaged that with this text.
Apparently.T-Mobile only allows 10 MB of roaming data… 10 MB??? That is nothing. We were driving through Wyoming and Montana both of which did not have T-Mobile coverage so that lasted me 30 minute, s after we crossed the Colorado border. I am changing plans or just switching to some other network.
This is the map of our plan. We made few detours (more on that later).
Day 1: Denver,CO to Coram,MT 973 miles
We woke up at 2:30 AM (not it is not a typo…. I really meant AM) and left the house around 3:30 AM. We had rented a car from Avis Budget and they gave us a Kia Rio. This was the first time either of us had driven a Kia. It was just what we expected…very okay :). The drive was beautiful. We talked a lot ,
listened to audiobooks (How to be a woman by Catlin Moran and How google works) , sang along to our music and slept….typical road trip stuff. Wyoming isthe state the leas t population density (or population) and you could really see that. We were supposed to stop at Casper,WY for brunch but totally missed it because it was so small (and we weren’t paying attention to the signs).
We stopped for brunch at a Jimmy John’s (Vegan tip 1: the #6 without the cheese and mayo is still a good sandwich because it has guac. If I get JJ in Denver, I usually bring it home and add vegan mayo and it is really yummy) and for dinner in Great Falls,MT . Dinner was at Pita Pit. This is either a Montana chain or it is there in other states and I don’t know about it. This was a pleasant surprise because they had some veggie wrap options. It was a surprise because I expected Montana to be very “Wild wild west” and all about the steak.
We finally made it to our “Glamp” around 7 PM. We stayed at this place called glacier under canvas. This was so awesome. Our tent was huge with a king size bed, fireplace and a sitting area in front of the fire.
We were told that we could see the aurora borealis at 11 PM so we were excited and went to the camp fire for the viewing party but either it was too cloudy to see anything or the aurora borealis changed its mind, nothing happened at 11 PM. We waited for a while ,then gave up and went to bed.
Day 2: Glacier National Park
The bed in our glamp was so cozy and comfortable. We got ready and went to a nearby spot for breakfast. Then, we went to buy bear spray. For those of you who don’t know what that is…It is like pepper spray for bears that you use only in emergency situations.We felt like there was a lot of literature and warnings about bears in Montana that we do not see so much in Colrado. But, Colorado has only the slightly friendlier Black bear and no grizzlies. We decided to get a spray just in case because we thought we would do short hikes in the national park. We got a lot of mixed instructions on how to deal with bears. I am in no way an expert. I am just going to list all the things we heard from different people.
General hiking etiquette in Bear Country:
Avoid hiking alone.
Keep the conversation going because Bears don’t want confrontations. They will hear you and move away.
IF you encounter a bear,
DO NOT make eye contact. They’ll see that as a sign of aggression
Black bear: Walk backwards talking in monotone and slowly walkaway
Grizzly: Play dead ( This sounds soooooo scary)
After our little shopping trip, we drove to the national park. Montana is gorgeous. I think Montana=Colorado+Washington….Lotta mountains,lakes and evergreens.
In the national park, we just stopped at In the national park, we just stopped at different look out spots. We did two short hikes to see some water falls. The trees were so cool and smelled soooo good in our hikes.
We saw few glacier-like things but it could have been just snow fields. Apparently, the glaciers are all going to be gone by 2030 so anyone wanting to see glaciers should get on it before they are gone! I cannot believe some people still deny global warming.
We saw so many retired couples doing road trips. Gokul and I wanna be like them when we are old. We met some people who were from Colorado and whose daughter lives in our neighborhood. Small world!!
Day 2 ended with no wild life encounters. We got some beer and Pizzas (Vegan tip #2: The veggie pizz without cheese but with a little extra marinara sauce is pretty yummy. In good pizza places, it is really really yummy :)) and went to bed in our comfortable glamp bed.
Next Stop : Bozeman,MT
Janani Photography 