Pie for strength...and a tumbling nun.

Our third day at Glacier National Park was a very special one,although, the day started rather disappointing.

A storm moved through the mountains around St. Mary Lake and the Road to the Sun was rainy and with very little visibility. So we decided to drive to Many Glacier to see if conditions were better there. No such luck.



We gave up the efforts to get into the park for the day. I saw a sign in the road.."Duck Lake 8 miles" and decided to try it. We reached the lake and it just took a glance to not even slow down, so we pressed ahead. The GPS showed a faint line on the map, is that a road? a county line? I decided to find out.

It was a road, and one that offered a stunning advantage point of view of the Glacier mountain range. About ten miles east of the park, the sun was shining, things were looking up.



We kept driving and enjoying the view and reached the town of Browning. There, we charged diesel at $2.99 as opposed to $3.40 at St. Mary. We kept driving towards East Glacier, and finally back to St.Mary, completing a beautiful scenic loop. When we arrived, it was way past lunch time, and we were hungry. The day has started with such low expectations that we did not prepare our usual to-go-lunch. So we stopped at out newly adopted (two day old) favorite place "Park Cafe" which motto is "Pie for Strength" to showcase their delicious lineup of homemade pays that go splendidly down with a strong cup of organic coffee.

We ordered Gypsy Burritos, a wild blend of veggies and Indian spices in a flour tortilla, and for dessert, raspberry and strawberry pies with industrial amounts of coffee.
After this meal, we felt like climbing a mountain, literally, so we headed into the park, now with gorgeous weather, and we stopped at one of the trailheads, and decided to straight up the trail.



Once we cleared the treeline, we arrived at a stunning meadow on the skirts of a mountain. Down the meadow were streams of melting snow running down towards the gorge. We spent hours there taking photos.



Sun, meadows and snowed mountains...the only thing missing was a singing nun skipping down the trail. Wait, that is annoying, make that tumbling down the trail, yeah, now, picture perfect.



After this hike we took a second one, this time down the trail to the lake. Then, a third hike to the St. Mary's falls. We were done hiking around 10pm. We realized that we have been hiking for about seven hours straight in ecstasy witnessing beautiful scenery. What was in those "Pays for Strength" ? LSD?

Next day we went back for more "Pie".