Majestic Beauty - Glacier Day 2

I don't think I have ever seen anything so beautiful.  Today I could have held my finger on the camera shutter button all day long.... because every view was more amazing than the last.  We took a Red Bus tour today - the "Big Sky Circle Tour."  The road in Glacier National Park that goes from one side of the park to the other is called the Going To The Sun Road (GTTSR).  It winds from the bottom of the mountain range to the top and then back down again.  You can imagine the twists, turns, lack-of-guard-rails, and mostly the BEAUTY!  I went crazy with the pictures, and had to narrow it down for what goes on the blog, as always!  So mostly... today is going to be another photo drop.

Here we are on the bus and ready to go!  

The drivers of the Red Bus tours are called "jammers."  Their name comes from the fact that early on, only young college guys from all over the country were hired to drive the buses.  They really didn't know what they were doing and ended up "jamming" all the gears as they went up and down the mountains!

Everybody had to be masked on the tour.  Apparently the Red Bus jammers got lax with that rule early on this summer and the park rangers got after them and said they'd shut the tours down if they continued to see people without masks.   

The tour starts with the "roof" - which is really just canvas - on the bus.  Since we started in East Glacier, the top stayed on until we got to the west wide - and then came off for the whole ride on the GTTSR!

To be honest, I don't really remember what was what in some of these pictures.  Ha!  So for the ones without captions, just enjoy the beauty. :)

We drove around to the West Entrance before we officially entered the park - 

and the Going To The Sun Road.  The GTTSR is a ticketed entry this year (in addition to a park pass), but since we were on a Red Bus tour, we didn't need an additional ticket.

This was pretty early on in our tour.  Teddy Roosevelt memorial monument.  

He's often called the "conservation president."

Lake McDonald

Rocks at Lake McDonald

Can you tell how much I love these rocks?

The top came off while we were stopped at Lake McDonald!

We stopped for lunch at Lake McDonald Lodge

Inside the lobby of Lake McDonald Lodge

Sacred Dancing Cascade - Our jammer, Andy, told us you know it's glacial water when it's 

this gorgeous turquoise color.  When it's a "regular" blue like at Lake McDonald, 

you know it is not glacial water.

More Sacred Dancing Cascade

Random beautiful views along the way....

Two Medicine Valley

Wild Goose Island - apparently the most photographed spot in the park!

Jackson Glacier!

Do you see that white dot in the middle?  Mountain goat!

Grizzly!  So exciting!

More views of the same... and below too.

At some point near the end, the top went back on...

Finished with our tour!

We had a wonderful dinner at our lodge tonight... fried Brussel sprouts, bison burger for Mom and brown butter gnocchi for me... and I enjoyed a huckleberry margarita!

On the way to Two Medicine Lake to watch the sun go down

Two Medicine Lake once the sun went behind the mountains

Beautiful wildflowers - our "jammer" called them mountain flowers which I love!

Indian Paintbrush

More pretty flowers

It was indeed another banner day!  I knew before we got here that we wouldn't have enough time.  And I am already looking forward to the day I get to come back.  We leave Glacier in the morning and start the trek east...