August 29

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning as we were leaving camp we saw about a half dozen wild turkeys wandering through camp but getting close enough for a decent picture didn’t work out very well. We went back to spend a good half day at the Fort Steele Heritage Town and still didn’t see and do all we wanted. The highlights were the art gallery and museum in the Wasa Hotel, the ice cream making demonstration, a delicious lunch at the International Hotel Restaurant, a behind-the-scenes tour of the bakery and another skit at the Government Building. Mom really enjoyed the art gallery. We all participated in making ice cream from breaking up the ice block to taking turns sitting on and turning the crank on the freezer before getting a taste of the delicious mint chocolate ice cream. Our waiter at the restaurant was Master Earl, or Robbie for real, who was a first grader. His mom helped out and we got to conversing with her and, because she was both the restaurant and bakery manager she offered us a tour of the bakery. The bakery next door was a true pioneer bakery with the original huge brick oven that was wood-fired. The lady who is the lead baker demonstrated how the oven is fired and how baked goods are put into and taken out of the oven in large sheet pans using wide wooden paddles with very long handles due to the depth of the oven. After that we watched a skit involving a constable, a magistrate, an accused drunk and a lady accused of selling booze being tried in court at the Government Building. The skit involved several audience members and was very funny. After that we headed down the road for the border. At the border we were pulled aside for further checks. We had to give up fireweed and other seeds and fire wood. Fortunately Mom still had her Alaska fishing license or we would have also had to have our freezer full of salmon confiscated because we could not otherwise prove we had acquired them legally. The agent was a lady who was polite and treated us respectfully but let us know that there is no room for error in declaring what we had without consequences. After that we traveled quite uneventfully into Glacier National Park to the Apgar Forest Campground where we will spend the next three nights. The drive through Montana was very nice with a mix of forest, lakes, farms and small towns and cities along the way. It feels good to be back in the good old USA.