My right toe might be infected.  It is very painful and dark red, all centered around that hole from those fucking Injinji socks I wore back in Anaconda.  Because of this I decided to road/train walk from the Maria’s pass campground to East Glacier.  I was glad I did.  The first 6 miles didn’t have much of a shoulder so I walked along the train tracks which parallel the highway.  These are the tracks that the Amtrack to Seattle train uses, but it also has a lot of commercial trains as well.  About every half hour you can hear the tracks start to whine as a train approached and I would need to jump off the tracks.

There were places where the train tracks would cross a large creek and they would build the railbed up to a narrow berm / bridge to maintain elevation. In these places there was no place to get off the tracks without sliding down the steep cinders, so I had to be extra careful about not encountering a train for several hundred yards.  There are “No Trespassing” signs and I’m not supposed to be here so I’m a little nervous about all this. I always wave at the engineers in the trains and they always wave back so maybe this isn’t a big deal?  Eventually I noticed a dirt frontage road along the highway below so I switched to it since it was much easier than walking on the rail bed cinders.

A mile or so before East Glacier the frontage road turned into the old abandoned highway just north of Highway 2. This was a paved road, but it’s full of 10 foot trees now that grow through the cracked asphalt. This is awesome for making good time without the stress of cars and trucks whizzing by.

I arrived at East Glacier around 1:00 and had lunch at the tiny Two Medicine Cafe, which was crowded and slow, but very good.  I picked up my shoes from the nice people at the Trading Post next door, and went to the Sears motel where I had a reserved room. 

I was informed that there was no television, the Wifi was broken, cell service was barely usable, oh, and the water was turned off for repairs until later that night.  But I could use the outdoor shower.  I sat in my room and was very unhappy.  All this for $140?  I went back to the front desk and said I wasn’t happy and could they get me a room at one of their other properties?  They got me a room at the Dancing Bears motel, a half mile back where I had just come from.  No matter, I took it and to my relief it was much nicer.  I now had a very clean room with water and a TV!  Still shit cell service and wifi didn’t reach my room, but Shannon who runs the place was very nice and let me hang out in the office where I had free orange juice and food and a very slow Wifi connection.  I never could get my videos uploaded.  Even the Glacier lodge had shitty Wifi.  Apparently the entire town is serviced by a single provider who was awarded the contract by the Blackfeet tribe (who owns this land) or the government or some other incompetent ruling body.  The new room was $240 but they let me have it for the $140 price.  I really like this place. It’s ridiculously expensive but I’m worn out and just want to recuperate for a bit.