There is always something new in something old

Like McDonald’s lodge has two Wi-Fi networks. One for guests and one for employees. The only difference between the two are the passwords. Other than that they are exactly the same. They both completely suck.

It is so bad that I can’t even make a VOIP phone call. Which is very important given we are 13 miles into the park and there’s no really descent cell service until the bottom of the lake (at least for me). Doesn’t matter the carrier, you aren’t get any bars.

So I had to make a phone call. Literally a phone call. Not a text, not an email, but a phone call. What has the world come to? So I drive down to the bottom of the lake at Apgar village. And it is amazing how I can be so happy with too lousy bars.

I shouldn’t complain. Here is a photo of what I got to look at while I’m talking.

Glacier after a very stormy day. There are so many worst things you can be looking at when making a phone call. Of course all I could think about is the 20 miles round trip and the 6 bucks of gas it cost me for something that should have been free.

Then I started the casual to drive back. No hurries, no worries. I remember going up-and-down this road a LOT last summer. I find the old local rock station that I use to play in the shuttle van and turn it up a little. The song ‘Patience’ comes on from Guns & Roses. I start smiling, as I watch the old familiar scenery go. I even start to mouth the words, but will never admit to it if I am asked. But at least I will know that someone reads my blog.

As I drive up the road I can see between the trees the beautiful mountains and ranges I climbed last summer. It’s like watching one of those old-time movies where the frames are out of alignment. I keep thinking to myself clickity clack, clickity clack, as I watch the landscape I love so much and am so familiar with roll by.

I look at the Apgar Range and think of that fire lookout I’ve been to several times. I look at Howe Ridge and think of that horrible dry afternoon in the open sun when I crossed it to reach Trout Lake. Then there’s the now snowy Mt Stanton, so short in stature and yet such an absolutely long way to the top. This ten minute drive has never been so enjoyable.

And that’s when it hits me. I have never seen any of this before. I have literally thousands of miles driving this road in this direction and have never seen these views. How? There is no way I could have missed this. No way. The shuttle job was monotonous, but my mind could have never painted these images out.

Then I suddenly realize. There WAS something very very different today. All of the deciduous trees between the pines and furs have not filled in yet. All the aspens, willows, and mountain ash trees. When I drove this in July last year it was a wall of needles and leaves with very few glimpses of the mountain-scapes hiding behind them. Without that infill I was now getting the complete view that lasted for miles and miles. What a totally different drive this was so early in the season as opposed to July and full summer.

I’m glad I had to make that phone call. I’m glad I burned the extra $6 in gas. I’m glad it was a stormy wintery spring day. Without it all I would have never seen something so new and so wonderful in someplace old with supposedly nothing more to give. There was an entirely different experience hidden there that I had blindingly driven passed for months.

It makes me remember to always be aware of my surroundings. Take time to see, breathe, and feel all that is around me. The road taken over and over still has so much to give.

I guess what I’m saying is, all we need is just a little ‘Patience.’