Glacier – Page 28 – Disney Customer Service Keynote Speaker

Day 1 West Glacier, spirit

Pixar INSIDE OUT 2 toy figurines in mountains — It’s a tradition: Hiking Oberlin, and, the current year’s Pixar release characters.

23-second video: Let me (re)introduce you to some of my Glacier friends. Filmed yesterday from Oberlin’s summit at 8,200′.

i’m only as good as my ability to infect myself with enthusiasm.

Probably true for everyone.

But it’s not my call.

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Day 7 East Glacier, spirit

Drew Landry singer songwriter — Merle signed his guitar. Drew (Landry) took his daughter to Disneyland when she was four, last year.

National Park Lodge lobby — Drew Landry in the background. The cookie i made.

Met Tom Johnson a couple nights ago on the back porch.

Gonna talk about him because his name is so generic.

When i stepped onto the Lodge’s back porch, i noticed amongst all the people at the tables he had his shoes off.

This is an almost obvious signal that you had a long day’s hike, and your feet feel better when you take your shoes off.

So i approached him and asked him about his shoes being off and what he did today. But not before i walked to the far end of the back porch deck and had a 30-minute conversation with two other visitors. On the walk back to the other end of the back porch he was still there. Shoes still off.

We had a brief conversation.

Then the next night he was again sitting on the 200’-long back porch.

His name is Tom. His wife is Michelle. They have two teenage boys.

Tom was an accountant and retired recently at 47.

Long story short, he retired because he has stage four pancreatic cancer.

He’s lost 70 pounds recently.

His loosefitting shirt disguised his thinning frame. i would guess he’s 6’2”. He said he was overweight at 240 pounds. Now he’s 170. It wasn’t until I hugged him at the end of our night then i could feel his shoulder blades when we hugged each other.

Made it back to the room at midnight.

Still off-balance from his transparency.

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Day 6 East Glacier, spirit

train bridge over two lane road — Train bridge. Under it leads to the Lodge.

small town Main Street — Glacier Park Trading Company and Two Medicine Grill, 8pm last night. By the way, the train bridge photo above was taken from this spot 20 seconds before this picture.

dilapidated small town building — Probably a motel back in the day, off the main drag.

western campground — Also off the main drag by a couple of blocks.

Grizzly Bear metal sculpture — This metal art sculpture was definitely a surprise.

brick elementary school entrance — The elementary school front door.

Last night’s walk wasn’t extensive but i did walk to the eastern edge of town.

Weirdly, the small seed of ‘i don’t think i could live here’ took root.

Note: After 300+ nights inside Glacier National Park, i’ve been quietly thinking about is there any place that has a shot as the place i’d considered. Even more quietly, East Glacier seemed like the only foundational choice. Last night it felt like a potentially dumb idea.

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Day 5 East Glacier, spirit

14-second video: After the Scenic Point hike (yesterday), drove (only) 400 meters to spend a few hours at the Two Medicine Camp Store.

Not a thin place, but it does contain ‘thin-place DNA’.

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Day 4 East Glacier, spirit

Hotel room welcome gift set up — Awesome surprise. Arrived 8:30pm last night.

Historically, i choose Mount Oberlin as the first hike of the new season.

That said, the hour-forty-ish minutes to get to Logan Pass parking by 6:00am means a departure by 4:20am.

On almost any day, this would be doable, but considering yesterday‘s travel day and the late arrival, and minimal sleep, it was a hard pass.

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This website is about our SPIRIT. To enjoy today’s post about our WORK, click here.