Too Cold for Camping

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK – Greetings from Glacier National Park!

Glacier is the best national park in America for seeing jagged, snow-covered mountains all year round.

The road you see below is called “Going-to-the-Sun Road.” It runs up and over the continental divide at Logan Pass, just south of the Canadian border. It’s one of the most picturesque stretches of asphalt in the world.

This road will be snowed out and impassable soon.

It snowed last night. It’s getting too cold for us to be sleeping in a tent in the woods, especially in these parts.

All the campgrounds around here are about to close for the season. This is Logan Pass, elevation 6,647 feet.

It’s fall and the forest is giving us a fantastic autumnal firework display. Here’s Penny (8) and our campsite in the background…

We’ve been sleeping in the woods, preparing our meals with a propane stove, and eating our supper at picnic tables since May 12.

It’s been so fun. This is our last supper in the woods.

Yellow rice, salsa, guacamole, cheese burrito wraps and a bottle of red wine. (The wine we drink costs $2.98 a bottle and gives us headaches. We find it at Walmart.)

This is the end of the road for us. Tomorrow we drive south, bound for our new home in Driggs, Idaho.

It’ll take us two days to get there. (They’ve closed the eastern side of Glacier National Park because of COVID-19. This is the barrier.)

I bought the hat below in London, three years ago. I was very depressed and I was being tormented with suicidal thoughts. I’d just taken medical leave from my job in Delray Beach, Florida.

Desperate for a cure, I was on my way to Scotland to go get blown around by some stiff, winter gales and walk up some snowy mountains.

I found this hat in a hat shop in Piccadilly Circus just before getting on the train to Inverness. It’s been with me ever since.

Today, as I got out of our car to take a picture, the wind blew it off my head, over a cliff, and into Lake Saint Mary…

Hmmm.

– Tom Dyson

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Readers are exploring bitcoin, gold, and precious metals investments… and others wish the Dyson family well in Driggs, Idaho, where they’re spending the winter…

Reader comment: Tom, I know you always say you don’t like the bitcoin, but your friend Teeka keeps pushing it and telling us to get out of cash in our bank accounts. So, what is the real story? Are we going to lose all the money in our bank accounts when the devaluation comes on November 5, as Teeka predicts? Or are you still for gold and oil tanker stocks?

Tom’s response: I can’t comment on Teeka’s research as I haven’t read it. But my view is, at some point over the next 10 years, there’s going to be a big devaluation of paper currency relative to gold, commodities, and other hard assets. I call this a “synchronized global currency devaluation.” Others will call this “inflation” or a sovereign debt crisis. I think bitcoin is flawed and history will show it was the “MySpace” of cryptocurrency. I don’t own any bitcoin.

Reader comment: Hello Tom – I very much enjoy your Postcards, and I share them with my wife and our two grown children. We are all gold bugs, with a majority of our investments in gold and other precious/vital metals. Over the last three years, I have built a very substantial portfolio comprised of gold, silver, platinum, and palladium, along with copper, lithium, cobalt, uranium, and rare earth minerals. Prior to the most recent correction (ouch!), most of these portfolios were up over 50%, with some individual miner stocks up over 300%. Thanks, and please keep those postcards coming!

Reader comment: Driggs, interesting choice… You do realize, I hope, that as an upscale resort town, Driggs bears no resemblance whatever to the small town America you said you wanted to take the pulse of? I hope you have a great winter. 500 inches is a LOT of snow!

Reader comment: I have enjoyed your Postcards. Surprised to hear of your plans for Driggs. I have been skiing there for over 20 years, two to four trips a season. I escaped Seattle and moved to Moscow, Idaho 15 months ago. You are welcome to stop in on your way to Driggs. We will go over to Targhee this winter also as usual. I’ll look for you. I am also very happy for you and your family. Congratulations for your courage and work for putting this all together.

Reader comment: You should love Driggs! Great fishing and skiing. Some good grub from there and Victor, just south. Enjoy your Postcards! I’m about 70% in gold, but you are all in. Just read Bill and Dan’s letter about the upcoming election predictions and I think I will tighten up my stops on all but gold. Just relocated to a much smaller town in Utah to get away from a metro area. This country is nuts!!!

Reader comment: Hi Tom and family! I was so happy to see that you ended up in my hometown, Idaho Falls. Idaho is a beautiful state and Driggs is the perfect place to spend the winter. I’m glad you have been stocking up on winter clothing because it gets cold there! I live in California now or I would join you!

Meanwhile, another reader thanks Tom for sharing the lessons he’s learned about family… and one says hello after meeting the Dysons last year in Japan…

Reader comment: Thank so very much for your advice about the children. I’ll be 87 years in January. I spent a lot of time with my kids but as I look back, those minutes were not the real loving kind. I learned late of the things I missed doing with them. I have a neighbor now who has two beautiful young girls. I know their dad loves them. But I would like to get hold of him, shake him real hard, and yell at him to look (with eyes wide open), to see them every minute of the day, with his crying eyes, and to tell them how much he loves them. Really, really loves them. Before he knows it, they will be asking for the keys to the Jeep. And those special days will be history. Thanks again for your insight. Be well and be safe.

Reader comment: I have been following your travels and can’t agree with you more. America is the most beautiful country with the kindest people with the kindest people. Having visited the lower 48 states and most of Europe (including the Near East), America is the best! Hope you have a great winter in Idaho.

Reader comment: Tom, Kate, Dusty, Miles, and Penny, thank you for your wonderful postcards, which I always enjoy reading. It’s so good to hear some positive news and comments about the U.S., as I hear and read so much negative news about it in the media, regarding Trump, wildfires, Black people being killed by the police, etc. (I live in Japan.)

I met you all for only one afternoon almost a year ago (November 24 in Kyoto), but I still think of you often, and I’m so glad I was able to meet you. Please come to Japan and Kyoto again! Many thanks and best wishes to you all!

Tom’s note: As always, thank you for writing us. Please keep your messages coming to [email protected].