We hit the road at 3:00 pm for our adventure to Glacier National Park. Mom and dad, Collie and her car came to our house to pick us up. We were going to fit everything in 2 cars since there was enough space passenger wise and luggage wise. We stopped for dinner in Pocatello at Cafe Rio - funny story Ryan has been to Pocatello many times for work and we were following him to find a place for dinner. He led us through what felt like the entire town of Pocatello before we finally stopped and asked what was going on. He told us he was looking for Cafe Rio, but normally gets off at a certain exit and I guess we had gotten off a couple of exits before so he was going off memory on how to get there. Cafe Rio was great as usual and we plugged along to our final destination Idaho Falls. It wasn't a long drive but we were glad to be done driving for the day!
Monday, July 21
First stop on the way out of town was to the Idaho Falls temple and visitor center. It is a beautiful temple and one interesting thing I learned was that the Angel Moroni wasn't placed on top until 1983, almost 40 years after the dedication.
We stopped at University of Montana - Western in Dillon, Montana for a break so everyone could stretch their legs, the boys could run around, and Collie could feed Raylie. The weather was cooler and we were all in shorts and a t-shirt - did someone say tourist?!? We loaded back up in the cars and had lunch at an A&W which we were lucky to find in some small town. Everyone was hungry so we just pulled off at the next exit and were going to the grocery store - but when we saw A&W mom said that was the spot for lunch!
We finally made it to Kalispell, Montana where we were staying and had dinner at Nickel Charlies. Ryan, Nolan, Seth, and Easton went swimming after dinner.
Tuesday, July 22
We made it to Glacier! The drive to GNP was beautiful and there were a lot of fun little towns along the way. Everything was so green and the views were fantastic. We stopped at the visitor center to get a map and figure out what we wanted to do for the day. We decided to drive along going-to-the-sun-road, and see things long the way. That road was unlike any other and I can't believe some of the places along the road are still considered OK to drive on. Lake McDonald was the first thing we saw from the car and it was beautiful, we stopped at an overlook of a river and let the boys throw rocks and snap a few pictures.
The trail of Cedars was another stop, and a fun boardwalk hike. We ate lunch across from the trail head by a river, where the boys threw rocks.
There were a lot of waterfalls along the road and some that even got your car wet - that's how close to the mountain wall you were. At one point, Ryan was driving Collie's car and we were behind them. There was a car with a camper trailer on the back trying to come down - Ryan was on the outside, the other car was closest to the wall. The camper truck had to stop, Ryan pulled in his car mirrors and they barely got by this guy. It was scary to watch and later Ryan and Collie said it was scary to be in the car since they didn't know how many inches they had before the car would have gone over the cliff.
We stopped at Logan Pass and walked through beautiful fields of flowers, and ended up in snow - quite the contrast. After we had wondered around the visitor center there, we were looking through Ryan's binoculars at some Bighorn sheep and noticed they were making their way down the mountain. Next thing we knew they were in the parking lot and all of the rangers in the area ran over there to keep people safe, and to see if they could get the sheep to move. We started walking to our cars, when next thing we knew there was a Bighorn sheep running through the parking lot and was no joke 7 feet away from us. A ranger was right behind it trying to keep it moving back to a safe place.
Wednesday, July 23
Instead of driving around the park at the end of the day, we drove around the park first. We went to Many Glacier, looked around Many Glacier hotel, took a boat ride from Swiftcurrent Lake to Lake Josephine with the .25 mile hike in between. At Lake Josephine, we saw a black bear and her 2 cubs on the mountain - had to look close to see it, but that was neat.
Thursday, July 24
Today was a driving day - but before we hit the road, Ryan took the boys swimming so they could get some energy out. We wanted to see Yellowstone and were going to drive there on Friday but with the drive being so long, we decided to drive today, and see Yellowstone tomorrow. We made it to West Yellowstone in pretty good time. Our hotel was one to be seen, Al's Westward Ho Motel - it was clean but hadn't been renovated in a long time and didn't have AC, or a pool, and we couldn't help but think of the Surf and Sands hotel in Kanab. It was a few steps above that, but we still had good laughs about it. We had dinner at an Chinese restaurant close to the hotel.
Friday, July 25
Dad and Scottie went to McDonald's early so we could just eat at the hotel and get to the park before 8:30 am. We went straight to Old Faithful because we knew it would just get busier if we waited to see it later in the day. We got a front row spot in the parking lot and had enough room on the benches for everyone to sit together. At the visitor center there was a fun thing for kids to do with a ranger - they acted/learned about geysers and pretended to be a drop of water and what process it would go through. Nolan loved it!
We drove around Yellowstone and saw a lot! We saw a buffalo that was just sitting by the board walk so of course we had to get pictures.
We went to a bear and wolf refuge park so the boys could see some bears up close. It was a fun place. We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant that was close to the bear and wolf refuge.
Saturday, July 26
Packed up and drove home. It is always hard to drive home after a fun trip. We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at Maddox in Brigham City. That was a great way to cap off the trip!
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