On Monday we ventured back into Glacier but before that Karleigh mentioned wanting to stop at this place where they have bears - a tourist trap really - between Whitefish and the park. They are basically free roaming, within the perimeter fences and walk right next to the cars. Of course, the windows all have to be all the way closed including the sun roof and the rear venting windows. Great for safety - not so hot for pictures. But, we were able to drive through as many times as we wanted and the kids thought it was great. [and attitudes were much better when they were given some control over what we did]
All they talked about before vacation was seeing bears. They wanted to see them and they were on bear high-alert the entire first day. Oh! They wanted to see them but Karleigh was stuck to my leg like super-glue every time she saw a "bear country" warning sign! Anyway, this was a great way to ensure that we saw some bears. Some chunky, rolling, fat and happy bears!
After the bear country visit we headed back into the park and this time took one of the roads on the west side of the park. They did a really good job the day before on the marked nature trail so we decided to try out another one. This one wound around one of the areas scarred by fire in 2003. It was an easy enough walk, but longer and hotter than day before... and maybe a bit too close to lunch time.
I must say though, our kids are total troopers! They love being outside and going for walks. The only problem is that Rylan would be totally happy with hanging out for hours, throwing rocks and pine cones!
Rylan did reach a point where he was just convinced that his feet did not work any more so Karleigh and I took the time (while Jim was "motivating" Rylan to keep going) to snap a few pics of us together. This was an important thing for us. We had had a rough night together the night prior. She was tired and mouthy. I was tired and reactive. It was nice to have us both wake up refreshed and have it behind us.
After our hike we were going to have a picnic but again, we were chased back into the van. Not by rain showers but by mammoth mosquitos this time! We wanted to explore some more of the park but also didn't realize that the roads we had wanted to check out were dirt until that morning! Well, we decided to take the drive anyway. Beautiful!
The great thing about having "the" road not open all the way is that it allowed us to see other parts of the park that we probably wouldn't have made the time for otherwise. Those dirt roads felt so much longer than they were - 10 miles and then 6 miles. And that 6 miles can hardly be noted as two lane, more like 1 1/4! But the views were SOOOO worth the pain of having to wax out all the scratches on the van when we got home.
Really the only thing I could say when we got up to Bowman Lake was "wow....".
It was really impossible to capture the true color of the water. It's something that I've never seen before and probably never will again. It was so quiet and peaceful and I really felt like I was some place in a dream.
Yup, the kids finally got to get their lines wet. The rules and regulations for kids in the park are pretty non existent... especially when you're more interested in learning how to skip rocks and aren't actually catching anything.
I love this picture of Karleigh, even though it's dark, thanks to the sun running away from us behind another peak and a few clouds but I think it just shows how wonderful we were all feeling. It was starting to get later in the day so it was time to pack it in, head down the washboard roads and back to the condo on Big Mountain.So, the kids were chilling in their seats, Jim and I were chit-chatting and we get suck behind this slow grandma driver with her left turn signal on. No biggie, we weren't in a rush. And what a wonderful thing that we weren't because "grandma" was on to something. Sure enough, out of the bushes slumbered this big momma!
Big Momma? You say???
Yah Big Momma!
She and her two cubs just went about their business and boy were our cubs thrilled to see these bears in the wild!
We figured that was just about the perfect end to the day but we did stop and take the very common tourist photo to round out the day!
1 comment:
Wow and all this in just one day?! Amazing!
-h
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