Vacation Wrap-Up... Finally!

Wednesday, we had promised the kids their "stay at home" day. We had planned on getting stuff for a picnic lunch and heading down to city beach on Whitefish Lake. However, the weather was iffy and when we swung past to check it out, the city workers were grooming the beach with a tractor... not exactly what we were looking for. Jim and I decided instead to take the kids to The Amazing Fun Center. We drove past it almost every day and when we had lunch with my friend, she said for sure, we had to do it. Oh my! I'm so glad that we did. The weather wasn't perfect but it wasn't horrible. The maze was insane! There were 4 towers, one at each corner that you had to get to and get a stamp. Also? The letters M,A,Z,E (one for each tower) did not necessarily come in order. It was so much fun though. We went through as a family, Karleigh lead us to the first tower, I got us to the second one, Rylan got us to the third and we all pretty much found the fourth one. I was really impressed with how the kids remembered where we had been.

Starting out in the sun... and those clouds... and Karleigh's looking a bit windblown already!

Woohoo! Stamping the "M" on the time cards... oh, yah, you also clocked in and clocked out your time. We completed it in about 40 minutes.



YAY! It started to sprinkle just as we got our last stamp! (that's a go-kart track behind them!)



Shortly after we finished the maze, it started to pour! So, knowing Montana weather, we headed back to the van and hung out for 20 minutes or so. The rain chased off all the tourists and blew through quickly. So, we took the kids back and we played a game of mini-golf which was a great deal since it's 18 holes.

So proud, Jim took this pic while I took Karleigh for a potty break!

After the mini-golf game, the kids begged to ride the go-karts. Rylan was juuuuust tall enough so we did! I took Karleigh with me, unsure of how she would react and Jim took Rylan. Turns out, Karleigh and I had a faster car and she love, love, loved it! We started out behind the guys and Rylan was worried about where we were the whole time, so we lapped the boys and everyone was happy then! No pics though since I was driving :) Not only was it fun but the employees, mostly high school kids, were so very nice!

We headed back to the condo, ate dinner and then spent a couple of hours in the pool. The kids raved about the day, were worn out and slept like rocks! Jim and I packed everything back up, which didn't take too long since as soon as we got there, I unloaded all of their clothes into the dressers and then every night I folded that days outfits and packed them back into their bags.

The next morning we got up fairly early for one last hurrah in Glacier. We had to go back around to the east side of the park. THIS was the day that seemed like the "real" Glacier National Park to us. We got to experience the turquoise blue of the lakes and the deep blue of the sky. It was beautiful! Windy. But beautiful.

We parked at Many Glacier Lodge and did some walking around, some hill climbing and then let the kids check out the trail horses. Sadly the minimum age is 8 years old but they were allowed to go talk to the horses, pet them and check them out.

We had a picnic lunch... outside this time!... we had bug spray :) and then changed into jeans and took another nature hike. This one was 2.8 miles and went all the way around Swiftcurrent Lake. The weather was funny, typical Montana weather... don't like it, wait 5 minutes!

Swiftcurrent Lake with Many Glacier Lodge... which is a huge lodge and gives you a little bit of an appreciation for the landscape. When we do Glacier again, I would like to stay here for a night or two.

After we walked around the lake... oh, can I just say again, how great the people were? We would come across people walking the opposite direction and they almost always made a comment on what great troopers our kids were! They really are wilderness loving kiddos which is great.





About 500 yards from where we snapped the above pic, we walked through a nice stand of lush green, vegetation but Karleigh and I were looking at all of the Indian Paintbrush. Oh, but my point is, that was the very end of our hike, we got back in the van and continued our adventures. At least for a couple hundred yards we continued our adventures... until we saw this lovely lady! Poor thing. We probably woke her up... we being the two short people who never. stopped. talking. because that's how you scare away bears...





I'm certainly glad we didn't see her on the trail, but in the van instead. I got out to take the above pic but the kids were able to see her just fine. She did wander off quickly when a mother and son from Idaho (at least that's what their plates said) took off into the bushes after her. We watched and then pulled to the side of the road at the helipad where we got a GREAT view of her. The kids laughed and mentioned that the only thing we had left to see was a big horn sheep...

...which we saw less than 2 minutes later. Jim had to come to a complete stop to not hit this little one and I had to react fast and shoot through the windshield since the poor thing got spooked just seconds after this. After our luck with the wildlife, we decided to hit the east end of the Going to the Sun Road. We pulled over for wild goose island...

...and then continued along until the road block was set up. We got out and did some more walking... and soaking up the heat from the road. Kind of cool that they could experience it this way!

After our walk, we stopped to check out Jackson Glacier... it's the part with the grey, sandy looking stripes near the center of the pic.

We also stopped to check out another waterfall and really cool stone bridge.

With that, we realized that it was getting late and we needed to start heading back to the condo to finish up our packing and get ready to wrap up or vacation. The light was beautiful for this parting shot at St. Mary.

Also? Free range? Crazy! We came upon cows and horses the same day. These horses were beautiful but at the same time, so sad looking... understandable if they were wild but the lighter horse is branded. Yucky skin condition but beautiful eyes.

We boogied out of the condo on Friday morning around 10 to start our journey home. We knew we wanted to get to the National Bison Range so we did. It was a great thing for Friday since the weather was drizzly all day but we were inside the van for the whole thing. I didn't know how huge the place really is. The loop for the road, alone, was 20 miles of dirt road.

I had great hopes of getting some really neat bison pictures but I wasn't that lucky. We did have a set that were REALLY close to the van but we didn't hang out with them that long and I regret it. That was the closest that we got to them but the loop took a LONG time so no one was willing to do it a second time (not even me). We wanted to make it to Spokane at a minimum.

Just outside the fences to the Bison Range, I spotted this momma and casually tried to get her picture... it was sheep fencing with barbed wire across the top, when out of the bushes, popped her fawn too. So sweet!

We saw tons of bison in the distance, pronghorn sheep, male, female and baby elk... I'm assuming those were either male or female too :), tons of white tail deer.Good stuff. We eventually made our way back to I-90 and did make it to Spokane around 5 pm.

We got a hotel... the one I hesitated getting on the way through the first time (so much better), brought our stuff in and went swimming again for quite awhile. We got the kids settled and I head Karleigh say "Dude! (yes, she says dude... a lot) I think I just saw some lightening!" I looked out the window at the dark purple clouds and said "by the looks of those clouds, I totally believe you!" Sure enough. Thunder and lightening storm! The kids got up and we all cuddled by the window for a good hour or more. We finally bribed them... there was a lot of that on this trip... that whoever fell asleep first, got a quarter in the morning. We didn't hear another thing from them for the rest of the night! And, in case you're wondering, I think Rylan was asleep first but he sleeps hard from the get go and Karleigh eases into her sleep so they both got their quarters in the morning!

The next morning, we took our time getting up and started to head out of town. Until Jim notices a small portion of our bumper flapping in the wind... on a Saturday... when none of the dealerships would bother looking at it and none of the body shops were open. He did call one where the body shop guy happened to be there working on his own project!

Yahoo!

...all the way back in Spokane Valley...

where he told us it wasn't a big deal but pointed out that it had been hit (not by us, we have a back up camera thank goodness) but that it wasn't going to be a big problem.

Yahoo!

...almost 3 hours later.

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing. We made it home, our yard looked like a jungle, the cats were both waiting for us and we all slid back into the comfort of our home!

Again, this was truly a gift from God and a wonderful friend. We had a great time as a family and we were able to get away from a lot of the thoughts about wondering what the future really does hold for our family. Of course all of that and more was still here when we returned home but the break was really, really nice.

Phew, so now you're all caught up... whether you like it or not! And I can get back to my regular bizarre posting :)