Dear patient friends and family, we are alive! I am very sorry for the distance between posts. We have had a hard time connecting our ipad to Internet. I wanted to give you an account of our time at Glacier National Park(pictures will follow this post). We made it into east glacier on the train only 6 hours behind schedule ;) instead of camping i had the foresight to just reserve a hotel room so that we could just get a good night sleep and a shower after such a long train ride. The next day we were able to explore the small town that seems to only survive on the tourist who come in to visit the park. There is a beautiful lodge (that we did not stay at) that we were able to enjoy while we waited for the shuttle to take us to the park. They had an amazing view of the mountains and a beautiful post and beam interior any one wanting to look at their web site they can go to: glacier lodge .We made it to Glacier in the middle of the day and set our tent up at Rising Sun camp ground on the east side of the park. We intended to stay in this park for just a few days and then camp maybe on the west side but as the park started filling up for fourth of july weekend we went ahead and kept that as our base camp. As we came into the park the weather was an amazing 75 degrees. We were told that only a few days before it was 50 degrees and so rainy. The first full day at the park we settled in and learned all about camping in BEAR Country!! Our food had to be stored in a food locker that was about 65 feet from our tent, and after washing dishes our waste water had to be brought to the camp sink in the bathrooms that were about 200 feet from our tent. It was a really easy way to spend a whole day learning new rhythms of living. But really it makes you think about the life style that we live in a world of convenience. It was very easy to live this way and to conserve water and spend all our time out doors. The first misfortune that we encountered was that our camp stove broke!! Which was ok when we could cook on a fire but we did have a couple of rainy days. One morning we woke up to really bad rain and heavy winds and i think the kids were really happy that we were able to go to the parks restaurant for pancakes!! We had been living off of oatmeal and a 12 grain cereal which cooked over a camp stove comes to have this lovely smokey taste to it we added raisins, dates, and cashews yum! but i guess after days of this i could see how they would be ready for a change ;) The day before it rained we made it out on a hike to st. mary falls, virginia falls, and barring falls. The pictures will follow this post. The whole hike was about 5.7 miles and the kids did splendid until the last mile hehe alyx is really not a hiker, i put this down to his being so hot blooded he gets sweaty and tired pretty easy. But cedric wholly molly !! he can trek , man that kid was keeping us in line. He kept saying things like I Biggest! I Walking bigger! so cute. I think elijah was bored and ready to get back to his book but he really loved the water falls when we got to them. On the day of pancakes and rain we took the free shuttle that went through the park we had explored this shuttle the day before our hikes and its pretty neat! it takes you up to logans pass right up into the glaciers and the continental divide. We accross to the west side of the park where it was not stormy and sat in their lodge by the lake and just had a relaxing day. We learned a very important lesson that day. People who work at the park do not actually know about the shuttle schedule even when they are working at a booth that says "transportation information"
We were told the shuttles run until 9 pm but when we tried to get on a shuttle back to logans pass to connect with the east side it was only 5:45 and we were told we missed the last shuttle to logans pass!! Well we are veterans of missing our train/bus whatever so we knew there was a way back to our shuttle we just had to find it (hitchhiking is not really an option with kids). So we went back to that information booth and demanded that they bring us to our camp site. We were not the only stranded people and so 3 hours later we had a ride! Not just any ride though we got to ride the red bus!! You can find more info on that on the glacier lodge web site i posted a link to above. I will also post a photo of it in a little while. The universe is not with out mercy. The storm had moved on by this time and we had a nice drive home and we got to see a baby bear! not sure where mama bear was but the baby was poking around on the side of the road. I had really hoped we were able to see a bear and i think from the car at a safe distance is a great way to experience one. The following day even though we had just spent so much time on the west i really wanted to go back there and hike the trail of cedars. The west side of glacier park is made up of the easternmost side of the rain forest that runs from montana all the way to the coast! We hiked a small trail to a large lake with waterfalls coming down on all sides it was beautiful but i was mostly happy to be frolicking through the giant cedar trees! We did this hike on our last day in the park the 4th of July. No fireworks for us but i'd say that we had a special time meeting some amazing people and learning so much about a natural wonder that wont be around forever. I would urge everyone to try and visit there! If you dont want to camp in the park you can stay in whitefish, montana and make a day trip on the west side of the park. Well the next day we were sad to pack up but i think we were also ready for the next adventure, Seattle! But before we get to excited lets remember that we were riding amtrak....we were scheduled to leave at 6:45 pm. However, we did not leave until 2 a.m. because a freight had derailed and put us behind about 8 hours!! We were fortunate to be able to stay at the lodge again while we waited. Clayton and Brian did some golfing on one of the oldest natural golf courses still around. and i did laundry yay!! hehe. The lodge was very sympathetic to our situation and supplied us with coffee and let us camp out on their couches and the boys slept by the fire. It really could have been worse. The train ride was not so bad except that we had the same crew that we travelled with before and i think they must hate their job (i dont blame them). but still they could learn to relax and at least be courteous. Because we were so behind schedule we stopped in spokane and they put us all on buses to carry us from spokane to either portland or seattle. I have to say that sitting on a packed bus while sleep deprived with three kids is maybe not my most favorite things in the world. Did i mention the air wasn't working either? that was a very hot long bus ride but all the folks on the bus were really nice and i think we all had this attitude like we are in this together! We made it to Seattle in the early evening and found our hotel with out to much issue we stayed in hotel hostel in Fremont Seattle which is one of the neatest communities i have ever been in! I am going to leave the story here because i need to go help with dinner. But i will let everyone know more about our time in Seattle soon. Just to let you all know we are on our first farm in Mt. Vernon we are safe we are very happy and all is going well. We will write more soon. Love to you all <3
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