Sunday July 7th- Wednesday July 10th - Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park... Wow... what to say... I am of the firm belief that this is our most beautiful National Park.  Beautiful Views... Oriented towards backcountry hiking... lots of bears... Fewer tourists than the crowds at Yellowstone... Not oriented towards tourism.. nearly as much as some of the other parks...  Beautiful display of the glory and power of God... Wow... Beautiful!

Here are some of the views as we awoke from our camper in the morning... WOW!!  

ST Mary's Mountains..  these pictures do not do justice to the size and magnificent beauty of these mountains.. 

On our way out of the campground in the morning...

Can you say beautiful??... or Airstream Catalogue material??.. :)

In the morning we made the most of our stay at Johnson's campground by taking care of some business... we did all of our laundry at their laundry room in the morning.  It was convenient to take care of all of our laundry there before heading out.  Prices were reasonable.  We also got our propane tank topped off. Up until this point we had used about one tank of propane to run our refrigerator and water heater.  That wasn't too bad at all for the amount of time we spent living in the camper... almost a month for $17 of propane!!... tell me again why we aren't full timers all the time??  :)

Traci, Jeni, Sadie, Miriam, and Karra on the way into Glacier.... St. Mary's Gate

Good morning everyone... I love sleeping with the kids on the sofa... Did I tell you that I love the camper??

Charlie Estanol came up to visit us at St. Mary's park on Sunday.  We had a nice time talking with Charlie about what they've been up to in recent years that we haven't seen them.  We had a great visit.  It was great to see him!!  Charlie was attending a guide school on the West side of the park-- using his GI bill to get acquainted with all of the different skills guides use- tracking, hunting, cleaning animals, caping, taxidermy basics, survival skills, and fishing.  He's got me wanting to look into the school as well.  What a great opportunity!  It was great to get to catch up with Charlie.

St Mary's Lake

Honey Girls!

Whose child is this??

ought to be a Ford Commercial... beautiful...  The water was so clear.. 

View from the upper road of the campground at St Mary's

kids playing in the snow.. in July ... at Logan Pass..

Tunnel on the Road to the Sun... 

This picture doesn't do it justice, but the water here is really clean and clear... it's crazy to look at it.  The water appears to be so clear and it is a bright blue when you see it...  amazing.

Butterfly head... :)

We stopped for lunch on one of the lakes for the afternoon.

Bear!!  We saw 3 bears during our last night there at the park... it was amazing... the Many Glacier road... was full of bears.  We saw two cinnamon black bears, a black bear, and two grizzly bears... WOW!!

Many Glacier

Kids playing in the water on the way to the visitor center.

Fresh batch of Junior Rangers... and a proud Mama... :)

Taking the oath... 

Beautiful country.. 

Drive to Glacier National Park- Saturday, July 6th

Well, today we left Yellowstone... :(

It was a great time for the week that we spent in the area.  Yellowstone is a truly unique part of the world.  I don't think there is another part of the world that has such a unique combination of Geology and wildlife.  It is so encouraging to see the park as it was when our country was first explored (minus the paved roads of course).

Here are some pictures of our trip.  We left the Indian Creek camp site and headed out through the north gate to the park.  It was a nice drive--- check out the views!

All smiles... what a beautiful view!!

Taken by our friends, the Honey crew on our way out of the park... Again, driving downhill with the camper proved to be a challenge... fun fun fun... the Ford did great!

Pictures at the gate on our way out.. 

We left through the north gate to the park and headed north.  We drove to Bozeman until we stopped to pick up some groceries.  We spent more time than we probably should have- at a Walmart... And too much money too... ha ha... We got stocked up though.  We planned out our meals for the next week there in the store.  We planned on buying food items that would not require refrigeration.  We did that because we knew that we would not have sufficient battery power to run the refrigerator indefinitely at the campsite in Glacier.  The Park we planned to stay at in Glacier was going to be a primitive site, so we planned accordingly.

We initially thought that we would drive a few hours and then stop for the night to rest.  As we got on the road though, we decided to drive the whole way to the Glacier area- St Mary's on the North-East side of the park.  As we drove into the afternoon, evening, night.. and late evening- we wished we had not made reservations with such an ambitious goal for our trip for the day. -- we drove too far.  Finally- after a while on the road.... we made it to Johnson's Campground in the St Mary's area outside of the NP.  This site had full hookup for the night.... After a long day... we went to bed at 1:00 am... plugged in... to hopefully charge our batteries...

Yellowstone National Park Pictures

We were looking through some old pictures from this summer and wanted to add these to our blog...hope you enjoy them!  These are all from Yellowstone National Park.