Today was our day to spend as a family and see about heading up to Glacier National Park! After two long days of travel, we were eager to get out and do some sightseeing, but not very motivated to get moving.
We FINALLY got up and started to fix breakfast. We could not get Trista to agree to ANYTHING, I even bought POP TARTS. POP! TARTS! To give you an idea of how special that is, Levi is almost 5 and something came up about pop tarts the other day and Levi said, “What is a pop tart?” (Full disclosure, this is partly because I try to feed my kids nutritional food, but honestly it is because I really hate them (long story, childhood wound, maybe one day I will work it out with a therapist. Doubtful.))
I finally deferred to John to find something that she would eat, and she replied with “Eggs. I will eat a scrambled egg.” This is my child who hates eggs. Will not ever eat eggs. Ever. I bought all kinds of alternatives (including pop tarts) because of this. Finally, we told her that she could have said egg, but she had to eat it all. And she did! Then, of course, Levi who had already finished his breakfast said, “I want some eggs!” I cooked 4 batches of eggs this morning. As a funny (or not) side note, we later gave Levi some orange soda (his fav), he took one sip and said, “YUCK!” I give up.
We finally ate breakfast, packed a lunch, got everyone out the door (including Annie) and set off for the park.
We made a quick stop at a grocery store on our way out of town and the kids got a jump start on boating…
Somehow, we ended up on some random dirt road, but it took us right into the park. I thought for sure we were going to get very, very lost, but we sure didn’t.
We stopped at the first visitor center that we came to, for potty breaks and a map and also grabbed the Junior Ranger booklets for the kids. Levi saw a Junior Ranger vest that he really wanted me to buy, but I was not willing to fork over that kind of money for that vest. Levi was very upset by this and said, “If you won’t buy me that vest, I’m throwing this book away!!!!” He stomped over to the trash with his Junior Ranger book, but it was bear latched and he couldn’t figure out how to open the trash lid! LOLOLOL. Guess who is an official Glacier Park Junior Ranger (without a vest)?
We drove Going to the Sun road and oohed and ahhed at the spectacular sights! It is a beautiful park and we enjoyed our time. We were very excited to spot 5 mountain goats, including 2 babies, near the top and stopped to watch them for a bit.
Here is my crazy bunch climbing over me to get out the sunroof to look at Mountain goats!
Earlier in the day we made plans to meet up with the family that was already here, so we had to hurry back to meet them. We stopped again at the visitor center to complete the Junior Ranger program, the kids had worked on the activities during our drive and had to get certified by a real ranger! Ranger Doug was not amused that I took a picture of him without his hat, so he went and got his hat and I took another picture. He told me, “A ranger without a hat is like a cowboy without a horse!”
We made our way back into town and met up with Coverdell party of 14 at the restaurant. It is always good to be surrounded by family and this was no exception! Can’t wait for the rest of our group to arrive!
After dinner, we walked down to check out the lake access near where our RV is parked. Obviously we needed to do a thorough investigation…
And take a selfie (we are still terrible at them)…
Then head back to Romeo Victor for microwave s’mores and then Trista read bedtime stories to Levi and we all went to sleep!
