Glacier National Park Part 2

And Now I bring you part two of our trip. We start where we left off in my last post. We had just finished with Many Glacier and we were headed to St. Mary. Entering on the East side of the park in St.Mary is the Going to the Sun road which cuts directly across Glacier. Spectacular views. Spectacular!

(as always click on images to see larger image)

Logan Pass

This guy kills me. He looks so pissed I am taking his picture.
"What? You want me to pose again? shove it"

Goodbye Glacier, see you again someday. 

Glacier National Park (part 1)

For the first time since our Honeymoon in 2006 Paul and I went on a real overnight vacation. We've had lots of stay-cations and day-cations, we've road-tripped for work and to see family. But we've never had our own trip where the destination was our choice, family fun, no goals, no "just drive, so we can just get there". We decided we are long overdue. 

Another really nice thing about this trip was we didn't really have much phone service the whole time, so it really was just the two of us. 

I am going to break this up into a couple posts so we don't go into picture overload all at once. 

First Family Vacation

The first night we drove up to East Glacier. We stayed in a cute little motel (Mountain Pine Motel) that had a very retro feel, but it was very clean. Not a lot of amenities, our room had two beds an old TV, towels and bar soap (and of course I forgot shampoo) But considering we are right outside the park, for the price, I was very pleased. Most of our neighbors were hikers, after we arrived and they dwindled back in most of them sat outside and drank a beer while they took their hiking boots off and unloaded their gear from their cars.

If you ever go to Glacier I highly recommend Mountain Pine, It was clean, the grounds were beautiful, lots of grass and trees. I think they are pet friendly, I saw people with dogs, but we didn't bring our monsters.

The hotel manager (Cute little old man) gave us a really nice map and basically outlined our trip for us. I am so glad he did, because we had no intention on going to Two Medicine (blue arrow) or Many Glacier (pink arrow). 

Today I'll share with you those two places. 

Running Eagle Falls Trailhead

Two Medicine Lake

Drove down to the shore of Lower Two Medicine

On our way in Lower Two medicine was very calm and the Mountains reflected perfectly off the lake, so on our way out we decided to explore and drove down a washed out dirt road to try to get a picture. We got down and it wasn't calm anymore, but it was still beautiful. 

On our way back up the washed out dirt road though we almost didn't make it back to the main road. I was really upset because I thought we were about to ruin our vacation and it had just started, we had literally only been out of bed maybe 2 hours max. Lesson learned, don't take your Jeep, no matter how BA it is, off-roading, with crappy road tires. After about 10 minutes of trying we got up the hill and back onto the highway. 

rain coming in looking in to Lower Two Medicine from the main highway headed North.

obligatory selfie

lower two medicine panorama

Lower Two Medicine panorama 2

after we got back on our way a storm started to roll in, lots of rain and lightening on our drive from Two Medicine up to Many Glacier. 

Family Fun! 

Look at all those Glaciers! 

Once we got to the end of the road at Many glacier we noticed the clouds were parting and the sun was peeking through, it would be a good day, the rain would eventually stop and the sun would come out! 

Many Glacier view from the Swiftcurrent Lodge parking lot

Stay tuned for more Glacier National Park coming soon! 

Challis 2013

If you want you can read about our previous years (Challis 2011) and (Challis 2012).

This was our third, and last year at Challis.

Challis is an annual camping trip that "Recruiting Station Salt Lake" (who Paul works under) has each year. It's partly for training, because the Marines are spread all over several states and rarely can get together for such, and a little bit for fun and camaraderie. When we arrived in Montana Paul worked under Great Falls, so we always camped with Great Falls. The first year I was the only wife in our camp, The second year there was two other wives and a female Marine, along with all the guys, and I was 4 months pregnant. This year all the 4 Marines in our camp had wives, and three of us had babies, AND.. two of us had babies that were born only 2 weeks apart! 

I think this year was the most fun of all the Challis'. Yeah the first year we (i) partied harder, but I was hungover more too, and I think last year was just way hotter, this year was hot, but not horrid, and we partied, but not too hard. We even played cards against humanity! 

Evey likes the Q

This year we did get rained on the first night, it rained a lot, maybe not as much as the first year, but enough to make the tent leak and to piss me off. 

hanging out in the shade under moms clothes line, to dry all of our wet stuff

High five Renji! 

Too hot, must sleep

Hawk

baby party

S'mores for lunch? Don't mind if I do! 

morning snuggles with the pooches

Evey and her BFF Emma

Keepin cool with our frog toggs

Aiko shared her frog togg

Aiko in the Salmon River

Aiko and Renji in the Salmon

There's an Evey in that pouch

"What? we can't play in the mud?"

Best S'mores on the planet! 

We partied a little 

There is a baby in a Ergo Carrier under that blanket.
I know.. I'm so mature 

Packed up to go home! 

All in all it was a great time and we all made new friends. We laughed and shared stories. I am a tiny bit sad that this was our last year, but the Marine Corps has a new adventure waiting for us. 

- Alana