Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park is amazing! The mountains, the terrain, the animals and flowers and ice... amazing! The internet connection and cell service... nonexistent!
We stayed the first night in the cute town of East Glacier. It is just outside of the Two Medicine entrance to the park. We took a short hike to Inspiration Point. My mom impressed us with the very hilly 1.2 mile hike.
The next day, we headed north to MAny Glacier and stayed in the historic Many Glacier Hotel. This place was pretty cool. Here is a picture my mom took from the balcony. The couple of days we camped in the Many Glacier campground. The site was gorgeous! We had mountain views on three sides! While at Many Glacier, we did a number of hikes and took a trip to the Going to the Sun road (only the first 13 miles were open) and hiked Barring Falls and St. Mary's Falls while in that region of the park. Here are a few pictures from our hikes.

Black Hills / Custer State Park

I had a very long entry typed out but my internet access waned and I lost the all of my words. I will keep this short. We left Badlands on the June 21st by driving Sage Creek Rim Road in hopes of seeing buffalo. While we did see a few bison, the badger trying to eat the prairie dogs captivated our attention.

We drove to Custer State Park in the Black Hills after that to camp. Sue and her girls met us and shared our campsite which made the while experience so much more fun! The next few days were filled with campfires, horseback rides, silly stories and construction of a bridge across the creek by the kids, catching up with a good friend, Wind Cave, Mount Rushmore, a visit to the town of Keystone and a drive-by of Crazy Horse. It was an absolute blast. Custer State Park did not disappoint with wildlife either. We saw more bison than we could imagine; right on the road, next to the car. We saw pronghorn deer, antelope and prairie dogs galore. Sue and her girls left Friday afternoon. We stayed through Saturday morning. After the Black Hills we are off to pick up my mom and Dave and head to Glacier.

The Badlands

This is from Madeline's journal entry today. I thought she described our day very well! Today, as the title implied, we visited the Badlands, which we of course rechristened the Misunderstoodlands. It was amazing. It's pretty hard to capture any of it on a page or a blog or a camera. It was breathtakingly beautiful. There were layers upon layers of canyon and mountain(kind of). You would be inside of a canyon and lo and behold, there's a miniature canyon right beneath your feet. There was all kinds of gravel and mud and lots and lots of rock, so much astounding detail that nothing but your own eyes could truly see. There were drop-offs and build-ups that you could climb on, and valleys and crags that you could explore. There was vegetation anywhere flat enough to hold it, and there was a lot of it! Goldenrod covered seemingly every surface around, there was thick, long grass all over the place, these tiny purple flowers spotted the fields every once in a while, and cacti with large orange or yellow flowers were embedded in the grass. There were these thriving plains to either side of the steep canyons, and they just seemed to drop off at points. There was so much variety in the Badlands, from rounded sunset colored rocks to jagged crumbling canyons, places devoid of all life to places mostly covered in grass and flowers. There were fields that had large rocky hills embedded in them, and cows all over the place. There were big horn sheep that climbed on these practically vertical walls, just jumping and running and frolicking on these cliffs. There were little lambs that were just playing around on a steep vertical drop. They were very fluffy and adorable. All the adult sheep were in the process of shedding their winter coats. We did a couple trails too, other than the car tour. The first one was the door trail. We traversed what seemed to be a scaled down canyon in a bigger canyon. We thought we'd be stopping around the fifth marker, but we went to the end. Any pictures we took didn't seem to show enough of the depth. Then we did window trail, which was a fifth of a mile round trip that ended in a breathtaking view and a wonderful breeze. We also did Notch trail, which was by far the most difficult and rewarding trip by far. It started off easy enough, going through a multi-height rocky field of flowers. The easy part ended at a stair/ladder type thing that scaled one of the larger formation walls. It was really high up, but as long as I didn't look down I was okay. At the top of that we had to move along this steeply changing gravely ledge that constantly made me feel like I was going to fall off the edge. It would have been easy too, because at some points we didn't have more than three feet of room, and it was gravely which made for some hard footing. At the end it plateaued and gave us a lot more room (and security). There was an epic viewpoint. We could see ridges and plains and everything. It was worth the injury my knees probably received received inching back down the terrifying ladder. I never thought the badlands would be so amazing. If I could stay anywhere for a week it would probably be here, but we have to move on, and that is okay. I'm coming back though. Someday.

Rain and Hail and Wind, Oh My

Today was another driving day. A couple of worthwhile observatons: Missouri was much nicer than I expected, rolling hills and small farms. Iowa on the other habd was ugly. I realize making judgemnets on the entire state based on a drive on Rt 29 is not really fair but still this is what I saw. Iowa was full of dead trees, ugly brown wheat like weeds and potmarked roads. That was as much to report until I saw a nasty storm forming on the horizon. As we drove it became clear that we were heading rigt for the purple section of the storm (not orange or red but purple). We turned off and found the little towm of Glemwood. It was the perfect place to wait out the storm and have lunch. We decided this was the nicest place that Iowa had to offer. I felt pretty proud of myself for evading the nasty cell and headed northward. As we moved into South Dakota we noticed the skies darkening around us. This time, it wasnt a small single cell but a massive supercell. There was literally no where to go (except for the way we came). The skies darkened around us and turned an eerie shade of green. The kids said it was pretty until the blinding rain and deafeneing hail. This is a picture JAckson took before the rain came. We pulled off the road when viibility reached zero and headed north when there were headlights to follow. Here is a picture from Madeline's phone while we were stopped. We stopped near an overpass for 20-30 minutes. There were so many cars stopped on the shoulders and in actually lanes there was only a small lane left through. The storm was not lightening in fact it seemed to continue to get worse. When it looked like the road might get entirely bocked by cars just stopping, I decided to pull out and not risk getting trapped. I stopped another time or two when I just couldnt see. I finally made it to the Sioux Falls exit and pulled over and booked a hotel room. Now the flooding made it impossible to get to the hotel room. The only entrance was (ad is still) under many feet of water. So, we parked in a nearby hotel, ran in and took safety. Since then, things have calmed down. We made a couple rainy run to the van to get our stuff, we watched the US beat Ghana in soccer and now comfortably resting in our hotel room. Off to the Badlands tomorrow. Hopefully, the rain stays away!

Day 2: Two Cities

Today we headed out of Nashville and headed for St. Louis. The best thing to report about the drive was there is nothing to report - easy drive. St. Louis was not very cooperative for us today. The road we needed was closed. No problem, we will detour but ran into St. Louis Cardinal game traffic. Our GPS lead us to the Gateway Arch parking garage. It was low clearance and we have a minivan with a topper on it. So after inching forward with Jackson watching and holding back traffic we made it in with only the slightest contact. We made our way to the arch. It was beautiful and breezy (the kids loved the soft grass). There were long lines and a longer wait after that so we opted not to take the tram up. We decided to have some local cuisine but after a bit of a walk, we saw that we could not physically cross the street due to construction. We decided to cut our losses and head out only to find out the entrance was not the lowest part of the parking garage. So after another super stressful, creeping along inch by inch, we made it out. Kansas City has been a pleasant surprise. I found a hotel room in downtown right by this really cute plaza area. We walked around a bit and had some great Mexican food. Overall, a successful 2nd day! Onto South Dakota tomorrow :)

Trees

What do all four of these pictures have in common?

The answer, of course, is trees. 

Trees are a vital component of the interstate ecosystem, as they line pretty much all them, as can be seen clearly in these four diverse pictures, all of which have greenery surrounding the area. 

Not only do these trees provide essential noise dampening services, but they also give a nice continual backdrop that allows the millions of hours spent on the road to blur together into seemingly one easy journey. 

So next time you drive long distance, be sure to thank your local interstate lining trees, by driving past them without notice. It's what they were meant for.  

Getting ready

What do you pack for a kid with nut and soy allergies? Nothing. You make him blueberry granola bars! At least, that is what I am working on.