Glacier National Park

I thought this was going to be a short blog, but we had way more pictures than I thought! Glacier National Park was incredibly beautiful. Actually, probably our favorite so far in terms of landscape. On the west side, the forests are lush and green with much more humitity than we've seen yet. This is a crazy thing to say, but we actually enjoyed the humidity better than the dry. Maybe because we're used to it. I'm sure all of you in the south can't comprehend that since it's probably 90 degrees with 90% humidity. It's much more tolerable when it's 60 degrees :)

We've found that it is a little early in the season for the National Parks the further up you go. We probably were about a week early for everything to be open at Glacier. The famous Going to the Sun Road was only partially open and what we saw was absolutely incredible. I want to come back later in the season sometime and see the rest of it because we heard that we missed the best part! Dustin read that to clear Logan Pass they have machinery that clears 4,000 tons per hour and it takes 10 weeks to do it. Crazy!

Lake McDonald in West Glacier NP

Logan Pass was closed on Going to the Sun Road, but we were able to bike further than we could drive. As you can see, it is incredible.

This is on the Trail of the Cedars hike. Look how clear the water is here.

We saw all of these mountain goats while we were driving on the east side of the park

Note the one on the right taking a little leak. I noticed that after I went back to look at the pic.

There were tons of beautiful lakes, streams, and waterfalls

Sunrift Gorge

Jackson Glacier. You can't really tell it's there because there is still lots of snow on the mountain. Maybe some of you glacier experts can see it.
I'm trying some new techniques with the camera. I've decided to self teach myself on how to use our camera. I've actually learned alot by skimming through the manual. Who knew that manuals were actually helpful? Hopefully our pics will improve as time goes on.

Mom, Dad---what is this? I've been taking some flower pics, so you should be proud. I bet you never thought I would do that, huh. We forgot to bring a flower book, so I'll just use your knowledge.

I'm right next to the waterfall (look closely)


We've resorted to sleeping in the car every now and then (actually the past 3 nights). Nothing better than free lodging! We're getting it down to a T and actually are quite comfortable now. This is Dustin's solution to street lights.


We're now in Calgary, Alberta and headed to Banff tomorrow. Banff is the one I've been anxiously awaiting, so hopefully we'll have some really great pictures of it!

P.S. We also added a Bison Video to our Bear Video post

Itinerary

I've been meaning to post this for a long time...



This is our very TENATIVE itinerary, so everyone can see where we'll be when-that is if you are interested.




2008 Roadtrip Itinerary (West)
May 6-10 Oklahoma City, OK
May 10-11 Denver, CO
May 11-19 Back to AR
May 19-20 Denver, CO
May 20-21 Boulder/Estes Park, CO
May 21-22 Aspen, CO (Maroon Bells)
May 22-23 Moab/Canyonlands National Park, UT
May 23-26 Moab/Arches National Park, UT
May 26 Park City, UT
May 26-30 Salt Lake City, UT
May 30-31 Jackson Hole, WY
May 31-June 2 Yellowstone National Park, WY
June 2-3 Butte, MT
June 3-4 Missoula, MT
June 4-5 Glacier National Park, MT
June 5-6 Calgary, Alberta
June 6-9 Banff National Park, Alberta
June 9-13 On the Alaskan Highway
June 13-14 Tok, AK
June 14-16 Fairbanks, AK
June 16-18 Denali National Park, AK
June 18-25 Anchorage, AK area
June 25-29 On the Alaskan Highway
June 29-July 1 Vancouver, BC
July 1-July 4 Olympic National Park, WA
July 4-7 Seattle, WA
July 7-16 Gone to Bogota, Columbia
July 16-17 Seattle, WA
July 17-19 Rainier National Park, WA
July 19-23 Portland, OR
July 23-26 Southern Oregon
July 26-29 Redwood National Forest, CA
July 29-30 Sonoma/Napa Valley, CA
July 30-Aug 1 Healdsburg, CA
August 1-4 San Fransisco, CA
August 4-8 Yosemite National Park, CA
August 8-11 Monterrey, Big Sur, Pebble Beach, CA
August 11-13 Santa Barbara, CA
August 13-14 Ojai/Simi Valley, CA
August 14-16 Las Vegas, NV
August 16-17 Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
August 17-18 Flagstaff, AZ
August 18-20 Phoenix/Scottsdale, AZ
August 20 Back to the great state of Arkansas!

Bear/Bison Videos

Here are the links to two bear videos that we took of the grizzly and her cub in Yellowstone NP. One is kind of shakey, but worth watching. We were pretty excited about seeing a bear as you can see :)

Bear Video 1

Bear Video 2

Bison Video

Grand Tetons/Yellowstone National Park

So, we're in Missoula, MT updating our blog with our Yellowstone pics. There's a lot of them because it was incredible! We saw lots of wildlife (which was my favorite part), waterfalls, geysers, and hotsprings.



Male moose we saw right outside of Jackson Hole, WY

Then right after that, we saw a female moose that made it very clear she was not scared of humans
Our campsite outside of Grand Teton NP and me with my Real Simple that my sister so graciously sent to me :)Beautiful Grand Tetons...we didn't get to see much of Grand Teton NP because we were short on time and ready to get to Yellowstone. It looked really cool as we drove through!
And we're here! When we first saw Lake Yellowstone, it was covered with ice.

A hot spring with beautifully colored mineral deposits at Biscuit Basin

A bubbling geyser at Biscuit Basin. These geysers are everywhere!
All of these are geysers or hot springs of some sort...
This was a hot spring with colorful mineral deposits running into Firehole River, which Dustin flyfished in and I'm so mad I didn't get a picture of it!
There are tons of elk and bison in Yellowstone along with lots of other wildlife. We even saw a wolf! It was entirely too fast to get a picture of though.
The ice receding on Lake Yellowstone

And the infamous Old Faithful, which was cool but we were kind of wondering why it was so famous since there are so many other cool things at Yellowstone. I guess you don't see a geyser everyday, much less one that goes off every 90 minutes.


Yeah, I start looking pretty rough by about day 3 of not taking a shower... Thanks, Mom for letting me know it :) I've come up with some pretty creative ways for taming my nappy hair without frequent showers.
We couldn't hike any further b/c Dustin had sandals on and there was lots of snow on the trail...


Lake Yellowstone again. We thought it was quite pretty and very close to where we camped, so it got lots of pictures taken of it.... By the time we left pretty much all of the ice was gone.

There were tons of pretty waterfalls at Yellowstone
We got sick of taking boring pictures, so Dustin thought he'd spice it up :)


These bison seriously couldn't care less if there are humans around or cars behind them...They just continue about their business which consists of eating lots of grass and that's about it.

This picture was not taken with zoom...That's how close this dude was to our car. These things are actually pretty ugly once we got upclose and personal. They are amazingly huge though!
A grizzly bear and her cub (which you can't see very well in this pic)! We have some cool videos of this for any of you bearlovers out there-Bob and Jules...It was incredible watching this bear from about 100 yards away. If you ever want to see a bear, go to Yellowstone in May. We decided our trip to Yellowstone was complete even if we didn't see anything else.

Mineral deposits from Mammoth Spring in northern Yellowstone


Bison were kind of a dime a dozen we realized. They were everywhere! But, these little calves were so cute.

A beaver that we thought was a bear when we first pulled over. If there are a lot of people with cameras there is a good chance there is a bear nearby...This time it was just a cute little beaver.

After some last minute fly fishing at Yellowstone, we left the beautiful park. I highly recommend it for any of you who are planning family trips.

After we left, we started driving through Montana and realized just how expansive the West really is. It was such a beautiful drive with lots of countryside.

Tomorrow we are headed to Glacier National Park in northern Montana. It is supposed to rain the whole time, so pray that we won't get too wet camping!

Thanks to the Allgaiers

Thanks to the Allgaiers for hosting us for 4 days in Salt Lake City! We so much enjoyed getting to spend time with them and hearing about their time living in Salt Lake. They were so helpful on showing us the best places to go and even being our tour guide. We couldn't have asked for better hosts, so thank you all so much for having us, for taking time to spend with us, for the incredible homecooked meals and just an all around wonderful time! We hope to come see you all and Jessica in Atlanta!


Here are some more pics of our time in Salt Lake...

Teresa and I at a beautiful Catholic Church in downtown SLC