Saturday, September 14

You might think it’d be hard for four people to get a good night’s rest in a 24 ft. space, but that’s not necessarily the case! We sleep pretty well inside our Winnebago View. Tory has her own bed above the cab and a curtain she pulls together for privacy… which is good because at the ripe old age of 8, she probably requires the most “alone time” of all of us.

Poor Aden gets the shaft in the sleeping situation, but don’t tell him that. His bed is also the kitchen table and our lounging / sofa area in the evenings. Every morning, either Andi or I transform his bed into a table and then every night after dinner we turn it into a bed again. It sounds like a pain, but it really isn’t. It takes two seconds to make the switch.

Andi and I have our own bed in the back of the RV. We’re less than five feet away from Aden at night, so there’s zero privacy but our set-up does the job for now. Fortunately, the kids have gotten used to our sleeping arrangements in the RV and Andi and I can now watch a show with earbuds or work on our computers at night after the kids go to sleep.

Pull the shades and it actually stays very dark inside our RV. Saturday morning in Glacier National Park, we all slept in until 7:30am. Aden was the first to wake, as per usual, so I got up and turned his bed into a table and then made him cereal with a side of oranges for breakfast.

Andi got up shortly afterward and made the rest of us eggs with sausage and hash browns for breakfast. Then we packed a lunch and loaded up the rental car for another day exploring Glacier National Park.

We could have driven our RV to the Many Glacier area of the park, but we’d heard the road to get there from St. Mary Campground was a bumpy gravel road. The east side of Glacier National Park borders an Indian Reservation and most of those roads seemed to be under construction. Since driving the RV is downright painful on pot-hole roads, Andi and I thought it might be more enjoyable to rent the KOA rental for a second day to explore the Many Glacier area.

After a twenty minute drive, we parked our car near the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and headed out on the Redrock Falls trail. The kids were in good spirits that morning, and we played a series of games along the trail to keep them moving. First, Aden and I pretended the dirt was hot lava so we had to jump from rock to rock to stay alive. Next, we pretended we were airplanes being pushed through the air by the gusty winds.

We hiked down to Fishercap Lake to take in the sights. It was super windy down by the water, but the view was breathtaking.

We walked for a mile and half before it started to rain, so we turned around and headed back toward the car. As we walked, we played the childhood game of “Freeze!” much to the amusement of fellow hikers on the trail. Tory was having a blast calling out commands for all of us.

When we finished our hike, I said to the kids, “Wasn’t that fun?!” and Tory responded, “I hated every minute of it.” Lord help us during her teenage years….

After the hike, we walked through the gift shop at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn. It featured the same t-shirts, mugs, magnets, and books we’ve seen in other Glacier National Park stores. In the month of September, the general vibe from store employees across the area is “this is what we have left and everything’s on sale.” I don’t know why I feel inclined to walk through every one of those stores anyway.

We drove over to the Many Glacier Hotel to use the restrooms. The Glacier National Park hotels were built in 1910 and themed after Swiss chalets. It definitely feels like a step back in time when you enter into the doors!

We’d hoped to find a spot to picnic in the Many Glacier area, but it was starting to rain again so we decided to take our picnic back to the RV. Back in the comforts of our home on wheels, we had a “snack lunch” of deli turkey, cheese, hummus, raw veggies and warm bread with dark chocolate for dessert, of course.

After lunch, we decided to hang out for a few hours in RV. Andi took a shower in the shower house while I blogged and the kids laid in the big bed watching the TV show Family Reunion on Netflix.

Later, when it stopped raining, we decided to drive part of the Going-To-The-Sun Road again. At one point, we parked the rental car in a turn-out and we all got out of the car to take in the magnitude of the mountains before us. In unison, both Tory and Aden said, “WOW!” when they saw this view.

Scientists say this is a classic glacial formation called a cirque. Imagine a glacier scooping and eroding the land in a circular motion, like an ice cream scoop forming a deep valley between two gigantic mountains.

The sheer beauty of Glacier National Park is difficult to comprehend. The mountains are so massive and the colors to vibrant — it almost doesn’t seem real.

On our drive back toward St. Mary Campground, Andi thought he spotted something moving in a grassy field. “I thought I saw something,” he said. “Never mind.”

“Stop the car! Something is moving,” I said.

Andi pulled over on the side of the road and the four of us watched a black bear eating grass and berries in the distance. At first we couldn’t tell if it was a black bear or a grizzly bear, but later learned that black bears have bigger ears just like the one we saw in the field.

Until this point, our running joke was “We went to Glacier National Park and all we saw were cows,” but this big black bear changed our tune. With over a million acres of land, it’s no surprise animals find other places than the roadways to hang out in the park.

Back at camp, Andi built us a fire. It was the first time since we arrived at Glacier National Park that the wind calmed down enough for us to enjoy one. We grilled chicken with green beans for dinner and then made s’mores by the fire. Typically we have a “one s’more” rule in our family, otherwise Aden gets too crazy from the rush of sugar right before bedtime. Well, fool us once … that’s exactly what happened. Our fire was abruptly cut short when Aden started having a meltdown. I can’t even remember what it was over.

Bedtime for all. It was an otherwise great day in Glacier National Park.

Tomorrow, we’re moving on to the other side of the park in West Glacier.