We had just enough hours on our last morning to squeeze in one more adventure before catching our flight home.
An aerial ropes and zipline course!
It was awesome!
And hard.
Jason and I stayed on the ground to take pictures and try to keep track of everyone.
They were all over the place!
And I think all of us were dreaming about adding a few of these obstacles to our own backyard!
Look at those satisfied smiles!
The kids spent most of their time on the lower level, but Adam was the first to climb to the upper level, with his sights set on the 250 foot zipline.
It was really high up there!
And it took him a good while to figure out how to get to it, but he made it! Adam has always been our biggest monkey.
Emma was the only one who braved the climbing wall, and she rocked it! Of course, jumping down was the funnest part of it.
They all did a great job and had fun challenging themselves to do something new and kind of hard. Here they are in action-
And once they all had their fill of climbing, we hurried back over to the even-smaller-than-DSM airport and started the long journey home.
We had a four hour layover in Denver, which was a painfully long end to our trip despite getting dinner, checking out the toy store, riding the tram, using aaaalll the bathrooms, buying frozen yogurt because we were 2 minutes late to Ben and Jerry's, and learning why you don't go down the up escalator. But at least we had books to keep us entertained the whole way home!
And, of course, we had to get home to our pup, who had her own exciting vacation with Lucky while we were gone.
Overall this was a fantastic trip. We don't generally travel in summer- Iowa is quite lovely this time of year and we'd much rather escape mid-winter- but this was a great trip! We missed out on 100 degree weather at home, we loved being in the mountains, we had a great time catching up with family, and we saw an incredibly beautiful part of our country. We had a great time!
We could also title this one "the longest day" because looking back on the pictures, that's exactly what it felt like. After saying goodbye to all the aunties and cousins and Grammy Q, we piled into the car and took the long road around to the east side of Glacier.
This journey to the east side was the reason that we decided to fly instead of drive- we knew we would have a few long days in the car while we got around the park and we didn't want to sandwich our time in the car between more long days in the car, which was a very good choice but still resulted in a very long day in the car.
Good thing the views were so amazing! We pulled over to take a picture of this beautiful overlook and were all suprised to see a moose trundling right between the cars and down the mountain. It was awesome!
There he goes! Walking around like he owns the place... because he does! We were so excited to finally see some wildlife!
Oh, and we remembered to take a family picture, too!
It was chilly up here! Just 10 miles south of the Canadian border and plenty of snow on the mountains.
Our first hike of the day was St. Mary glacier- and it started out windy, cloudy, and cold!
But, again, the views made it completely worth it. The east side of the park felt entirely different from the west side, and this quickly became my favorite hike of the trip.
We couldn't get enough of the blues!
And the greens!
This hike had three waterfalls- all different, and all incredible!
The first waterfall was wide and low and emptied relatively gently into the pale green river.
The second waterfall, where we ate lunch, was more narrow and splashy and perfectly picturesque.
And we kept going up, following the sound of the water and the promises from the hikers going down that the third waterfall was the best one of all.
And it definitely was!
Rain jackets back on and we braved the cold, splashing water to get as close as we could to the beautiful third waterfall.
It was so wet and windy and cold!
And so worth it.
On the way back down we talked about the value and payoff of waiting for the best things in life and refusing to give up when things get hard.
There were beautiful purple and yellow flowers all along the trail.
Once we got back in the car Noah set to work updating his diary. He was faithful about keeping a diary throughout the trip, and on the last flight home, he left it on the plane. We're hoping it will still make it's way back to us somehow!
Our next hike was in Many Glacier- there's the glacier!
The path was fairly flat here- seemed like the perfect place to run into a bear!
But no such luck.
The path was just long enough that we started asking other hikers if we were really walking toward a waterfall. And we were!
We were far enough north that it didn't get dark until around 10:00 every night. We reached this waterfall around 5:00 and enjoyed the beautiful views and a nice rest before heading back down.
We just couldn't get enough of these views.
7 PM and the sun is still high in the sky.
But it was time to start heading back south to our final resting place (of the trip, that is).
There were no vacancies in national park lodges when we booked the trip in March, but I was super excited to snag a room at the beautiful Glacier Park Lodge. It was built in 1912 and was just incredible inside and out.
The lodge is built around a three-story lobby constructed of Douglas-fir columns
and it felt like we were stepping into the past down every hallway and around every turn.
Emma was brave enough to play the piano in the lobby.
No TVs, no air conditioners, just porches with rockers and tables of old and young people playing card games, snoozing, and enjoying the views. It was awesome! The lodge is located on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and masks were still required here.
A phone booth! What is this magic?
Our room had three double beds, hardwood floors, and a bathroom that reminded the kids "of a jail cell" and made Jason look like Elf in the shower. Times have definitely changed hotel standards.
We spent a little too long wandering around the hotel and ended up waiting for a table in one of the two packed restaurants and then finally eating our dinner somewhere around 9:45. It had been such a long day and we were all. so. tired.
The huckleberry lemonade and ice cream definitely helped keep us happy until we were finally able to crash in our beds after the longest, and possibly the best day of our trip.
