View from the Road: Mega Trip Part Four

Will this be the final installment in the View from the Road series?  We can only hope so.  Let's see how far we make it!

I left you with our ninth day arrival at Glacier National Park!  This was the crown jewel of our National Parks destinations.  Troy had never been and I had never heard of it.  Sounds like the makings of a wonderful time.

Stone skippers

Beautiful mountains

Snow melt and waterfall

Kind of scary taking this picture because we had just seen a Grizzly bear by the side of the road

Looking for mountain goats

They insisted that the water was the perfect temperature for bathing suits.  They got out feeling like ice cubes...

But they loved it!

Now here's the part of the series where I give you advice should you ever dare to take a multiple National Parks trip.  #1) Google the weather for each park before you leave your house.  Had we known that the nights were going to be in the 40's/30's, we would brought sleeping bags.  (Luckily we were able to borrow his parents'.)  And if we had known the days were going to be so chilly in the mountains, we would have packed more than one long sleeve shirt and one pair of pants...  #2) If you plan on camping inside of a park, make a reservation.  Make a reservation a month in advance.  If they don't take reservations, get yourself a camping spot as soon as you can, preferably when the park opens.  Otherwise you may find it getting dark and then find out there are no more available camping spots in the whole park.  Then you will find yourself asking a local Indian fellow if you can camp on his property.  #3) And finally, find out what the park is like before you decide to drive across the country to see it.  You may find that you get there and almost all the park is for hiking, which your little fellow travelers can only do limited amounts of.

There are probably more things that I could advise you to do, or not do.  So if you ever find yourself wanting to take a similar kind of trip, feel free to ask me what I think.  

On day ten we did another tour of Glacier and headed back down the lovely state of Montana.  We spent the night in a lovely "log cabin" since it started raining.  We woke up on day eleven and made our way back into Idaho, headed for Twin Falls.  Along the way we made a couple of stops.  The first was at Craters of the Moon National Monument.

Walking up a cinder cone

Our second stop was at a natural hot spring in Carey, ID.

It was like hot bath water, but the kids had fun.  The cool wind blowing on you when you got out sure helped to cool you down.  It was a good time.

We spent the following five nights in Twin Falls.  We spent time with family.  We ate good food.  We saw a double feature at the drive in movie.  We went to Boise.  We saw a play.  We played tag.  And we only got these photos to prove it happened...

Orry lost his second tooth!  

Went shopping with Chessidy

Ate great food with this handsome man

Played at Aunt Nicole and Uncle Trent's house

Big helper

Drive thru movie buddies

It's sad, really.  But what can I say.  When you are having a blast, you sometimes forget to take a picture!

On the 16th day we left Idaho and began our journey home.  I will leave it here for now and make you endure one more post about this trip.  We ended up hitting one more National Park and I dare say it was the best.  We also saw more friends and family.  Tune in again for the conclusion!  And lot of thanks for journeying with us so far!