glacier (wednesday)

we arrived at glacier late monday afternoon, and once we got all set up, went to have dinner at johnson,s cafe. being berkley's 8th birthday, we went to ray and joan's camper after dinner to have birthday cake. yesterday we spent the day just the 4 of us. we tried to hike a particular trail that started at logan's pass, but once we got up there it was 40 degrees, raining, and zero visibility. (see pictures below). so we drove on to lake mcdonald. even though the day sounds dreary, you would not believe the pictures we took! my favorite story is on the way back to our campsite to start dinner, there had been an accident on the mountain road, so traffic was stopped still for about 40 minutes. a gang of about 10 (grizzled) men on harleys pulled up right next to us. they are the whole bit... leathers, braided beards, you can imagine. then one of them hops off his bike and lifts up his seat, pulls out a bag of goldfish crackers, looks around to fellow riders and says, "goldfish anybody?" so the whole biker gang is sharing a bag of goldfish. not so tough after all!

the weather here has been super windy and monday night we had 2 wicked storms come through over night. the wind ripped 3 of our 4 stakes out of the ground, so at one point matt and i were holding up the walls of the tent so it wouldnt collaspe on us! the thunder and lightening coming off of the mountains were incredible. and the kids slept through the WHOLE thing!!

still driving... (sunday morning)

we left st. louis at 10 pm (that's right, we left on time!) and drove all night to rapid city, south dakota. it felt so good to actually lay down and sleep last night... the kids were out in about a minute! we spent some time at badlands national park and also at mt. rushmore yesterday, also. besides some interesting conversation topics (we are travelling with a 10 year old boy and an 8 year old (tomorrow!) girl), the drive was mostly uneventful. we met up with matt's parents yesterday evening, and had plans to go to an old firehouse-turned brewery for dinner. it sounded really neat, so we all loaded up and headed out. it was exactly the kind of restaurant you want to find on vacation, the kind you remember for a long time... BUT, the wait was 2 hours, and since 10 of us hadnt eaten since breakfast, and it was 7:00, we decided to move along. to a chinese buffet. it was typical. nothing to report.
today we are headed to devil's tower and custer's last stand, and finally stopping for the night in big timber, montana.

preparing to leave!

we are getting ready to leave for our summer vacation! this year we are going to glacier national park in montana, banff national park in cananda, with a quick stops in yellowstone national park and grand teton national park. we will be gone a little over two weeks and are camping the whole time! we are leaving at 10 pm friday night with both of matt's brothers families and caravaning to rapid city, south dakota where we will meet up with matt's parents and visit mt. rushmore at night. on our way to rapid city we are going to stop at our first national park of this trip - badlands national park. hopefully we will have plenty of chances to update this as we go...

tonight we celebrated berkley's 8th birthday with the french side of the family... here are a few highlights in photos. it wasn't the same with out the christies. they are on vacation, and berk really missed genna and nya!