On Vacation

We have been on vacation for eleven days now and still have ten more to go, which seems unbeliveable! We have seen sights that I tried to imprint on my memory so that I can close my eyes and be assaulted with them whenever I want to. But I can hardly *take in* the views, let alone do justice to them as I recall them! I have met so many people from so many places with wonderful stories. (Lonny laughs at me for my stories I always have after going to the campground bathrooms or after riding the buses in Glacier National Park.)

Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks are so different from each other, but both are filled with glorious natural beauty!! Our favorites are the mountains, rivers, waterfalls, the idea of standing on THIN crust that is just bubbling underneath, and countless, absolutly countless, wildflowers in every color growing everywhere in Glacier and on the mountains in Yellowstone.

GNP is much more accessible and not so crowded, although there were plenty of people. We enjoyed some small hikes, but our others were blocked by too much snow still on the ground on the higher trails. Still, from each different vantage point, the mountains look different! The lakes and rivers glow turquoise blue-green from the glacial "flour" in the water that reflects and refracts the sunlight.
Sometimes I didn't know where to look first, and my senses were constantly bombarded with new and fascinating information. I'm still reeling from the beauty.

YNP was very crowded and there were people from all over the world. It was so cool to hear so many different languages. Being an inveterate people-watcher, I loved observing the tourists observing the sights. In Yellowstone, I felt like a tourist and observer myself, but in Glacier, I felt more like an explorer of the place. I liked Glacier better for this reason. But YNP contains some of the most unique things I will ever see, such as the thermal basins, and we saw more wildlife there. For those and the waterfalls and alpine mts., I love Yellowstone, too.

We camped in YNP for three nights and in GNP for four nights. Glacier had no showers for campers, that we know of, so we were glad to be in a hotel last night. I heated water one night and Lonny poured it on my head so I could wash my hair, but it is very difficult to do that, since you aren't supposed to do anything at your campsite that will leave scents to attract the bears. Like no dumping used water on the ground. Camping in bear country is really inconvenient because you have to have all your stuff put away in your vehicle all the time. That meant that we couldn't really set up camp and leave it. We lived in and out of the van the whole time. We set our screen tent up in YNP and that was fine. We could get in out of the mosquitoes in the evening. At Glacier, we were camped in the open on a hill, to better view the mountains. The view was worth every hassle, but the wind blew the screen tent down several times. It was also too windy to cook on the camp stove or have a fire. We ate cold or went into St. Mary for a few meals. We are looking forward to camping in the UP for a few days where we can set up camp and then leave it to find a few hiking trails, and return to sit around the campfire and relax. Of course, you still have to worry about the vicious little raccoons!! We think MI should have raccoon boxes like the bear boxes in bear country.

Well, we are about to hit the road here in northeastern Montana. What a "desolate" country to a midwesterner like me! If I lived here, my soul would die for lack of trees and green. This high prairie is just ongoing flat, treeless, dry, and so sparsely populated!!! We are in Glasgow, MT, one of the largest towns in the whole corner of the state, and it really is a small town. We will be crossing North Dakota today on Highway 2, so I assume we will see more of the same. I am looking forward to Minnesota, and am trying to enjoy the unique beauty of each place. Our country is so vast and so varied. It is mind-boggling and wondrous!!!