St. Mary Montana and Glacier National Park!

So sorry that we haven’t been blogging the past few days! Our Internet was extremely slow at our campground in St. Mary, MT.

To catch you all up on our last two days in Emigrant Montana, we not only went on the best rafting trip possible, but we also did some big time shopping in downtown Bozeman!! Ford Smith, Vernon's son, is a rafting guide at Pigs Fly, and talked Christian into joining me on a rafting trip down the Yellowstone Rive. I had my first big rafting trip with my Aunt Jackie in Wyoming and fell in love, but Anne-Christian was quite scared b/c it was so unknown and new for her. Ford assured her though that 1. There would be no waterfalls and 2. That the oil spill was down river. Although no-one fell out it was still very exciting b/c we had people from all over the world on our boat, and the views were just breathtaking. AC and I were on the right side in the middle of the boat.

Heading out from Emigrant we drove just north a few hours to a campground a few miles away from the St. Mary entrance to Glacier National park. The first night we stayed our RV was ROCKED all night due to the 65 mph winds! We were so shaken in our RV that we had to put the extension to the RV back in, making our pull out bed go in as well; Austin had to sleep on the chair and I on the couch. Mom the next morning said that she was woken up and scared like us but instead of getting up to join us she decided that if she had to die she’d go in her sleep, so she went back to bed! The 2^nd night my dad was sweet and let my Mom sister and I share the master bed! Haha thanks again Dad!

 Glacier National Park has SO MUCH snow that there is globs of frozen white still layering not only the mountains but the roads as well, causing the park to be closed on many roads including the route from the East entrance to the West, making our visit to Glacier shorter than expected with a lot less to see.  

We managed to find a beautiful and easy trail to hike on our day to explore Glacier called St. Mary falls trail. As we hiked down, the first family we passed informed us there had been a bear spotting on the trail and to make plenty of noise and even sing to inform the bear of our presence and hopefully scare it away! Of course when we’re told to make noise and to sing my family does it! My mom and sister burst out in "Home on the Range" to be joined by my Dad and myself a little later into the song. We got tired of that song so Shania Twain was our next tune of choice. My Mom of course kept singing after we all had stopped; we all were scared the bear might come after us just to shut her up…Haha!

About a half mile down the trail there was the beautiful waterfall, St. Mary Falls, which creates St. Mary Lake, an extremely gorgeous lake that has the coolest color water, a deep aqua and blue-teal combination. My family concluded that the color had to be from the melting glacier. We took pictures and headed back up the trail to the van and spotted a doe in the woods!

After, we got lunch at a very interesting hotel! It was a German themed hotel and restaurant and it reminded Austin and I of a ski lodge since it was cold enough this day to be one! 

We headed on our way this time to explore the Park from a different entrance, with no luck seeing any more animals. But just as we were becoming tired and discouraged my Dad pulled over (for the 8^th time) to search the mountain-side for any animals with his binoculars. “OH THERE! THERE’S A GRIZZLY BEAR!” Hesitant at first to take him seriously I grabbed the other pair of binoculars and gasped as I saw a gargantuan honey colored grizzly bear standing up on all hind fours! After passing Mom the binoculars she pointed out that the bear had 2 cubs with her! It was a great way to end the journey Greg had taken us on…ALL DAY. 

We are now in Canada! Such a beautiful country, eh ya’ll? 

Later until tomorrow!

 ACJ/TLC/AJJ