Thursday, July 7, 2011

Pictures From Yellowstone and Glacier

Some of these pictures are Kurt's... some are mine... here's the token picture from Old Faithful. It really does go off ~every 90 minutes and though it was cool, this was probably my least favorite part because it was very crowded and touristy.

We saw lots of wildlife in the parks. Bison are huge and this looks painful!

And check these guys out.. crossing the river!

How would you like to wear these antlers all the time? I wonder how heavy those are?

Check out the bear crossing the street! I did not actually see this- Kurt and Nalani did though.

We spent several nights camping here in Yellowstone. It was really cold and there was snow right next to our camp sight. Moana was intrigued.

We hung near the fire and made it all better by toasting marshmallows.

Moana had her first s'more.

It was Moana's first time camping. She was a champ about it, though that may have had something to do with the air mattress, the princess sleeping bag, her doggie pillow pet, her stuffed elephant, and her blankies. Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? (My hardcore camping coach is cringing right now. It's okay. We are wimps from Hawaii, remember? ;)

My favorite part of Yellowstone might actually have been this...


The drive from Yellowstone to Glacier was rather long. We stopped every few hours (every time Moana cried "I WANT OUT!") and had a bit of fun family exercise.

East Glacier was just gorgeous. Words just can't describe this.

At sunrise...

Trails here were amazing and I could not resist running.

Everywhere we turned we were warned about the bears.

Like I said before, I never saw one but apparently the threat was real.

Nalani and Kurt saw another black bear along the side of the road in Glacier. They said he was just chillin' out and eating some flowers.

We saw more benign animals. Moana and I checking out a deer right in front of our cabin...

It wasn't as cold here at it was in Yellowstone, but Moana still wanted to hang out right near the heater in our little cabin.

I went jogging along this lake on the last morning we were there... and I had this really strong urge to swim... It had been a full week since I'd swam and I was going into withdrawals and thinking that a swim here would just be totally amazing but let's be honest... This lake made the lake in Coeur d'Alene seem like a hot tub. I wouldn't even stick my little toe in there.

Moana was fascinated by the cold water. She kept asking, "Can I touch it?" Sure you can, sweetie. Go ahead. 

Hiking, in Moana's world. That's how she rolls!

Moving on... we spent the 4th of July at Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho. It was actually quite warm so on the odd occasion we could tear Moana away from riding the horses on the carrousel, we spent a good  amount of time at the water park.


We'll call that a fun family vacation!

5 comments:

Kathy said...

Looks awesome & so much fun.

cherelli said...

Wow, beautiful pictures, Glacier looked stunning! What an awesome vacation/recovery.

Anonymous said...

WOW... looks like an amazing vacation. Glacier Lake pics are jaw-dropping! Looks like I need to go. Altho my version of camping (this worked awesome for Wildflower) is a blow-up mattress, a foamy mattress pad, sheets, pillows... nice. Ha. Tim would be appalled.

Molly said...

You guys are completely adorable! I love Moana's bedtime setup - a girl has to be comfy after all. Glad you got to have some fun after the race!

N.D. said...

I love that you got out of the car and did "family exercise" during the car ride. Ha! And it looks like so much fun, esp the camping trip with air mat.