Glacier - Day 1

We arrived in Glacier at dinner time.  Ben fed us sooo well while in Montana - he grilled, used the dutch oven, made tin foil dinners, and hot breakfasts over the few evenings and mornings we were at our campground.  The first night we were there we unpacked and made ourselves at home in our little one room cabin and Ben made us dinner - hot dogs, corn on the cob, and root beer... yum!  All in the space of a couple of hours.  We had s'mores for dessert and did some snipe hunting (which resulted in lots of screaming/excited kids... which didn't make our next door cabin neighbors very happy).

Our campground was recommended to us by Ben's brother Peter and his wife Lacy.  They had stayed here a few years ago and loved it.  It has mostly tent sites, with some small sleeping cabins as well.  I loved staying in our little cabin as opposed to a tent.  It made all the difference!  Oh, and the hot showers a few steps away were a plus as well.  :)  The campsite is just outside of the entrance to Glacier National Park.  

When we got up that morning, Ben made us an awesome breakfast of pancakes, eggs, and orange juice.  Then we packed up a lunch in our cooler and headed into Glacier Park.

The first part of the park we explored was Lake McDonald... it was beautiful!!!

They had boat rentals, so we had to hop on a boat!

The whole time we were in Glacier, I was just gasping at everything we saw.  It is the most beautiful place I'd ever been!  I'm so glad Peter and Lacy convinced us to take this trip!

Claire was constantly wanting to lean over the boat to try to touch the water...

After we docked our boat, we changed the kids into their swimsuits and they spent some time playing on the lake shore...

Emma was really brave going so far into that very cold water!

She even jumped in off the dock - it ended up being deeper than she anticipated.  :)

As you can tell, Becca wasn't super thrilled that the water was so chilly :)

There's Claire with another rock...

After playing in the water and eating our lunch, we drove a little further up the road and and were rewarded with more beautiful crystal clear water...

Next, we "hiked" the Trail of the Cedars.  I say hiked lightly, because it was a simple boardwalk trail - however we did some offroading to play in the river too.  This trail was AMAZING.  It reminded me a lot of Muir Woods in San Francisco - the trees weren't as huge, but the water was awesome- it was running off the sides of the rocks along the trail and was just beautiful...

Can you tell the kids were in heaven?!  They loved the water, the hiking, and the freedom to run and explore...

Well, here's Claire with yet another rock.  She LOVES rocks.

At the back part of the trail, we could see more of Avalanche Creek- it was stunning!!

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but water is running down the side of this rock wall... I wanted to lick the rocks.  haha...

One of the trees had uprooted- aren't these roots cool?!

Hiking sticks!...

By the time we finished up the Cedar trail, it was time to head back to the campground to make dinner.  While Ben made us delicious tin foil dinners, I watched the kids at the playground nearby...

After dinner, we had banana boats... yummy!!

Here's the only look at the cabin that I got on my camera.  I forgot to take a decent picture of where we stayed...

Becca's smile looks an awful lot like that marshmallow filled banana...