Glacial Memories

Our oldest grandson, Jacob, just called to see if I could tell him the exact date we took them tent camping on a glacier in Canada.  Seems he needs that so that he can complete the paperwork to join our military! Bravo!

Golly, I can hardly remember what month we're in!!  But, thanks be to technology, I have all of the digital photos on thumb drives right here in my traveling office tote.  What a great excuse to take a few trips back in time!

Turns out, it was June 26, 2007 that we crossed the border north of Glacier International Peace Park in Montana.  Glacier is one of the families most favorite places to vacation.

But our first campsite is always Palo Duro Canyon in the panhandle of Texas.

This is where the very last battle between the Texans and the Commanche took place.  It's also where one of their dads buried gold! The idea was for the kids to come back the next year and find it.  (Intelligently, dad kept the GPS coordinates so that it could be found.)  This is on the rim of the canyon - and more often than not the wind is blowing.  Much nicer in the summertime than camping on the canyon floor!



Our next stop is usually Cheyenne, Wyoming and the next Grand Teton National Park which shares its northern border with Yellowstone National Park.  Then Lewis and Clark campgrounds north of Yellowstone.  Don't know that the Corps of Discovery actually camped on this spot, but we do know they passed this way on the river behind and below this spot.

Ever onward we go, just like Lewis and Clark.






Passing coyote and deer and elk and moose...

Until we reach Glacier.  This is a classic photo that is unmistakably Glacier International Peace Park.

Glacier is our #1 goal; Canada is #2.  But we'll take the time for some photo ops here in Glacier because it is so amazingly beautiful.  We camp, and the next morning start our trip on the Over the Sun road - 53 miles of exceptional beauty full of waterfalls and glaciers and wildlife.  On my very first visit to Glacier I had to follow a grizzly bear walking down the middle of the road through a tunnel.  But the wildest of all wildlife was . . . our grandkids!

This was seven years ago.  My how much they have grown since then - but they are all still great friends. We've added even more grandchildren since then.  Granpa and I need to get busy and take those NEW grandkids camping!

Here they are with their most favorite traveling companion, Aunt Kristin!!!

(Granpa is only there to drive, and I'm only there to write the checks.)

Can you see the three boys on the slab of rock to the left?  

I think they would have spent the night there if we would have let them!

This next photo tells me we are into Canada now.

I told our granddaughter that the city council paid these Big Horns to stay by the side of the road and greet visitors.  She believed me.  (But I would be willing to bet that the city didn't run those sheep off for sure!  Too good of a tourist attraction!)

Now we make a right hand turn through the cut in the rock here and then a left to drive Ice Fields Parkway to our next campsite on the glacier!

Ice Fields Parkway is like driving on the top of the Canadian Rockies.  If we Americans think the Colorado Rockies are something, more of us should visit the Canadian Rockies!

And here is our glacier!

Notice that Granpa is in a windbreaker and shorts!  I've always said he should have been born in Alaska instead of Texas!  But he did admit to being a wee bit cold when he got back to the tent.

I believe it was this trip that our (at the time) youngest grandsons talked me into buying him his first pocket knife.  I cautioned him before buying it, after buying it and as he was walking out the door to show his cousin and brother, "BE CAREFUL!!"  I finished paying for the knife, and by the time I got to the car - he had already cut himself to the bone!  But, Aunt Kristin was already in the first aid kit and staunching the flow of blood.  We mashed the edges of flesh together, sprayed hydrogen peroxide on it, slathered antibiotic ointment over it, wrapped it tightly in gauze, taped him up and we were back on the road.

And I am certain this is the trip where the older boys bought flints and were bound and determined to start the campfire on the glacier using their flints.  Three hours later, Granpa got out the matches and dinner was on!

I wish the grandkids would write down the memories of this trip - and all of our trips together because there have been many.  I also pray that we will have more trips with them and even our great-grandkids!!  But, by then, these grandkids will have to be doing the driving and paying the way!  It'll be Granpa's and my turn to be along for the ride.