Beautiful fall weather…..who can resist? I insisted on a picnic on a mountain top. Man, we live in a beautiful place! These photo’s were a bit of an experiment to see what I could do with super strong back light and some lens flare.
I came prepared with bubbles. They didn’t need much encouragement.
Then the sun went down and the light changed dramatically! And so did the kids behaviour. They went CRAZY chasing the bubbles.
Our old, new-to-us trailer/caravan has been so awesome for our family this year. We get to enjoy yet another adventure this weekend with our friends before the chill of winter sets in. The Riverside campground is one of the best we think. Great facilities, kids playground, a SWIMMING POOL (which we made the most of), in a beautiful forested setting beside a river!
I feel like we are an oddity at times. 5 kids. Who even does that?! And they play the old fashioned way. Not many do that, it seems. That they could have fun running together, and ride bikes without helmets? I love it. It is satisfying and makes me feel like all is well in the world when they play like kids should play…..
We set out to go explore the Road to the Sun. This is a stunningly beautiful corner of the world, and extremely popular. We choose to come here this week because most American schools are back in session, and we were hoping for a quieter experience.
The road itself is a major engineering feat, that took 25 years to build. The ruggedness of the mountains is awe inspiring, even shrouded in smoke. We stopped at a bunch of the scenic pullouts. Waterfall #1.
Waterfall #2. Kent and the kids climbed over the barrier to explore a little more. River guide Dad, was explaining some hydrology to them!This big overhanging rock, beside the waterfall, hid them from view.It was kinda embarrasing hearing fellow tourists exclaim and wonder ‘how they got down there’. I just pretended I didn’t know them!
And as we climbed higher, we got more of a sense of the grandness, and how crazy and pig headed we people can be about getting a job done. In this case, making a road up here! Shame about the visibility!As we neared the top, the smoke thinned out a little and we could see the mountains more clearly.Wildlife sightings are always a highlight for us.
And then we got to Logan Pass. Oh boy. I like the outdoors. A lot. But sharing it with strangers? Not so much. The parking lot was full, and it was a mass of humanity. It was my turn to be pig headed and I didn’t want to give up the idea of going for a hike. So we joined the 4000 other people. I avoided taking pictures with toooo many people in them. Often, on these kinds of trails, people will walk a few hundred metres to a lookout or bench, and then go back. Here people seemed a lot more dedicated to go the distance.The platform at the summit was chocka with people. Are you getting the impression that crowds aren’t my favorite?! We walked a little ways away to this rock, and had it to ourselves for at least a few minutes. The kids were amuzed by any overgrown chipmunk. Obviously he was very used to being fed by these crowds.
We stopped at a few more pull outs on the way back to camp, including finding a place to swim.
Lovely scenery. But moral of the story, at least for me……find beautiful places in this world that the rest of the world doesn’t know about, or go in the off/shoulder season. And ya know, in general that is what we do!!!!
It’s a while since we have been on our own as a family, and it actually feels kinda nice for this just to be about ‘us’. We didn’t really do anything major. Riding bikes and going to the evening ranger presentations, and general play filling our time. Oh, and eating. Always eating.We wandered down to Lake MacDonald. No togs. We weren’t necessarily planning to swim. But with this guy in the mix, water always = swimming!And everyone else follows suit.Even me, trying to be brave with the cold water.I was clearly taking too long, and the kids decided it was time!Down I go. They thought it was the funniest thing, and probably, really, the only way I was going in!And then there was the stick whittling. They spent hours. I love that these kids are so pleased with the simple pleasures in life 🙂
After a couple of nights at Talley Lake, we moved onto Glacier National Park. And were socked in by smoke. It ‘felt’ strange. The light was very orange, so it gave it an eerie feel, and there was no visibility. We were surrounded by stunning mountains (or so the glossy mags showed!) but we could see none of them. We were orange people, that looked like we had totally overdone it on the fake tan!!
So these little orange people of ours, jumped right on board when the park ranger told them about the Jnr ranger program. They got the booklets, and I have to admit, that I did an internal eye-ball roll. We had done the program when me and the kids went with my Mum and Dad to Yellowstone a couple of years ago, and though it is a really great program, it felt like hard work for ME then, and I wasn’t real keen for a repeat of that.
But they were 100% self motivated…..
They even took the booklets down to the creek so they could work on them around their exploring!They got the work done at lightning speed, and so needed to go take the oath and get their badges to make it all ‘official’This is serious business! Repeat after me!Check. Done that 🙂
From Koocanusa, we headed down into Montana, and to Talley Lake. I was inspired to check it out by careful studying of a map, and then looking on-line. Much of my inspiration comes originally from a map. A real paper map. Yep, I’m old school that way.
We wondered out loud as we drove in, what we would do if the forest fires came our way. It was SO smokey already. We felt like we drove a long way into the bush. The visibility was poor, and you could smell smoke in the air. Though there were some local fires in Montana, most of it was from way over in Washington State, where some big fires were burning out of control.
Not to be detered though, we found a spot in the campground, got set up, and headed down to the lake.
Hey big bro, let me hug you!!Right away, we felt like we were in the States. American’s are not Canadian’s!! These yanks are a different breed for sure, and the camp hosts were redneck Montan-in’s to the bone! We are only like an hour from the border, yet they hardly knew where Canada was. Their awesome drawl is just the icing on the cake.
We were biking down the road (above) to another part of the campground that was a couple of km’s away from where we were staying, and the hosts came along on their side-by-side. They thought we were crazy for biking, and thought I was mental for having Chelise in the backpack on my back. So funny!! We had a good chuckle when they drove away, especially because they couldn’t understand me in the slightest with my accent.
Neika hinted at going for a late evening swim, and I totally encouraged her because the light was so pretty for photography 🙂
A bit of a thunderstorm rumbled around, and the tiniest bit of rain, and somehow, amazingly, it totally cleared the smoke, and we woke up to the most amazing weather. It was the perfect temperature. I’d say about 25 degrees at a guess, and so sunny and gorgeous. We had a bit of bike maintenance (and dental work) to do, and we just really enjoyed taking it easy for the morning.
I enjoyed playing with my camera and the harsh/hard light.
After some lazing in the sun (we hardly ever do that!) we went for a bike ride to find the cliffs that our friendly camp hosts had told us about. Never been there themselves of course!! The smoke had started to come back again, but it was just a gorgeous spot and the kids really loved jumping.
And then some gorgeous evening light, and some cute kids to finish a really lovely day 🙂
Somehow, my baby girl got to be two today. I feel like it marks the moving on from baby to a much more grown-up stage in our family life. It’s bitter sweet.
My favourite way to celebrate birthdays is with our favourite family friends. We were joining our friends to camp at Lake Koocanusa anyway, so we turned it into a party.This little lady is named after the Chehalis River, with the connotation and meaning of spirited, energetic and sparkling. She certainly lives up to her name. She knows her mind and she speaks and acts it. Her common words are no, why and go (said with her pointed finger indicating which way). She loves to play favourites, and though she switches loyalties frequently, she loves and laughs with all her heart, with whoever is the person of the moment. She loves snuggles, trying to keep up with her big siblings and going for bike rides. She is very expressive – I love her facial expressions. She has a soft spot for babies and loves to be a little mama bear to them.
Oh Chelise-y girl we love you so 🙂 Happy Birthday!
We keep talking about taking the kids fishing. We even bought a license last year, but never found the time to get out. Kent put in the effort before we went to Murtle this year to gather some resources to try and make it happen. We set out one day, on a day trip, and as we paddled we trolled (trawled? I’m not fisherman!). and we actually caught quite a few fish. Teeny ones, but fish none-the-less. There was no size limit which was perfect.We pulled into an island for lunch, cleaned them, and cooked them up!We didn’t head back to camp until late in the evening. Happy me because the light is beautiful for pictures 🙂We caught a couple of little ones close to ‘our’ beach!The dads and kids went out for a bunch more short trips, but didn’t catch any those times. I’m glad that this year, we actually FISHED!!
We spent 5 days at Murtle Lake Last year. It is North America’s largest non-motorized lake, and requires a little bit of commitment (and some know-how) which helps keep away the crowds, giving an awesome wilderness experience. A perfect adventure for families. This year we wanted to go for a week!
The fun begins with a 2 1/2 km portage…..
Which was pretty easy, with these ‘veteran’ kids. We happened to be heading out on the most busy weekend of the year, so we were a bit anxious about finding a campsite (first come, first serve) that would accommodate the 12 of us. We met a bunch of people just after we started canoeing that were all coming from a site that we had been thinking of base camping at, so we just made a beeline there. For middle-of-the-day paddling, the lake conditions were glassy calm. Amazing!We had left early to get a head start on the crowds, which completely paid off. We got thee most PRIMO site, just as a couple were paddling away from it!A creek flowed out on one side, and a huge sandy beach rolled out in front of us. The kids could choose to swim where ever.A little stand-up canoeingA view of part of our campsiteWe did little excursions away from our camp on some days….Dinner with cousins!This bay stayed shallow for a couple hundred metres. When it was time to head home from our day outing, they wanted to run ahead of the canoe in the water, and have us pick them up when it got too deep.She looved having her hair brushed. She turned into a super quiet, mellow, mooshy heap!!One day we went for a walk further down the beach from our campsite.There was a fire ban which was such a bummer, but we still had smores cooked over our MSR.We decided to leave our camp a day early because the weather was changing. It was beautiful and sunny when we left, and we had lunch in the sun, and then a thunderstorm rolled and the lake chopped up. Thankfully Chelise fell asleep, because we needed to focus on paddling to get off the lake before the storm hit.And after all that blustery weather, and after setting up a new camp close to the launch area, we all needed a hot chocolate.And some blueberriesWe also went for a little exploratory paddle on a little creek.And after 7 days it was time to take down camp, paddle the short distance to the launch and portage back to our vehicles!!
