On Monday, August 12, we began day 2 of our family vacation. We woke up at the nice hotel in Great Falls, Montana and ate their continental breakfast. Then we drove to see Grandma and Grandpa Parsons one last time at their home before saying goodbye. Grandpa was out doing errands that morning, so we just visited with Grandma and gave her our goodbye hugs.
Our next part of the trip was not pleasant; every family vacation has some rough time, right? After we drove away from Grandma's house, we decided we'd go buy an additional speaker for the car DVD player, because the kids were having a hard time hearing the movies I'd brought along, and we only have 2 earphones--not 4. Josh wanted to go a store that had electronics, but he took the wrong exit off the freeway. It led us to downtown, and we drove for a couple miles, driving through construction, and there were no stores of any type on that road. So, we turned around and went back to the freeway to take the first exit that we passed. Then we drove to Office Max, but there was construction in the parking lot, so we had to park a fair distance from the store and Josh walked in. He purchased a speaker, and returned to the car. Then we discovered it was the wrong type. So he went back inside and exchanged the speaker for the right kind. When he brought that one to the car, we realized it had to be charged before it would ever work. We wasted about an hour driving around and obtaining the speaker! This really stressed me out because my plan was to spend the night camping at Glacier National Park, which is a first come/first serve basis, but the campgrounds had been filling up by 11:00 each day. By the time we left Great Falls, it was after 10am, and I knew that we'd probably be out of luck when we arrived at the Park, which was over 2 hours away.
And I was right. When we arrived at Glacier, the campgrounds were completely full. We stopped at the Visitor's Center, and looked over lists of nearby campgrounds while we ate lunch of nachos (that I brought from home), and made a decision for where we would stay that night. We ended up staying at a small campground a few miles from the east side of the park instead. We did a first for a family: spent the night in tents all together because this was the most cost-conservative way for us to go to Glacier again. We drove to the campground, and set up our tents. We weren't sure if we'd be returning before it was dark, and we didn't want to have to put everything together without light! We put up the tents and got everyone's sleeping bags, blow-up mattresses, and pillows all situated inside the two tents: one for Josh, me, and Kanyon, and the other for the 3 older boys.
Then we headed to the Many Glacier entrance of the park--a part that we didn't go to last year when we went to Glacier. We went on a hike to the Red Rock Falls, which was 4 miles roundtrip. It was a very family-friendly trail, but it was very hot that day!
At the very beginning of the trail, there was this awesome funky-shaped tree!
It was our first big walk in the National Park on our family vacation, and we were so proud of Kanyon for keeping up with us! He only had to ride on Josh's shoulders once on the way back to the car!
The air was hazy during this walk, so it's hard to see the distance on film that we could see with our eyes from this open viewpoint along the trail.
I loved this little section of the walk with all the plant and tree growth. It was so beautiful and serene!
After a mile and a half, we reached the Red Rock Lake. The water was clear, and the coloring of the glacier rocks was so appealing! I love how you can see the red, brown, green, then blue coloring of the lake. So gorgeous!
The boys skipped rocks for a while at the lake--Ammon did pretty good, but Josh got the best rock skipping score! Kanyon posed on this rock and asked for a photo, and I was glad to oblige--it was nice to have a boy who requested photos, because there was another boy who made a scowly face every time I said I wanted to take a picture. Can you figure out which one it was from the photo above?!
When it began to get crowded with other people around the lake, we continued our hike to the Red Rock Falls. The boys ran ahead of us, and Josh and I were walking together. Two men who were walking the opposite direction said "Are those your 4 boys ahead?", and we told them that they were ours! Then one of the men said "Because we passed 2 grizzly bears not too long ago, so it would be a good idea to stick close to your children". We knew that there had been some recent grizzly activity in the park, and they'd had to close a campground completely down because of it. But we were a little nervous that they were reported so close to where we were. Josh and I were very anxious after that until we reached the falls, less than a 1/2 mile later. Thankfully, the boys had arrived safely there, and we didn't see the grizzlies!
The Red Rock Falls were fantastic, and the hike was definitely worth it! This was my favorite waterfall that we saw at the park this year--because the red rocks surrounding it are all accessible and you can climb all around it. I loved seeing the view of the falls, lake, and mountains from different points on the rocks. I loved watching my boys climb, and I really felt like we were a part of nature!
We climbed on the rocks for about a half hour, then we began the 2-mile return trek on the trail to the parking lot. Since it was so hot, we were happy to have cold drinks waiting in the cooler of the car! We ate dinner (sandwiches that I'd made earlier that day) as we drove to our next destination in the park. We went to the St. Mary Entrance, and drove to the trailhead of the St. Mary Falls. We walked almost a mile from the road to reach the waterfall. Once again, the boys ran ahead of Josh and I, and when we were approaching the falls, we could see little signs next to the trail that said things like "Don't walk through the trees! Stay on the Path!"--and when we got to the waterfall, we could see our boys across the water from us because they didn't see the signs and went exactly where they shouldn't.
If they had slipped and fallen into the water, there's no way we could've reached them in time. We were across the bridge and above the falls on some larger rocks, and there was a whirlpool right below where they were standing.
So we yelled at them to come right back to the trail and across the bridge to where we were so they could be safe. They all followed directions, but Ammon wasn't happy about being told what to do...as evident again by his facial expressions here:
About a half mile down the trail after the St. Mary Falls are the Virginia Falls. They are series of steep, narrow waterfalls. We stopped at the lowest one on the trail for a few minutes to catch up with the boys.
Then we continued upward to the next several falls. We stopped at the last one where the trail veers away from the water, and Josh and the boys climbed over rocks while I dipped my feet in the crystal-clear, relaxing, cold water.
After they were done exploring the area, then the boys returned to where I was at, and some of them joined me in dipping their feet, too!
We began our trek back to the car, walking along the trail. The boys ran ahead of us (again!!), and Josh and I enjoyed the peaceful surroundings. It wasn't as busy on this trail as the Red Rock trail had been earlier in the day, and we felt like we were walking through a secluded rainforest. There were lots of wild raspberry bushes, and we both picked a couple along the way there were ripe enough to eat!
As we were approaching the final stretch of the return hike, the sun was beginning to set and it was just perfect coloring! The beauty of the surroundings were enhanced by the shades of color from the sky!
Unfortunately, when we got back to the car along the road, the boys were not there. We began to panic--they had been ahead of us, and we'd never passed them. We were worried that they were hiding somewhere, or that perhaps they'd been kidnapped alongside the road, or that a Grizzly Bear had taken them, or that they'd drowned--all fears of things that could potentially happen. But the most likely explanation was that they took a wrong turn on the trail--there were a few different trailheads that began on the trail we'd taken to see the two waterfalls. It was getting late, and there was no cell service in the park where we were at, and we didn't know what to do. Josh decided to backtrack on the trail, and I would drive down to where one of the other trails ended. As I was getting into the car, I yelled out (with my super loud voice): "TOLMAN BOYS!!! WHERE ARE YOU?!!", and several hundred feet away, I could hear "Down here!". They had taken the wrong trail, like we figured, but we couldn't see them due to the dense plants. They said they were going backwards on the trail until it met up with the original trail. Josh and I waited at the car for 15 minutes before they finally arrived. They had walked an additional mile!!!
We explained to them how dangerous this whole situation was for them, and they couldn't grasp the implications of why--since they had all stayed together and nothing dangerous happened in our absence. It was so frustrating for Josh and I. So we drove down the road to our final destination of the day, and made them wait in the car for us, since we couldn't trust them any longer to stay by us or make clear decisions regarding their own safety. Josh and I only had to walk a couple hundred feet from where we parked to see the Sunrift Gorge.
Then we decided to walk to one more waterfall--the Baring Waterfalls. We enjoyed our peaceful, quiet 1/2 mile walk together. This waterfall wasn't as big or bold or blue or red as the other ones we'd seen that day, but the walk and the bridge crossing to see them felt adventurous! And I enjoyed the alone time with my husband!
Josh and I were gone from the kids in the car for about half hour. Due to some construction again this summer on the Going-to-the-Sun road, it is closed each night at 9:00. So after we returned to the car, we drove back to the St. Mary Entrance, got some refreshments and souvenirs, and returned to our camping spot for the night.
It was a super long night--the owners of the campground had dogs that barked all night, and several rain & thunderstorms passed overhead throughout the night. We all slept terribly! It was a first for us (staying all in tents), but it's definitely something we won't be doing again in the near future!
Day 2 of our vacation had some frustrating times, but I was so glad to be at Glacier Park again. It's hard to feel stressed or angry for too long when you're surrounded by so many of God's gorgeous creations!
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