The Fitch Clan: July 2014 Vacation

I will go day by day from our vacation, if you're interested, please come along for the ride, if not, that's ok. I am doing this for my family and myself as a journal so we can look back someday and remember...We got out of work Friday, June 27th and went home to finish packing. The last few weeks have been busy with planting the garden, weeding, baling hay, mowing, taking George the cow to the butcher, 80 meat chickens to the butcher, etc. We are packed and on the road after saying goodbyes at 10:30pm... Drove to Roscommon and spent the night at Mom and Bill's in the driveway.

Saturday, June 28th Woke up at 8:30am and made breakfast for everyone, visited for a bit and left at 11:45am. Leaving Escanaba, MI 6:45pm after a Walmart stop. 10:30pm spending the night at a Walmart in Ironwood, MI (mosquitoes were horrible during the night).

Sunday, June 29th, 9am Took a shower, went into Walmart and bought Curt a tote for his clothes so they aren't laying everywhere, had bagels and back on the road at 9am. My OCDness is kicking in, the girls need a shower and I want to vacuum (can you say DOG HAIR), but I'm pushing on, LOL! We are on US2 heading west. Today was a long day! Drove in HIGH WINDS and some rain all day long! Finally stopped at a rest area at 2am west of Glasgow to sleep. It started raining harder and is still raining.

Monday, June 30th. We have 5 hours left to our destination!! Had cereal for breakfast today. I am ready for full hookup tonight!! Erin found a whoopee cushion this morning! She and Lyndsay had fun with that for a while - lots of giggling going on! We've seen lots of ranches with horses, cattle, donkeys, etc. We've been commenting on farming these fields, they have 100's or 1000's of acres! Saw some antelope and fields of mustard. Beautiful yellow flowers! 1:06pm (2 hour time difference now). Rain has cleared, still very windy. Curt has been sitting between us visiting and having fun. We send him to get snacks for Dad:) Missy took his spot on the couch so she can look out the window. 5:00pm we arrived at St. Mary's KOA, Glacier National Park after driving through some mountains!! It is beautiful and is between two big lakes. On the way in we took some beautiful pictures and saw wild horses, both walking down the road in town and in the woods in the mountains! We set up camp, are eating hot dogs for dinner and heading to the going to the sun road to check it out! We are staying 2 nights here. The views are incredible!

The Cut River Bridge in the UP

Minnesota!!

North Dakota!

Fields, farms and barns along the way!

the skies were awesome

North Dakota oil rigging... housing

Mountains!

Ranches with pretty views!

wild horses, walking down the side of the road!

almost to our camp in St. Mary's, MT

more wild horses in the mountains

driving through the mountains

set up camp, eating and taking off to explore!

St. Mary river

the kids are taking in the views... and the cliffs!

going to the sun road

Curt taking pictures, Going to The Sun Rd.

Curt, Isaac, Erin and Lyndsay

Momma and Curt and Isaac

Going to the Sun Rd.

A deer on the trail

Glacier National Park

Here you can see Jeremy and Curt, they hiked way up there, this was a close up shot!

waterfalls, Glacier National Park

St. Mary's Falls, CURT

St. Mary's river/falls Glacier National Park

More falls (Virginia Falls)

Walking the trail back to the road

Lake MacDonald, Glacier

Erin, Lake MacDonald, Glacier

Grizzly Bear on the way out the first night:)

Grizzly Bear on the way out the first night!

Just Beautiful!

Day 2, hiking some trails

Erin and Lyndsay

Jeremy and a view!!

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies!!

hiking and reading bear signs

Curt, Isaac and Lyndsay enjoying the view

Pretty falls

rivers

cool bridge to get over river

Erin and Lyndsay

Love this picture, Jeremy and Isaac in exact same pose!

the guys hiked over there to get closer to the falls

The second Grizzly we saw. Isaac spotted him on the mountain!

Erin loving to climb!

Lake MacDonald, Glacier

this was one of my favorite hikes... took awhile but views were awesome!

Got to the top!

Just Awesome (my husband and the view:)

I could've stayed here awhile!

We were in the middle of God's country!

Isaac, Erin and Lyndsay at St. Mary's Falls. One long hike today!

St. Mary's Falls, Glacier

Isaac had wanted to climb up here earlier in the day and momma said no to him and the girls. We went on a boat tour and they dropped us off at these same falls to explore. He ran ahead of us and hiked up the small mountain to this spot by himself! I was going to chew him out once we all got to the top, but he was sitting there, proud as could be that he made it!

Erin in the trees...again:

Monday night we went for a ride down the Going to the Sun Road. It was only open for 13.5 of the 50 miles but is it ever cool! We saw a black bear on the way in. Beautiful scenery. I felt like we were looking at postcards constantly, it's just amazing! We went for a few hikes, saw a deer on the first trail, just walking past us. On the way out of the park for the night, we saw the first Grizzly walking through a field. That was cool! Curt stood on top of the van getting eaten alive by mosquitoes to get those pictures:) Curt and Jeremy climbed up the side of a mountain quite a ways until they were the size of ants to us. Went to camper all tired out!

Tuesday, July 1st: We had to move to a different site this morning and found out they would come and let Missy out 2X during the day for us so we were able to leave her behind:) That way we could hike some better trails without leaving her in the van or someone staying behind. We were waiting for Curt to get ready this morning and a fox ran past us at our campsite!! Too cool! We went back to Going to the Sun road, packed a lunch and hiked 4 miles to St. Mary's Falls the long way... Isaac was worn out, but he didn't complain, he would just sit down and rest every so often until I reminded him of the bears... Jeremy and Curt had hiked there the day before us so they ran ahead to get the van and pick us up at the other trailhead so we could make our boat tour time we had prepaid for. We ate lunch in the van while waiting for the boat tour to launch. The boat tour gave us some more spectacular views and Isaac spotted the Grizzly on a mountain! The tour guy was so excited! He said they had a bet going as to which boat operator would see the first bear of the season and our boat was it! He kept telling Isaac that was a great spot! After leaving Going to the Sun road, we headed to Many Glacier Road. I had a pretty bad headache at this time, so I kept closing my eyes. On the way in, we saw a momma black bear and two cubs in a field! So, I did get out and take some awesome pictures! At the end of the road there were goats and yaks on the mountain side. The ranger had his spotting scope out and let the kids see. We went back to camp at dusk, ordered pizza and did 3 loads of laundry before crashing. Lyndsay has a splinter and is very upset we couldn't get it out!

July 2nd, Wednesday Closed up camp and headed to Yellowstone. We've had cattle crossing the road in front of us. We arrived at West Yellowstone KOA at 8:30pm and took the kids swimming after eating dinner (chicken on the grill, yummy!).

July 3rd, Thursday: Headed into Yellowstone National Park thru the West Entrance. It is so gorgeous! Just beyond words how beautiful the scenery is! We went right on the lower loop towards Old Faithful. Looked at all of the geysers and hot springs, a few falls. We walked one mile to Fairy Falls only to see another sign that said another 1.8 miles to the falls at the turn. So, the kids and I turned around and Jeremy and Curt ran the 1.8 miles to the Falls to take pictures for us. It was hot and we didn't have water with us:( But, we walked back with an older gentleman that worked there in reservations and gave us some good ideas of places to go and some of his favorite hikes! We saw buffalo and elk along the way. Lyndsay tired of looking at springs and geysers and finally asks "why are we stopping to look at stupid holes in the ground with water?" Isaac got his head shut in the van door by Curt with their excitement of getting out to look at an elk and their horsing around with each other:( He was just a screaming, but ended up ok, we gave him some ice from the cooler to put on it for awhile. At Old Faithful, we watched it erupt, then ate dinner there and afterwards walked to their lookout point up a steep trail. The trail kind of kept going up, so of course, my family had to keep going to the VERY top:) We get up there, the mosquitoes were bad and Lyndsay had to go potty. We were getting pretty good by this point of finding places to pee in the woods, haha. So I found a log for her, she did her stuff while the buggers were biting her:( On the way down, Daddy was commenting and joking about the mosquitoes and she told him she wished she had a rope so she could tie HIM to a tree and let the mosquitoes concentrate on him, LOL! We walked around looking at the other geysers and springs, getting to watch Old Faithful erupt again and then left to head back to camp! Also had a nice visit with our "neighbors" while Missy played with their puppy.

Many Glacier Entrance

Mama Black bear and two cubs!

mama black bear and two cubs:)

So pretty and cool!

Momma bear and her cubs

Mama black bear

She's taking them into the woods and brush

Beautiful views again!

Beware, cattle are roaming:)

Wouldn't you love to live here with the beautiful views?!

Beautiful drive from Glacier to Yellowstone

Unique fencing

Yellowstone!!

Buffalo were the first thing we saw!

Picturesque views, just amazing!

The elk that caused Isaac to get his head slammed in the door:( She did get upset at people getting too close and went across the river.

Dad and the girls, enjoying the view!

These are called lodgepole pines... they have a shallow root system and fall during windstorms by the hundreds.

cool caves

Erin standing too close to the edge for her own picture

another elk

Going to see the geysers and melting pots

Hot springs/melting pots are known to be up to 202 degrees and many have died in them by falling in an accident, trying to rescue a child or animal (dog), etc. Boiling to death is horrendous!

Pretty colors

Spitting out water

the water is erupting and boiling

see the geyser in the background?

hold hands, Lyndsay, we do not want you falling off!

feeling the river to see how warm it is with the hot springs draining into it.

They said it was surprisingly warm, not ice cold!

Isaac

View of the river with steaming hot springs alongside

Fairy falls (the one Curt and Jeremy ran back to)

Biscuit Basin

They were boiling and erupting... really wild!

Be careful!!

Old Faithful

Eating at the café by Old Faithful

Hiking to look out point for Old Faithful

hiking, hiking, hiking...

Never get tired of the views, every way you look, they are different, and there's something new!

Isaac exploring

Don't look down!

Erin up there

The mosquitoes were getting bad... see Curt itching? LOL

Looking down at Old Faithful

Hiking down, this is where she threatened to tie Daddy to a tree for the mosquitoes!

Second eruption

Mud Pots boiling...

It's getting late, we are heading back in

Friday, July 4th. The two hour time change is killing us! Woke up, had to put Motorhome in overflow lot due to campground not giving us our new site number til 11am, so we had to take Missy with us. She was happy, but we can't take her on the trails with us, so we have to leave her in the van with the air running and lock the doors with our second set of keys:( So, we don't feel comfortable leaving her for any length of time. We drove in again through the west gate and headed left at Madison towards the upper loop this time. More geysers and springs, had lunch on the river where there was an elk resting on the other side. Saw Gibbons Falls, Obsidian Cliff, up through Bunson Peak out the North Entrance through Roosevelt Arch. We stopped at the visitor's center there and bought some binoculars and the gentleman at the counter showed us the recent animal sightings and gave us some good places to be sure to go to/through. He also recommended a good campground at the Tetons for later. Came back into Yellowstone and went SE thru/over Mount Everts by Unding Falls, wraith falls, down Blacktail Plateau Drive. We saw 100's maybe 1000's of buffalo, lots and elk and a small black bear. Saw Tower Falls, went out the East Gate halfway before turning back at pebble creek. Stopped at Yellowstone's Grand Canyon which was awesome. Saw mountain goats, some perigran falcon babies in a nest across the canyon, and the views...amazing!. Went thru Lamar Valley then went left (S) thru DunRaven Pass (Scary steep and high elevation 8900 feet with snow and clouds) and headed back to camp at midnight. Stopped at McD's on the way back and watched some fireworks before going to camp.

buffalo

Daddy and Erin

hiking down for a different look

falls

Monster elk across from where we picnicked

what a view while eating lunch!

heading down another trail

a good habitat for moose

Sheepeater cliff

more fall and more views!

Yes, we traveled these roads!

Information about the fires of 1988

Mammoth Springs area

Almost looks like snow!

mammoth springs area

Mammoth Springs area

Look at all of the buffalo!

the view and the dots of buffalo!

A little bit of rain in the future, but ended up being a sprinkle:)

Buffalo and their young

action shot!

Deer

Yellowstone Canyon

Jeremy and Curt went down for a closer look

Beautiful views

Saturday, July 5th. We got up, waited to move the motorhome to new site before we left for the day so we could leave Missy in the camper! We let the kids play and swim while I did laundry and Jeremy made chicken on the grill so we could eat before going into Yellowstone for the day. We left and headed in towards and past Old Faithful where we'd left off on Thursday. Saw more geysers, then went halfway to the South Entrance to Lewis Falls and then turned back and headed up towards Yellowstone Lake which was beautiful (410 feet in some spots). Went up through Hayden Valley over the Fishing Bridge to the upper and lower falls of Yellowstone where we hiked more trails. The one going to the lower falls was steep with switchbacks all the way down! Jeremy and Curt went a little farther on some trails for great pictures and views. Getting dark so we headed back to camp, we are tired people tonight!! Had sandwiches in the car for supper. The kids are doing so good! They are loving the walks and hikes although they and mom keep a close eye on the bear spray holders:)