Glacier National Park

After spending the night at Cedar Breaks NM, we headed north and spent a couple days visiting with friends we hadn't seen in several years before continuing our way further north. This was our first visit to Glacier National Park, and we timed it to coincide with the Glacier Half Marathon.

St Mary Lake in Glacier NP

We arrived at St Mary campground and spent two nights there before switching to the race campground, which we stayed at for three nights. Neither campground had water, sewer, or electric hookups, but St Mary campground did have a sanitary dump, so we were able to dump the tanks and fill the fresh water tank in between campgrounds.

going for a walk in the St Mary campground

Sunshine and River completed their Junior Ranger packets and received their pins. This was River’s first one, but definitely not Sunshine’s first. There was a non-reader packet for River, which was a lot easier than the packet Sunshine completed. He wasn't super interested in finishing the packet though, so we'll wait awhile before we have him do another one. He is only three, after all.

While we were at the visitor's center we bought a larger Jr Ranger vest for Sunshine, and I moved all her pins and patches to it so River could use the smaller vest, which Sunshine had been wearing since she was five.

Glacier NP is quite large and spread out and while Going-to-the-Sun road does intersect it, is was closed 12 or so miles in because of snow still blocking the road (we were there the third week of June). We naturally explored the St Mary area since that was closest to where we were staying, but we had to take the long way (skirting the southern boundary of the park) to get to Apgar. That was a long, twisty drive that made all of us nauseous. The Two Medicine area was closer to where we were staying and much easier to get to, so we did a bit of exploring there as well.

In the interest of narrowing down our choices and keeping the kiddos upbeat about all the hiking, we mostly chose hikes that took us to waterfalls and weren't super long. I've got some posts about those hikes in the works, so keep your eyes open for them.

Even with spending several days in the area, we didn't come close to seeing all that the park had to offer. We decided that when we come back to Glacier, we’ll stay on the east side for 3-4 days and explore everything on that side, then move to a campground on the west side and explore everything on that side. It’ll be a much more efficient use of time and will allow us to see more of the park.

The day before we left the area I ran the Glacier half marathon, which was run just outside the park. You can read about the race here. Running the half marathon was a great way to celebrate my 40th birthday and the completion of my 40 by 40 goal, and the location was the cherry on top. It was so beautiful!

On our to do list when we return: find more waterfalls, drive Going-to-the-Sun road, ride some of the bike trails, hike to some of the glaciers and lakes, take a boat tour of at least one of the lakes, do some kayaking or canoeing, and do some stargazing. What else should I add to the list?

Weekly Mileage

Despite my efforts to get back to my exercise schedule, it didn't happen last week. And if I'd really thought about it, I'd have known that was going to be the case. Sunshine had her Irish music day camp all week and driving into town every morning seriously interfered with my schedule. It could have been worse though, since I didn't have to pick her up- Mr M was on afternoon pickup duty again, which allowed the boys to take naps and me to get some work done.

we spent some time searching out the frogs in the frog pond and listening to them

Because there's always work to be done. I listed a bunch of stuff on eBay and craigslist, which always takes longer than I think it should. I finally painted the backing and shelves for Sunshine's shelving system and attached the backing. I need to switch out the doors still, but the shelves are almost ready to load up again with all her stuff.

traveling in style

It's nice to be getting rid of stuff we no longer need and making some money off those items is a bonus. I suspect we'll be looking over everything again in a few months. Living in an RV for 5 weeks and having plans to travel full time in a couple years has made it a lot easier to declutter and move a little closer to minimalism. Not that we'll ever truly be minimalists, but we are becoming much more intentional about what comes into the house and why.

Ocean, on the other hand, has added collecting leaves to his penchant for collecting sticks

I never had time to get on the treadmill, but the boys and I did go for a hike one morning after dropping Sunshine off at camp. It's a trail we've hiked before, and I ran a race on it this past spring, but a couple parts were damaged this spring by falling trees so stretches of the trail were closed in recent months.

all fixed!

The trail was open all the way to the top, so River and I hiked all the way up while Ocean rode in the stroller. River did a great job, but was pooped out by the time we reached the top, so he hopped in the stroller for a ride while I ran most of the way down. That was the first time I've run since the mud run, and it felt good. Of course, it was down hill, which I always find easier :)

The sad part is that my plantar fasciitis was aggravated by the hill and is still being problematic. I'd hoped it was healed, but apparently not.

The boys had fun climbing in and on the massive chunk of tulip poplar trunk that sits at the base of the trail. The outside is looking a little worse for wear than I remember it looking, but here's hoping it won't decay too much more.

Weekly Mileage 
Thursday: 4.29 miles walked and run on trail with boys
   total mileage: 4.29 miles

375.03 miles towards #365milechallenge
30 hikes towards #52hikechallenge

the inside of the tree trunk has the coolest ridges from the its rings

Sunday Funny

The hazard of working online: the kids see me on the computer a lot, and try to emulate that behavior.

They think it's hilarious to bang on my laptop keyboard. In this instance, Ocean started in and River joined in. Luckily they didn't do any serious damage or delete anything, but clearly I need to keep a closer eye on it and keep it out of their reach.

Adoption Update

driving somewhere between Yellowstone NP and Grand Teton NP

the road to our destination is rarely as straight as this: there's always twists and turns and ups and downs and changing scenery to distract us along the way

It’s been awhile since I talked about our adoption plans.

We were waiting until May, when Mr M’s work schedule calmed down a lot, to start our paperwork, but ended up not having the time to do so before we left on our road trip.

Now we’re home and getting caught up on things like emails, and one email caught my attention. It was a newsletter from an adoption agency and it mentioned some kiddos that had been matched with families this week. It also mentioned some info on China’s recent changes to their adoption policy. Since we’re super early in the process and not in a position to be grandfathered into anything, I thought I’d better find out what those changes were. They went into effect while we were gone and I’d missed them completely.

I followed the link and found some less-than-welcome news.

A number of changes were made, but there’s one that impacts us: the youngest child in the adoptive family has to be at least three years old before the dossier can be submitted.

Our cute little Ocean just barely turned two, so we’re a year from turning in our paperwork.

However, there’s a lot of work to be done before we can submit our paperwork, so we don’t actually have to wait until next summer to get started. I confirmed this with our adoption agency, and they recommended starting the process seven months before Ocean’s birthday.

So the current timeline will look something like this (we can’t really pinpoint anything because there’s way too much we don’t have control over):

Jan 2018: start filling out paperwork, do home study, get everything ready to go

July 2018: submit completed dossier to China

Sometime in 2019 (hopefully the first half of the year): travel to China and bring home our little girl

A number of changes were made to their adoption policy, but there were three that stood out to me: the minimum age that I mentioned earlier, a cap of 5 children already living in the house, and you can only adopt one child at a time, unless they are siblings.

I’m not sure of the reasoning behind the last one, unless it’s to limit adoptions. They’ve also made it so you can’t reuse paperwork from a previous adoption and you have to wait a year in between submitting applications. Though I guess adopting just one at a time, and not too close together, would make it easier to provide the attention and care the child will need.

I feel like that’s the case with the minimum age and the maximum number of kids rules: to make sure adoptive parents aren’t overwhelmed and have the time and energy to properly care for the adopted child, as well as any other children in the family.

On the one hand, it’s a bit frustrating since I’m an impatient person and I wanted to be able to move forward with things. On the other hand, it gives us a bit more time to get in a better position to pay for an expensive adoption and to get my businesses to the point that they don't need quite so much hands-on attention from me.

Having the timeline taken out of our hands also removes any stress we might have about when we’re moving forward. And it also allows us to make some plans for next year or so. We were hesitant to make any plans because we thought we’d be making a trip to China sometime in the coming spring-summer-fall. With that off the table for now, we can move ahead with other plans for the summer.

So that's where we're at for now. Once we start the paperwork and home study I'll probably talk a bit about them, but that's a number of months in the future. Lots of other things to do in the meantime!

Cedar Breaks National Monument

When I planned out our itinerary for our road trip, I knew that we’d be leaving Hurricane (where we stayed for our family reunion) around noon. We didn’t want to drive all the way to Provo that day, so I looked for a state or national park we could stop at along the way.

I found Cedar Breaks NP, which is just over an hour from Hurricane. I’d originally planned on having time to explore the park, but since we stopped and hiked to Kanarra Falls before driving to Cedar Breaks, we didn’t have time to explore.

This is a shame, as we discovered a gem, and we will definitely be returning to Cedar Breaks.

When I made the campground reservation, I saw a mention of 10,000 foot elevation, but I had a lot going on right then, and didn’t think too much of it. I should have, so we could have been better prepared.

We weren’t ready for the 18 miles of climbing after we left I-15 at Cedar City. The elevation change was hard on the RV since we were towing the Camry, which made the RV's engine work much harder than it needed to. We learned our lesson though, and unhitched the Camry next time we came to a steep grade.

We’re used to elevations of a couple hundred feet, and while we’d been at higher elevations for the previous five days, we still weren’t accustomed to such high elevations. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep as well as we’d have liked as our bodies struggled for oxygen.

The cooler temps were welcome though.

The park was hosting a night skies presentation that night, and while we briefly thought about attending, we were just too tired. All the hiking we’d done that day and the day before, combined with thinner air, left us too exhausted for anything other than crashing in our beds as soon as we could.

the view from our campsite

We’d love to go back and do some hiking and star gazing. The scenery is beautiful.

another view from our campsite

As you drive up 14 from Cedar City, you transition from arid desert scrub and sandstone to alpine peaks and pine trees.  Cedar Breaks itself is an interesting mix of sheer sandstone cliffs and tall pine trees (see the pic at the top of the post). 

We hadn't even heard of this park before I made the reservations, but it's definitely worth visiting if you're in the area. We'll be spending more time there next time we visit.

Rocket Roundup

 baking soda and vinegar rocket

A couple weeks we held our third annual Cub Scout Rocket Roundup. This has proved to be a popular activity that the boys, and their families, really enjoy. The downside of holding it in July is that we are always missing some of the boys since they're out of town. We had a small, but enthusiastic turn out.

water rocket

double water rockets

This year we had a great variety of creative rockets. The pool noodle rocket below has great potential for our kiddos to play with (homemade nerf guns, anyone?). I could also see them being a hit at family reunions.

match stick rockets- tiny, but cool

We don't do any rockets with engines, but stick to chemical reactions and pressure- water or air. I think they're even more fun than the standard model rocket, and they're usually easier to set off multiple times.

store bought baking soda and citric acid rocket. it was a bit wimpy, but hilarious in its wimpiness. the pic below is about as high as it got before falling to the ground. The weak reaction was similar to the alka-seltzer and mini m&m tube rockets we tried our first year. The flops are just as much fun as the ones that perform as expected.

We ended with the stomp rockets we've used the last couple years. These are always a hit with the kiddos since they can all make their own paper rockets to send flying. One of the girls put petal fins on her rocket that slowed its fall and looked seriously cool.

I love that I caught River jumping up to land on the pop bottle :)

doesn't Ocean look like he really wants to jump on the bottle? he did jump, but he just doesn't weigh enough to make the paper rocket go very far

Kanarraville Falls

After the family reunion ended, we all scattered our different ways. My sister had told me about a seasonal waterfall that they’d tried to hike to before, but never managed because they were always in the area at the wrong time of year. We were heading that direction, so we decided to stop and see what we could see. My sister’s family had done lots of hiking that week, including the Narrows, the Subway, and Angel’s Landing, so they were pretty burnt out and decided not to try it.

They should have, though.

It was a bit longer than we anticipated, but it was a fun hike, and definitely not our usual type of hike.

We started out walking for a bit more than a mile on a dirt service road. After about a mile the road became a narrow trail, but before that point we had several creek crossings that we had to splash through, and the icy water was a bit of a shock.

starting out on the dirt road

the bushes become more plentiful as you climb

like father, like son

River was pretty pleased with himself for convincing daddy to let him ride on his shoulders

Once the trail narrowed, we were alternating between crossing the water, scrambling over the trail, and walking upstream in the water. Our feet quickly grew numb to the icy water and it just felt cold, rather than frigid. My plantar fasciitis had been aggravated by hiking up and down Angel’s Landing the day before, and the icy water felt really good on my poor feet.

one of the first stream crossings

Ocean rode in the carrier on my back for the majority of the hike, Sunshine hiked all of it, and River hiked about two thirds of it, with Mr M carrying him the rest of the time.

love that little hand on my shoulder :)

Heading up to the falls River was very positive and excited.

“You’re doing good!”

“I know! I got this!”

He scrambled over rocks and splashed in the water and did a great job of keeping up. Sunshine took the lead on more than one occasion, scouting out the best route to take.

The trail is not marked at all, so we weren’t sure where anything was, other than we’d been told the first falls were 1.78 miles from the parking lot.  A small falls briefly had us thinking we’d reached the lower falls, until we remembered that the lower falls have a ladder. We kept going, and soon reached a slot canyon that led to the falls.

It’s quite dim in the slot canyon, but enough sunshine filters down to make it easy to see the rungs of the ladder. The ladder itself was a bit sketchy in appearance (metal pieces attached to a log), though solid to the touch. A rope attached to rock wall next to the ladder added some security, especially while maneuvering on and off the ladder.

Sunshine and River were super brave and climbed the scary ladder all by themselves

Just past the lower falls was a shorter falls that didn’t have a ladder. I’m confident we could have gotten up it, but I was concerned about coming back down- it looked too slippery, without any good foot or hand holds. If we’d continued on, there’s an upper falls with a rope ladder, and the trail continues further up the mountain.

these guys had a bit of trouble getting down, so I thought it would be even more difficult for us

As we were turning away from the shorter falls to head back down the ladder, River slipped and fell facedown in the frigid water, knocking out his breath and his positive attitude. Mr M carried him out of the slot canyon, but it took awhile for him to warm up and feel like himself again.

River being held because he'd fallen and was traumatized by the cold :(

Despite that bit of drama, we all climbed down the ladder safely and headed downstream. Sunshine and I kept to the water as much as possible, while Mr M and River kept to the dryer trail when possible.

just a bit intimidating looking down

I was worried about the rocks being slippery, but because it’s a seasonal river/stream, there really wasn’t any algae or plant life growing on the rocks. This was good, since I hadn’t brought my trekking poles with me. I don’t always have the best balance, but I didn’t have a problem on this hike, except for one time.

Mr M challenged Sunshine to sit in the water for a count of 20, and she agreed to do it only if he did it too :)

Sunshine had found a deeper section of the stream, so I turned back to go in it and while in it I twisted and lost my balance as my shoe slipped off the rock I was standing on. I bashed my shin on a rock and splashed water on my Garmin and my phone. I scraped my shin and it had a nice bruise, but my Garmin and my phone came out fine. My Garmin is a little water resistant and it didn’t get submerged, so it survived fine, and my phone was safely encased in its Lifeproof case, which is waterproof. Ocean’s foot got wet, but that was it.

We’d hoped to find a waterfall that you could slide down, but we were unsuccessful in that search.  On our way back down Sunshine kept trying to slide down various rocks that looked promising but weren’t. We came across a family sliding down this short chute and Sunshine had to give it a try as well and was happy to be able to successfully slide down it.

Despite River’s dunking and my shin-bashing, we had a great time and would totally recommend this hike to anyone in the area at the right time of year (we were there the middle of June).

A couple recommendations:

Wear Keen sandals. I know a lot of people love their Tevas and Chacos, but the covered toe of Keen sandals is invaluable on a hike with so many rocks. Our toes would not have come out feeling good if we’d had on open-toed shoes.

Don’t wear running shoes or hiking boots. We saw a lot of people doing this and at the beginning they were trying to keep their shoes dry, but it’s a losing battle. Sometimes the trail runs parallel to the stream, but other times there is no other option than to walk in the stream. Your shoes will get sopping wet, there’s no way around it.

this guy was trying so hard to stay out of the water, but this was before the trail disappeared completely into the water, so he was only successful for a little while

Wear quick drying clothes. Even if you don’t plan on getting wet (the water is very cold, after all), you will most likely get wet while climbing the ladder(s). We wore swimsuits and rash guards.

Bring water. The first and last portions of the hike are out in the open, under the beating sun.

heading back down

The hike is longer than you think. It should have been about 3.2 miles round trip from the lower falls, but my Garmin measured the distance at right about 5 miles. Admittedly, we did go a little above the falls, and it’s hard to be sure about the accuracy of the distance measured as I lost satellite reception a couple times in the slot canyon.

We heard it could take 4 or 5 hours to complete the hike, but it only took us just over 3 hours, and that was going the speed of a 3 year old. We did see several people that looked out of shape, and they were struggling, but if you’re in ok shape you’ll be fine. Mr M has been very sedentary this past year due to his work schedule, and while he was sore the next day, he did fine on the actual hike, even while carrying River.

Be prepared to pay for parking. There's a lot owned by the town that's right by the trail head, but we parked a tiny bit further down the road in the lot operated by The Sweet Spot because it had more than enough room for us to turn the RV around without any problems (the town lot looked too cramped for our RV, especially since we were towing the car). Both lots charge $10 a car.

the town parking lot is the driveway on the right, by River's shoulder

the parking lot we used is the first driveway on the left, past the trash cans

If you do go on this hike, please be respectful of the area. I found this article talking about the impact the thousands and thousands of visitors are having on the small town of Kanarraville and their water supply. I had no idea of the numbers of people until I read this article, and I can totally understand their concerns.