We woke late this morning and hit the gift shop right out of the gate. We love spending money and growing our collections of souvenirs. Jason is collecting t-shirts, because God knows he needs ten more of those. I'm collecting pins and Christmas ornaments and sort of want to collect t-shirts too, but, you know. Samus is collecting magnets. Lucas is collecting commemorative coins and Marcus is collecting postcards. So day 1, haven't seen anything in Glacier and we all had our momentos secured.
Next, we headed up the going to the sun road. While driving, we were all mesmerized by the glistening blue water of Lake McDonald. We simply had to get to down to the water. So Jason pulled over at the next turnout and we raced down to the pebble beach. It was more beautiful than I could imagine. There was no wind so the water was like glass. And it was so crystal clear with a hint of blue that I just wanted to dive in. But I didn't. Instead I took off my socks and shoes and rolled my pants up as high as they would go and waded in. Exhilarating! Or on the verge of hypothermia, I'm not sure which. The boys followed suit and we all froze our toes off until I decided I could no longer reasonably stand it. Then we skipped rocks till our hearts content.
Then we headed up to the Avalanche Lake hike. At first I was kind of anxious on the trails. Because I knew the hot-dog crazed bear's cousin was likely hiding around every corner and he happened to love the ring pops we were all sucking on. A ring pop crazed bear. He has very specific tastes.
Fortunately after just a few minutes, my anxiety subsided and I no longer clutched my ginormous can of bear spray. Plus I realized that with Lucas around, no bears were coming within a two mile radius of us. He was the ultimate bear deterrent, with his super loud voice that never, ever quit. Who knows what he was talking about, but he was saying it all.
With Lucas the bear deterrent at work, I started to look around. It was stunning. Absolutely amazing. It smelled like Christmas. There was a stream raging along right beside us. Everything was an otherworldly green. And Waterfalls were steaming down the snow capped mountains. I thought that I had seen beauty in nature before, but I was sorely mistaken. Even the trees were better. When we arrived at the lake, I was speechless. Except not really, because I had to clench-teeth talk to the boys about wrecking the serenity of nature by yelling around and immediately stripping down to their shorts to get in the water. What can I say? We like water. No matter that it just ran off a glacier.
On the hike back, Marcus and I sung "She'll be coming 'round the mountain", "I've been working on the railroad", "Groovy", and "You are my sunshine". Most of the other hikers seemed to think it was endearing that we were singing at the top of our lungs. Lucas was, of course, still loud talking behind us. In true Munsch fashion, we were like a walking circus.
With the enormous success of Avalanche Lake behind us, we were ready for more. The trails this time of the year are kind of limited and we weren't prepared for a six mile hike, so the 3 mile loop around St. John Lake seemed perfect. Except that we couldn't seem to find the trailhead. And then we had trouble understanding the trail markers. Finally the trail was muddy and littered with never ending horse poop. Like these horses were pooping every fifteen feet or so. It was gratuitous pooping.
At last we reached the end of the trail. With one last stop to soak our groaning toes in Lake McDonald, we headed home for bacon fried rice (think chicken fried rice but with bacon instead of chicken). It was so delicious.
Tonight we will undoubtedly listen to Narnia. And sleep like dead horses (Jason is really hoping this phrase catches on).
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