700 miles in 48 hours

st. mary lake - start of "going to the sun road"

so i think, actually i am positive that i have just returned from the most beautiful place on earth!!!!!!!!!!! it was awesome!!!! i rented a car for friday and saturday and the girls and i headed out on a little road trip. we left great falls around 9:30 am on friday and drove up interstate 15 to shelby and then over to the coldest place in the us, cut bank montana. we ate lunch there with the preacher at cut bank and then headed for our ultimate destination...glacier national park. the whole way we drove through wheat fields and then once we got out of cut bank the majestic mountains appeared...snow capped ones, you know the rally rocky and big ones that you see in pictures...they just popped up on the horizon. it was amazing just to keep getting closer and closer to them. God really put an extra touch on this country up here...like even as i am typing this i am still thinking about how utterly speechless it leaves me. i can't even find words to describe it. as soon as we drove into the park we drove along side a lake...and y'all i swear, that thing was bright blue and you could see straight through it. every little bit of water in that place was that color...just crystal clear. we drove the going to the sun road that afternoon, saw a big horn sheep in the distance and then had an up close and personal encounter with a mountain goat. wildlife is not so much of a big thing in glacier...its more about the scenic views whereas yellowstone is all about the wildlife. in my opinion, the two should not even be compared, they are both majestic in their own respect. we stopped at a waterfall and hung out there for a while and just took it all in. we also took a walk through a majestic cedar forest...those things were huge!! we made the 100+ mile drive back to cut bank to the church we were staying the night at, making it back before it ever even got dark.

saturday morning we left about 9 am in the worst thunderstorm we've seem out here (they told us at orientation that it never rains in july...we have experienced otherwise for sure) so anyway we headed to "many glacier" with the idea of going on a hike. since the "many glacier" entrance is only about 14 miles from the canadian border we decided that it would be best if we just went on up there to take a picture near the canadian border. casey was born in canada so she was all for it and so was i, but since they didn't have passports or anything we couldn't go through. so anyway we got there and found a sign and took lots of pictures with it. well then we saw another big sign up closer to the actual border and decided that we should get a picture with it so here i go driving up there....turns out there was no where to turn around because that little parking lot was where they sent all the cars coming out of canada. so when i figured that out, it was too late...the border patrol lady had already seen us and was motioning for us to come up there. so trying to stay out of trouble i drove up there...we pull in and she goes, "i need a passport for everyone or a license and birth certificate." so i tried to explain to her that we had just been taking pictures by the sign and couldn't find anywhere to turn around...she was like, "i cant believe that...give me your stuff." so casey decides she needs to document this with a picture and then the lady started screaming at her about not taking pictures there and she had to get casey's camera and check her pictures to make sure it didn't show anything..after that we started getting together our ids and since my passport was in the trunk i asked her if i could get out and get it...she said yes so i got it and was waiting for her to hand it back to me so i could put it back up and she starts screaming at me to close the trunk and get back in the car. so i got back in and handed her the other ids...then she asks, "are you from idaho?" (since our rental car had an idaho plate) and we told her know that we were summer missionaries from the south and once we explained all that, she kinda started going easy on us...i guess she decided we were to stupid and young to be doing anything anymore serious than taking pictures by a canadian sign. she let us go and was in a better mood when she did thank goodness...cause for a second we thought we would all be spending the day in the canadian border patrol jail or whatever they have. GAH it was CRAZY!!!! just one more thing to add to the memory books! haha (its funny now...not so much at the moment it was happening) so then we went to "many glacier' and ate our lunchables at a picnic table...we were seriously legit tourists that day. after lunch we went on our hike to redrock lake and falls....4 mile round trip. it was so awesome to be walking in the glacier back country looking at God's awesome creation...one of the best experiences i've ever ever had!!! when we got to the water falls we got all brave and started climbing on all the rocks into the middle of all of it and then we just sat....we were still and we just took in the beauty around us. there was so much beauty that it was hard to even take it all in....MY GOD IS AWESOME!!!! and its displayed in glacier national park just how awesome he is! on our hike we even got to see a moose...not a big ole daddy moose like i wanted to see but it was a big ole momma moose standing on top of a ledge just watching us walk the trail.

if i haven't said it enough....IT WAS AWESOME!!!! and if you ever think about going, don't think twice...get in the car and go and do everything you can possibly do...hike, sit by a waterfall and take in all the beauty...you'll never regret it!

ok...there is no way i am not putting pictures on here so here they are!

at the logan pass visitor center on the "going to the sun road"

right before all the drama went down...canada looks the same as montana...nothing special!!! haha

"many glacier" - first sight we saw when we went in

our rental car at one of the pull offs in "many glacier"

redrock falls that we hiked to in "many glacier"

casey, amy and elizabeth on the trail right as we were coming up to redrock lake

end of our hike by a cute little creek

the four of us at redrock lake...the water fall that you can see behind us is where we hiked to