After months of waiting…. the kids got their wish of tent camping in a national park ! And even more exciting to me…. we finally saw a moose!!!!! Omgoodness what a great weekend!

Glacier National Park is quite spread out and when we saw that it was going to be 2 1/2 hours from our RV Park to the “Many Glacier” area of the park, I had to agree that it was an opportune time for tent camping. B had a 4 day weekend – so we left early Friday morning with the hopes of spotting moose on Fishercap Lake in the morning when it’s more likely to see them!

The drive up Going to the Sun Road was cloudy but that really made it more fun as we got above many of the clouds. This road reminded us a lot of Million Dollar Highway which we loved.

Look at the clouds rolling over this one:

We definitely were “going to the sun”. There it is after we crossed Logan Pass, which is where the continental divide is:

Then I snapped this pic:

and turned around as we went around another bend…and look who was waiting for us!!! A bull moose!!!!!

I love him I love him I love him!

“Bull Moose” clearly had just come from the lake because he had water dripping from his mouth and that funny dreadlock they all have!!

You can just imagine my excitement after talking about “meese ” 🙂 for months!!! B and the kids were SO excited for me (and that I could finally now stop talking about it) (Could. Not would. Now I can just share the story over and over again with everybody I meet about how I saw a moose!)

He didn’t seem bothered by the cars. He never picked up his pace but just did his thing and stood in the middle of the road for quite a few minutes.

And with that our weekend was off to the best start!!!! I figured that there would be lots of wildlife sightings the whole weekend since we got one within minutes of being on the east side of Logan Pass…. but after talking to many and spending the weekend there, I realize now what a special gift it was to see this guy!!!!! :). He was the only bull moose we saw. Such perfect timing!

We made it to Fishercap Lake at the Swiftcurrent Trailhead and look who was waiting for us there. A she-moose!

Isn’t she so cute !? She stuck her head under water so long to eat the greens – I didn’t know they did this! Do you not love her !?

It’s now my new goal to make everybody I know a moose-lover! Look at this beautiful place she chooses to have her breakfast. Obviously a lady of great taste!

We sat there for quite awhile watching her and wondering if she would get out.

I hated that I didn’t have my long lens but it’s all good – because we thoroughly enjoyed her enjoying her peaceful breakfast.

The rest of the hike to the falls was lots of trees and grass and of course I’m not complaining about that! I haven’t gotten my fill of green yet. Another strangely bent tree:

The only wildlife we saw the rest of that hike was this cutie pie:

We took a snack break at this pretty pond:

And finally we made it to Red Rock Falls.

We all love waterfalls and are already looking forward to searching out NC ones!

2 of our 3 often whine a lot on hikes but then we get to the destination and they love it!!! Hopefully this lesson will really sink in and they will remember before we start that it’s always worth it. Especially if there’s rock scrambling involved!

We’ve had lots of chances to practice rock-skipping. RR is still the master!

We had a tailgate lunch then walked down to the Grinnell Glacier Trailhead. Look who met us at the start:

It was like being back in Jersey. Yes it’s true. There was always frequent black bear sightings in the town I grew up in. If you didn’t know NJ had “country” – I have so much to teach you! 🙂

Sooooo for those who want to visit Glacier…. we had really wanted to hike to Grinnell Glacier. It’s probably the most popular and most recommended hike in the park… but it’s a 10.6 mile hard hike. You can book a boat to get you across 3 little lakes to cut down that distance but the boats were booked for the entire season already and to get on the wait list she said the line starts at 6 am and they open at 7. No thanks!

At the end of the day we realized we had hiked 11 miles!!!! So we could have actually done Grinnell. But then we would have missed Ms. Moose and RedRocks.

So instead of visiting the Glacier, we walked around Swiftcurrent Lake and MomMom Lake. JK it’s Josephine Lake. It was pretty but we were tired after waking up so early and walking 8 miles already. So tired that we all laid down and napped right there on the rocks!

Well some of us napped. Others pretended they were rock monsters

Here are some views around the lake:

We loved the colors!!!!

Before we left, a friendly stranger pointed out this hummingbird to us. We love them!

We were so tired!

But we still had to set up camp and have dinner before we could sleep!

We didn’t have our hammer so B had to caveman it:

I’m pretty sure I was “asleep” before 9. I use that term loosely because….can you call it “sleeping in a tent” when you only get little 15 minute catnaps all night because your hips and back are killing you and every time the wind shakes the tent you think it’s a grizzly!? 🙂 At check in, the nice but over-sharing ranger said, “Theres been frequent bear visits to this area. We are closing this camp on Sunday to anything soft sided like tents because of bear activity so I’m glad you all are leaving Saturday. They just want those berries!”….. uhh ok thanks? So the bears know not to come get all these berries until Sunday right? Because our campsite is totally surrounded by berry bushes. See. All berries:

But I got through it happily because I love my peeps and they were so happy and loved it!!! Friends – aren’t you proud of me ???? 🙂 It was such a fun weekend. More to come…