International Trips: Canada

Over Memorial Day weekend we took our kids on our first family international trip. We've wanted to head for Canada for some time, and even though it was only a three day weekend, we decided to make it work. 

Day One:

We left Friday, May 22 after Tyson had finished teaching his morning class. We stopped at McDonald's for dinner. I have this thing--I really don't like buying an ice cream cone for each kid. They never seem to finish it, so half goes to waste, and it makes a mess and takes forever as they try, so I prefer to get a couple and make them all share to shorten my suffering through the sticky mess. Some kind people, though, decided that each of our kids needed an ice cream cone, and proceeded to buy enough for even Miri to get her own for a massive mess :)

Driving through Montana

Day Two: Montana and Glacier National Park

Tyson has this magical knack of finding random, "free" campsites off of dirt roads, so we found one, late in the dark around 11 pm, just outside Glacier National Park in Montana. These are pictures from our site from the following morning. 

The downside to finding sites down random dirt roads is if you need help. Our van wouldn't start the next morning, and we assumed we had a dead battery or something, since Tyson's traditional trick of going under the van with a wire to make the starter start didn't work. We called AAA and tried to explain where we were. I wasn't even sure the AAA truck would make it down the super bumpy dirt road that we had come down:

Fortunately, right at the end of the phone call with AAA, Tyson said a silent prayer and felt like he should do a few adjustments to the battery cables. The car started just as I was about to hang up. We had a really good discussion with the kids about prayer and listening to the Holy Ghost or "the little voice inside" as we tried to explain it. 

 

 You know, possible kayaking sites have to be checked out. 

Our kids love climbing rocks

And finding tunnels in trees

We went on a hike up to Avalanche Lake. It was about 4.5 miles roundtrip, and it rained a bit on the way back, but everyone did pretty well hiking. This was the longest hike we did on our quick road trip. 

 It's a really, really gorgeous canyon. The azure blue of the river is striking.

 

 
 Did I mention our kids like to climb rocks?

 
At Avalanche Lake at the top: breath-taking.

Picnic lunch

Xi couldn't keep out of the water. Several people smiled at how much he enjoyed splashing around and getting completely soaked. 

Making slides out of the rocks

This was Xi's first--and probably last--ride in the backpack carrier. Poor kid was deprived of fun hikes like this the last two years.

 Jacob loves to make faces for pictures.

 After the hike, we drove passed St. Mary's Lake. We definitely want to come back and explore more of this national park.

 

We had to document that all our kids were asleep in the car AT THE SAME TIME. 

 Tyson found, after several dead-ends, another "free" camp spot next to lower St. Mary's Lake.

Day Three: Cardston and Waterton National Park

Sometimes our girls are great morning people--and not so much other times. 

 It turned out to be a beautiful camp spot.

Jeffrey and Amri are learning the art of rolling up the tent. They are great campers. 

 Breakfast of leftover spaghetti by the lake.

 Driving up to the boarder:

 We attended Church in Cardston and had a picnic lunch at the Temple.

 We entered Waterton National Park, which was even more dazzling than Glacier National Park. It was also a lot more empty, and had even more very easy, family-friendly hikes. We first drove up to Red Rock Parkway and hiked up to Blakiston Falls on a quick, easy trail--maybe 20 minutes one-way.

 We also walked around Red Rock Canyon Loop- another paved easy trail with spectacular scenery. We loved the red rocks striped with white--although red rocks are common in Utah, these are strikingly red. We called them candy-cane rocks. 

 

 After the hike, I dropped of Tyson and Jeffrey on a trail head to Crandall Lake, and I was going to drive around and get a camp spot and meet them on the other side. However, at this particular campground, we passed almost 100 sites, and never saw a single person camping. It was SO empty compared to Glacier National Park! We loved having so much space to ourselves. Tyson and Jeffrey didn't see another person on this particular 2.4-mile hike they did together.

 On the other side, waiting for mommy.

 Saw a lot of wildlife in Canada as well--the first being this herd of big horn sheep on the side of the road.

 At the campground we went to, we couldn't have campfires--you had to cook and eat in the lodge. While we were in there, a deer came right up to the window and the kids loved getting a very close look.

Day 4: Waterton Lakes National Park and back.

 We had camped at Upper Waterton Lake. The next morning we walked over and were blown away with how crystal-clear the water was.

 We drove up to Lake Cameron and saw more wildlife on the way up. This little guy was eating dandelions on the side of the road.

 Lake Cameron:

 We did another very short, family-friendly hike to Lake Akamina.

 More beautiful wildlife, again next to our car:

 And of course, Tyson had to scope out the possible future kayaking sites on the drive back.

 More wildlife: We saw this brown bear both on the way to Lake Cameron, just after the black bear, and then again on the way back.

 

 Taking pictures, of course, as we are LEAVING :)

 Got some fun stamps in our passport at the International Peace Park entrance.

 As we were driving back we passed this place in a random, tiny town (I can't even remember if it was in Montana or Idaho) and we went to see the world's largest dinosaur. For a little museum, it was pretty fun. 

I'm looking forward to many more Canada trips to come! Yay!