Glacier National Park {day six of trip}

Tues. July 5: We left Kalispell after breakfast and some interactions with the bears in the lobby. Oh, and I can't forget that we were all so nicely awakened by the 6 am "wake up call" by some young gentlemen pounding on our door. IF I had been anywhere near awake enough to realize that he was just a punk kid being just that..a punk..I probably would've been a little more conversive and explained that I really wasn't appreciative of his practical joke..and neither was Christian. Oh well, I put Christian back to sleep..but neither Ben or I was able to do that. Ahh..anyways.

So we headed off to Glacier National Park, only 45 minutes away or so. It was another beautiful day. We got to the campsite that Ben's parents stayed at near Lake McDonald, and he all went on a hike. It was beautiful. I have a hard time soaking up all that nature, and I try to by taking pictures..but sometimes it just has to be admired in the present.

        

We enjoyed the hike, it was too bad we could've stayed a little longer, it would've been fun to do a few more. But, we needed to get on the road to Canada!

Unfortunately, the Going to the Sun highway was still closed from the winter..yes I know, it is crazy since it is July. But apparently, they got ridiculous amounts of snow and bulldozers are still working at clearing the pass. So, we went as far as we could on the road, about 15 miles, and then turned around and went around Glacier.

 A bit of a bummer..but I guess what can you do. There was also quite a bit of construction on the highway that went around..so it took us a good while to get up to Canada. Don't get me wrong, regardless of the main middle road being closed, the scenery was beautiful with the mountains and water!

When we got to the border, the border patrol lady was asking us questions and we had to roll down the back window. When she was asking, "do you have any firearms or weapons?", Christian decides to pipe in and say "uh-huh!"..how handy. She was a pretty hard core lady, but even she had to embrace conversation with his little innocent friendliness and ask, "oh yeah, what did you bring along?" He just kept saying "uh-huh" and finished it off by blowing her a kiss...so all was well.

We arrived in High River, Alberta around 6:45 and joined the rest of the Hershberger clan that had already arrived (minus Laura and Brent who were unable to come). We enjoyed the evening, and tried out the pool with the rather LARGE waterslide. It was more than a touch cool in the water, but that didn't stop the blue-lipped boy from wanting to go swimming more! We called it a night, even though at 11:00 there were still signs of daylight outside! Kinda crazy.

Sites of Montana {day five of trip}

We left Bozeman, MT mid morning and traveled up to Kalispell today. It was again a very beautiful drive. We were among mountains and water the majority of the way. 

There were more very nice log homes that are so pretty to look at...the ones on top of the mountains not only make me wonder how did they build that way up there...but what do they do that they can afford a place like that? 

We stopped at a nice rest area for lunch and ate a picnic, it was complete with a couple trains going by across the highway for Christian to say "traaain". 

He was again a very good traveler. He's got it down, when he's ready to chill out, he says "bank-et, pass...." in a british tone, then he trails off asking for the pacifier, because well, its not an easy word to say. When he wakes up usually he either says, "Grandma's house?", "happy candle", or "Jer-ki-co?" We are able to supply the "Jericho" part by putting on his CD with Joshua fought the battle of Jericho.

About an hour and a half outside of Kalispell we "ran" into Phil, Diana, and Sam. Diana had called while they had service to tell us where they would be staying in the morning if we would be able to meet up with them. After asking where they were at now, they were less than a mile in front of us. We stopped in a nearby town by the shore of the beautiful BIG lake we had been driving by and enjoyed a break together.

  We arrived in Kalispell around 5, checked into the Hampton (courtesy of Mitch) and let Christian romp around another "new" room! He is getting to be quite funny with this process. He loves the elevators and pushing the buttons, and no matter what floor we're on he says "three" when he looks at the display of what floor we're on. This time, he was actually trying to climb the side of the luggage carrier because there were rungs perfect for his little body..and he'd say "careful, be careful"...I guess he's aware of what he's doing! This bear that greeted us in the lobby at the hotel...Christian really liked to give him "high five's".

 We went to eat, the restaurant was closed for the 4th, so we found a mexican place, similar to Chipotle but better in my opinion. Then we were going to find a Dairy Queen to just do something fun for the 4th. After we found one, discovered it too was closed...so went back to where we ate, and there was a Coldstone Creamery which was quite tasty! When we were on our way, I told Christian he could have some icecream, so until we finally got back to the icecream place he had been saying, "nummy keem, nummmy keem"..and he hardly ate his icecream because we ate outside and he wanted to climb up and down the stairs more than eat it!
We then went back to the hotel, tried on the pool..which was nice! He fell asleep. Ben and I watched a few fireworks from our window and then called it a night.

Yellowstone {day four of trip}

We had a good night sleep at the Big Bear Motel in Cody. We were up and checked out by 10, and went across the highway to eat at "Our Place". It was a very SMALL eating establishment (49 was the maximum capacity) that we had to wait to be seated for 15-20 minutes or so. It was a very nice day, so waiting outside was no problem. The middle aged motorcycle rider couples that were waiting also, were entertained by Christian. They were seated before us, and as their name was called Christian was getting a little inpatient and hungry and said, "eeeat"..the one man said "maybe we should order for him". I think he would've they were nice folks from SD, but our name was called right after he said that. It was pretty good food, 25 cent coffee..so all in all it was worth the wait.

 We were then on our way to Yellowstone, 50 or so miles away. The river that ran next to the road was very full and fast moving...it was a very pretty drive.

Yellowstone...

A few of my favorite pictures of my boys...

We got to Old Faithful around 2:50, it was "scheduled" to erupt around 3:19..it was pretty much right on time. It was neat to see..Christian wasn't exactly impressed, it was pretty warm and the "bright sun" was shining on him. He didn't fuss too much though, he was in the child backpack and while we were moving he was very content.

  I didn't realize the extent of the paths around Old Faithful..we walked around the paths for another 1 1/2 hours. It was neat to see all the geysers..we would tell Christian "boiling hot water" because one the first one he acted like he wanted to reach out and touch it (even though he remained in the pack the whole time). So from then on, each of the geysers we saw he would say "boiling hot"..and of course threw in the occasional "REE -ee hot" (really hot). The only wildlife we saw was near the end, we saw a buffalo.

 My butt and legs were numb (I think from having Christian on the backpack) by the end. We stopped in the Yellowstone Lodge on our way to the car..it was AMAZING. The wood work from all the timbers that made up the entire thing was pretty fasinating. We stopped a couple more times on our way out of the park to let me look at the beauty and then second because traffic was stopped to look at some carribou at the side of the road. We had seen a moose lying in the woods on the way to Old Faithful, but we couldn't really stop due to all the other people stopping.

We then headed to Bozeman, MT. It was such a pretty drive..I know I probably will keep saying that this whole trip, but really it is just so pretty. This part of the drive was VERY green. And there was a river that ran near the road, also very FULL and moving pretty quickly. We had nice weather the whole way, a little cloudy and looked like it wanted to storm when we got into Montana, but it never did.

 We got to Bozeman around 8:30, Christian made friends with the receptionist and we went to find something to eat. We settled on AppleBee's since nothing else we wanted was open. It was actually probably the best AppleBee's experience I have ever had. After Christian was asleep, I did laundry and met some people that were traveling home to CA from being in ND near Minot. They were entertaining while I waited on the clothes. We had another good night sleep..thanks to Mitch for the Comfort Inn.

Cody & the Rodeo! {day three of trip}

July 2: Happy Birthday Carissa!!! We had a large continental breakfast at the Garden Inn, and then left for Cody, WY. It was a pretty drive and we stopped for a picnic lunch.

We arrived at the Big Bear Motel in Cody around 3 pm. Ben and Christian got in the rather cool outdoor (heated) pool while I enjoyed watching in the warm sun. It was a beautiful day, mid to high 80's.

We were there during the "Stampede" days, so the downtown was very full of people, shops, and festival type things. We ate at a place that served different kind of meat burgers. Ben got a yak burger, and I got an elk burger. They were good :) They also served meats like..alligator, kangaroo, buffalo and others I can't remember.

And then....we went to the rodeo!!! I was looking forward to this :) Christian wasn't too excited about it during the first 30 minutes because he was tired and the sun was starting to set directly in our eyes. So Ben and him went outside the arena and played on some tractors, and then we all sat together for the rest of the entire rodeo! He would say, "ahh, shoot"..I think he heard his mama saying that when the riders fell off. It was a good rodeo, I'm glad we were able to go and ALL enjoy ourselves!

Colorado to Casper {day two of trip}

July 1: In the morning, we ate breakfast at Pete and Kira's. Christian was entertained by the men cutting up the tree that had fallen in their yard while we packed up and headed out. Kira had recommended we stop by the Red Rock Ampitheater..and so we did.

The red rocks of Colorado...

It was CRAZY how many people were there working out, running the stairs. We walked down and then back up them, and that was plenty!

The person on the stairs with the child on her back is me. It was a decent workout with 25 extra pounds on my back.

Bye bye red rocks and Colorado...on the way to Casper, WY.

Entering the land of Wyoming...driving by a buffalo herd.

That evening we checked into our Garden Inn hotel, thanks to the assistance of Mitch and his Hilton connections. Christian had a blast running on the room, climbing on the luggage carrier, and pretty much exploring whatever he could. This was the start of a routine he established during the trip. He and I would go to the room, while Ben would load up the car on the luggage carrier. While we were waiting, Christian would run in the room, climb on the bed, play "catch me if you can" with me all the while he is giggling! When Ben would come back with the luggage carrier, he would climb on it whenever it was unloaded enough he could hike his leg up there..and then duck up and down saying "Hmmm?" because that's what I said to him...again just giggling! Meanwhile, I would unplug the phone because he really like to pick it up and say "hello....ring, ring....HELLLOOOO". It was quite the entertaining routine he did.

We went to an italian restaurant for supper, which was not exactly what we expected it to be..but it was good food all the same. It was still nice outside when we got back to the hotel, and there was a baseball field with a game going on across the street. We walked over there, and I asked Ben if he thought since it had a Garden Inn sticker on the both as a sponsor if he thought we got a discount. He wasn't going to ask..so I did. The lady looked at the other lady, and said, well I don't really know, but we'll say sure you can have these comp tickets and get in free. :) Well, that was nice of them. It was a minor league game. Christian was more entertained by going up and down the bleachers and making friends with complete strangers! I thought he was maybe a bit of a distraction to the people that actually paid to go to the game, so we went down to the grass part with the other kids. Without hesitation he joined another groups circle, and sat right in the middle of their blanket. They found him more than entertaining! Whose child is this anyway??

We went back to the hotel, tried out the freezing cold indoor swimming pool...and called it a night. 

Our Family Vacation {day one of summer trip 2011}

I've been looking forward to this summer's vacation since I found out (in December) the Hershberger reunion was going to be held in Alberta where Grandpa H was raised during his early years.

Our family made into an extended vacation and here is our journey, starting on June 30...

This was when we left KS, we were going to stop for a picnic lunch, but decided that maybe 109 degrees was just a touch on the toasty side. So, we "had" to sacrifice and eat at Freddy's (my favorite!) in Hays.

Christian started out being a good little traveler. We knew we were going to have some time to kill before getting to our first destination, so we stopped at a rest area in CO to eat a snack. It was no longer 109 degrees outside!

We arrived to Pete and Kira Von Ploeg's house in Denver around 5 or so. Ben went to HC with Kira, and the last time we saw them we had drove to CO for their wedding in 2008. They invited the Shue's (Nathaneal and Audra) over for supper and we had a very enjoyable evening with all of them. Christian did not have a problem socializing one bit! He was slightly intimidated by Tucker (one of their dogs), but it didn't take long for him to warm up to both Tucker and Layla. The picture below was of the boys assessing the damage of a tree that had randomly fallen in their backyard that day..it hadn't even been that stormy or windy! The weather was cloudy and cool with some thunderstorms that evening..wonderful!

Kira and Christian with the dogs. Christian got good at saying "no, Tucker". He was also a big fan of saying Audra's name, Pete, Kira..he couldn't quite master Nathanael..so we just called him "shoe".

By morning, Christian was all about the dogs...

Thanks to Pete and Kira for letting us stay with you in your nice house! Hopefully you can come see us sometime :)

Christian meets Ruby

We went up to Topeka for the day..to see Ben's family, including Ruby, his cousin visiting from Germany! She had only "met" Christian from the outside two summers ago, a couple weeks before he was born.

Ruby and Christian

Ben,Sam, and Ruby 

We just sat outside since it was such a nice day.

Christian got a new dump truck of his very own from Gpa and Gma H. He loved it...and it entertained him for quite some time.

Then, we went over to see the finished product of the house that Phil and Sam were working on. It is under contract..so July 5th is the final closing date. It turned out really nice!! We came back and Christian read some books with Ruby and Gma H. to prevent himself from falling asleep!

We finished the day by going out to eat pizza..and drove home :) It was a full day..but a very good day!