Hannah Montana '08

We are back safely from Montana, or "Hannah Montana" as Ellie calls it! We really had a wonderful trip. It was great from start to finish. Here is a recap with a boatload of photos.

We drove the first night to a small town named Kellogg, Idaho. We stayed at a really nice resort called Silver Mountain Resort. The staff were fabulous and the facility was amazing. We had a one bedroom suite complete with kitchen, dishwasher, fridge, oven, microwave...a washer and dryer, balcony with chairs. It was all very nice and decorated like a lodge.


The hotel also had a huge water park that was free to lodge guests. It was SO much fun. It really brought out the kids in Dama and I. Pictures later in this post!

The next morning, we headed off to Glacier National Park. On the way, we stopped at a bison reserve.

They have bison, elk, deer, bears, mountain goats and other wildlife in the range. You basically drive in and you can drive for hours looking for wildlife. The bison are easy to spot as they don't mind the heat. We were limited on time so we could not stay for long.

Here is a display of the elk horns found in the reserve:


We spotted the bison right away:




After a pretty long drive, we made it to Glacier!


We camped at the Fish Creek Campground. It was SO quiet. The quiet was almost deafening! Definitely no constant traffic noise like Seattle has!


Cooking dinner over the fire:



There are bears in the park so any time you leave your campsite, you have to pack up EVERYTHING. And I mean everything. You can only leave your chairs and firewood out and that is it.


That evening, we went to Lake McDonald which, of course, meant packing everything up before we left.
The next morning, we went back to the lake and played for a while. So beautiful:




Then it was off for a hike. We decided to hike up to Avalanche Lake. It was quite a hike, let me tell you! But the kids did great and I am sure they were keeping the bears at bay with their small fits of whining!


Beautiful crystal waterfalls along the way:





We finally made it! The pictures do not do it justice. It was absolutely breathtaking!




We headed back west and decided to stay another night at Silver Mountain Resort. Here are pictures of the water park fun!


There is a huge water bucket that dumps out at the top of the park every 5 minutes or so. It cause a huge tidal wave!

Here are the boys waiting for it to dump:



Lucas barreling down the water slide! They had great kid size ones and also adult sized ones. The great thing was that the kids could go on ALL of them. On some, we just had to go with them. It was a great place.



Look at this crazy surfer dude on the waves! Mummy did it too but when I lost my bikini bottom the first ride, yeah that was my first and last time :)