O Canada!

The original plan for this summer was for my Dad and siblings/in-laws and Drew to climb Mt Rainier, but that didn't pan out this time.  Instead Haley and Jacob, Dad, and Rex bagged Granite Peak in Montana with Dan Christopherson ("CHRISTOPHERSON!"), then Haley and Jacob tacked on a trip to Glacier/Waterton Lakes and Banff.  I said to myself, "Hey, we live right next to Canada! I'll take the kids and meet them there."  It turns out Canada is huge, and we do not actually live right next to all of it.  But, when there's an excuse to go see beautiful things with people you love, I feel like it should be taken.  So we did, distance be damned.  

Drew had the Monday before we left off work, so he was invaluable in collecting and readying all the gear.  I think I stayed up till about 3 getting everything packed and loaded just so, then Annie woke up half an hour after I'd fallen asleep and puked all over herself, did it again an hour later, and then an hour after that Drew got up to go to work and I was too wired to go back to sleep.  Just the kind of night you want to have before a long road trip where you are the sole driver.  Luckily the kids did well.  Annie didn't throw up again, they watched the movies I had downloaded onto the iPad (Frozen, Little Mermaid, and Winnie the Pooh), and listened to the music Drew had downloaded off Spotify onto his old Japanese phone for me (Enya for helping tired babies to sleep, Disney playlist for keeping tired moms awake, Shrek the Musical and the Master and Commander soundtrack for fun).  We stopped at the St. Regis Travel Center right after the turn off to Glacier for Montana's signature huckleberry shakes.  

I had ulterior motives for getting the shakes--I was a little worried about the Baby Goose's hydration status, and I knew she'd never turn down ice cream!   There were some trout aquariums to sit and watch while we slurped.

 We arrived at the Apgar Campground in Glacier about half an hour before sunset; Haley and Jacob had graciously gone and reserved me a campsite earlier in the day.  I was literally just stepping out of the car when the family camping in the spot next to mine came over with their 18 month old to chat.  They seemed weirdly friendly, until I realized they were Canadian.  It was the "eh?" that gave it away in the end.  They helped me set up my tent and get situated until Haley and Jacob arrived from Kalispell to tuck us in.  Everyone slept well that night, and in the morning we headed up Going to the Sun road to do the Hidden Lake Overlook trail.

  

It was an adventure in itself to find a parking spot, but we did eventually succeed and were able to start our hike.  There was a fire in the park while we were there, causing a lot of haze . . .

 so we were robbed the full magic of the views . . .

but there was still plenty to see . . .

 like a herd of muscly, powerful Bighorn Sheep . . .

 multicolored rock piles . . .

 preserved ripples from ancient shallow seas . . .

picture-pose perfecting opportunities. . .

 . . . and trail Doppelgängers.

  

We arrived at the overlook in good spirits, thanks to our sherpas.

 And despite the haze, it was a lovely view.

 We decided to sit and have a little snack.  Rafe admired the "allergy" on the rocks.  He was talking about the lichen and trying to say "algae".

 There were many ground squirrels more than willing to come along on the eating.

"I pet, pet, pet."

 After our hike we had to drive across the border to get to our next campsite.  I had nearly forgotten our passports entirely (I remembered them at 2am the morning we left), but apparently I should have brought even more documentation with me.  The border patrol agent put me through my paces to make sure I wasn't a kidnapper.  "Are you the sole guardian of these children?  Where is the father? Why isn't he with you?  Does he know you have them?  Does he know where you're going?  Do you have any proof?"  I ended up having to show her my text conversation with Drew on my phone before she relaxed and got on with the normal border questions.  My heart was pounding!  She wished me luck at the end and gave me a bunch of little Canada flags for the kids.  Once through the border we set up our campsite and then drove out to Red Rock Canyon for an evening stroll.  On the way we saw a mama black bear and her two babies, a black bear that crossed the road right behind us, and a brown bear shambling away across a meadow.

 At Red Rock Canyon Aunt Haley helped Ms. Annie explore the creek bed.

 Uncle Jacob fortified a dam.  I love how quickly Jacob finds things to play with.

  

He challenged Vivien to a boat race.  She chose a pinecone that got waterlogged and couldn't handle the eddies and currents as well as Jacob's stick, even when she cheated and helped it along.

The different layers of rock were fascinating to observe.

 We let the kids explore and play, slowly getting wetter and wetter, until Vivien fell in entirely and came up screaming, "I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE!!"

 We had tasty hamburgers for dinner that night (my children didn't eat as much as they normally would have because they polished off an entire 2# bag of carrots that day!  I passed it back around lunch time and forgot to collect it, so they just kept working at it every time we got in the car till it was gone), then Jacob took Vivien and Rafe fishing in the lake while I got the littler littles to bed.

 The next morning was cool, windy, and wet.  Vivien woke up feeling a little under the weather.  I love their bed head so much.

 After tasty breakfast burritos, Haley and Jacob took the ferry over to hike to Crypt Lake and we spent a quiet morning in the tent, Merrick sleeping to the sound of rain, kids snuggled up with a movie, and Vivien occasionally barfing into a gallon sized Ziplock bag.

  

We also had a little story time.  Merrick is a voracious reader.  He literally devours books, one soggy corner at a time.  (This brings to mind "The Incredible Book Eating Boy" by Oliver Jeffers, which we got from the library awhile ago and enjoyed reading)

 It stopped raining that afternoon, so I thought it might be nice to get some fresh air and take our sitting party to the banks of the lake.  Vivien was not terribly excited about the prospect.

But I loaded up the babies and grabbed our camp chairs and we started over anyway.  The lake was probably 400 yards from our campsite.  

To get to the best view there was a creek to cross.  We missed this bridge on our way to the shore . . .

 . . .so rather than backtrack, I decided to conserve our precious energy and just rock hop across the stream.

Guess who fell in?  I happened to have some undershorts in my purse and I gave her the socks I had put on Merrick, but being dry did little to improve her disposition.  I don't blame her--it's hard to have fun when it's cold and windy and you have to take a barf bag with you everywhere you go.

 We had about 2 happy-ish minutes at the beach.

 And then those smiles started to slip.

 Annie's disease chose this moment to take it to the next level and she suffered a diarrheal explosion of horrifying proportions.  The consistency was just solid enough to keep it from absorbing into the diaper at all, but too liquidy to be contained.  I got her cleaned up and improvised some pants for her out of the extra outfit I'd brought for Merrick, but her patience for the lake had waned.

 Merrick decided he'd spent long enough on his back in the wind, and added his voice to Vivien and Annie's pathetic whimpering.

 Rafe, meanwhile, was having a jolly old time, hands full of 2 old tent stakes, the straw from his huckleberry shake, and a stick he found--the talismans (talismen?) he kept always on his person for the whole Canada trip.

 It was mostly for his benefit that I dragged everyone to the lake anyway.

 When the crying reached an uncomfortable level, we packed up and went back, taking the bridge this time, and studiously avoiding aggressive deer.

 The girls and the baby took a nap . . .

 . . . while Rafe and I sorted the beach rocks he'd collected by color and size and practiced counting them ("14, 15, 16. Say it with me: 14, 15, 16.  Good, now you try." "14, 16 . . ." "Aww, so close.  Let's try again!").  I wanted to take a picture of our actual sorting, but my phone was in use as a white noise machine, so this one of all the rocks on the beach will do to give you an idea of the sorting possibilities.

When Rafe was tired of learning I suggested some other games, but he preferred pouting to playing any of them, so I spent the next hour hiding behind grassy hillocks around the campground and pretending to spy on him with my hands cupped around my eyes like binoculars until he saw me, then I would stealthily slip out of sight.  That was the goal anyway; it takes quite a bit of force to get this object at rest to move, and my muscles didn't quite have the power to execute the plans in my mind.  But it was still fun.  For me.  I never took a picture of the campground, but in this image I stole off Google maps you can see the mounds I was talking about.

People woke up grumpy from naps, so rather than spend more time in the tent, we drove in to Cardston to visit the temple.  We had a snack on the lawn across the street.  Well, some of us did.  Some of us were too sick.

 We walked in to the visitor's center for a minute, but Vivien, who was riding in the baby backpack, started barfing into her Ziplock, so we made a hasty retreat to the open air.

 It's an interesting building.  The geometry of it is appealing to me.  I like it.

  

Even though it doesn't have Moroni on top.  "Oops!"

On our drive back to Waterton we passed a field of llamas and their sheepdog.

 That night we had tasty taco salad and relaxed.  There was a family bathroom at the campsite with a handheld shower head, so I was able to give my kids a much needed scrub.  It was a bit colder that night, and I feel like I woke up every hour to put someone who had wriggled free back into their sleeping bag so they weren't freezing.

 In the morning we had one of my favorite breakfasts (quinoa with strawberries, bananas, sliced almonds, agave nectar, and milk stirred in), then we broke camp.  Jacob "swept out" my tent for me and broke it down.  Vivien rested on the bags.

 I wanted to walk down to the lake one more time and have it not be awful, so we left Rafe and Vivien in the car at the campground because they didn't want to come.

  

Parks Canada has set out 5 sets of red Adirondack chairs in "quiet, scenic locations throughout the park" for visitors' use and pleasure, so make use of them we did . . .

 . . . while we watched Jacob skip rocks across choppy water into the wind.  He's amazing!

 From there it was on to Banff!

We had to take frequent stops to change nasty diapers.  We'd be driving along and then Annie would start screaming, "I PYOOOOOP!  I PYOOOOP!" in her tiny voice.  I brought 3 extra pairs of pants for her this trip and we went through every one of them.  I had to rinse out her carseat when we got to Banff too.  Blech.

 I didn't have cell service in Canada, but I had downloaded maps of the area to my phone on Google Maps before I left so I'd be able to find where I was going.  I don't think the maps took us the fastest way from Waterton to Banff, but it was so gorgeous I didn't mind.  We drove through Peter Lougheed Provinical Park past peak after peak after peak of geological wonders.  The Canadian Rockies are mostly sedimentary rocks, so you could easily see the layers buckled and folded and pushed almost vertically, the outermost layer like a huge sheet of rock, cracking off spectacularly.  I want to go back!

We got to drive by a herd of Bighorns.

 It made me about as nervous as it does to drive past bison in the Tetons.  Those horns look like they could do some serious damage.

 Once in Banff we went straight to Cave and Basin where they greeted us with a friendly "Hellobonjour!" and gave us a map to explore "the birthplace of Canada's national parks".  It is this hot spring:

And surrounding areas, of course.  There was a lot to learn here, but . . .

 . . . Vivien was pretty done with life, so we didn't linger.

 But we couldn't call it a day yet!  No, sir.  Lake Louise is unmissable.  So into the car we went again.

Haley said people kept looking at them funny and it took her awhile to realize that it was because they had all the kids with them.   I think they look awesome with a bunch of little kids.

They will have beautiful babies.   

 Like mine!

 And maybe they will drag their beautiful babies all over the place even when they feel awful.

 It's a good work out for the parents, if nothing else.

 I felt like we were too close to pass up a chance to visit Moraine Lake, so we made one more stop before we headed to camp.  Right from the parking lot you can see an enormous rockpile that seems like it was put there intentionally for viewing purposes.

 It does its job well.

 Vivien had zero interest in climbing anything, and Haley was wearing the wrong shoes, so they sat down on the driftwood while Jacob and I scrambled up with the babies.

 Then we drove home, admiring the snowy peaks in the light of the sunset.  That night we set up camp with lightning speed and then ate Costco curry and naan by lantern light.

 Everyone slept really well and woke up happy, which was a blessing because we had a long drive ahead of us.

 Here was the view right outside the campground.

 We had to drive into Banff for me to connect to wifi at McDonalds because I needed to download one more map, then we were on our way!

 It took FOREVER.  One, because Canada is huge, but also because I had to stop at least every hour to change a diaper, and because the first 300 miles were on a busy, two-lane road under serious construction, winding through the never ending mountains that are on fire in half a dozen places.  There is a 4 lane road project in the works from Kamloops to Banff, and it will be much more pleasant when that's finished.  I kind of hated the Canadian Rockies by the time we got out of there.  We stopped for ice cream 3 hours from the border and then I told everyone to buckle up, because we were NOT STOPPING AGAIN until we got to the US.  It took us an hour to get through the line at the border, and then another 3 hours to get home, but one of those was on the ferry, so that wasn't as bad.

And that was our Canada adventure.  Haley and Jacob (or as Vivien calls them, Hake and Draley) are excellent adventure buddies, even when it is an adventure geared for little children.  They are very patient and fun, and I love them.  I think next time I attempt to go to that part of Canada, I will wait until my children are teens so I can finally do Crypt Lake (I was pregnant last time, and had "too much kids" this time), definitely bring Drew because we missed him too much, and spend way more time around Banff.  There is too much to see for a day!