Extended Vacations Rock..part 3

Are y'all sick of my extended vacation pictures? OK GREAT! Me either! ;) No but seriously I do have LOADS of pictures to share and I do feel it is my duty if not my responsibility to share, (it would be unfair to all the lovely mountains that I took a bazillion pictures of to not share their majesty and grandeur...am I right?)...

O CANADA!!!!

Canada, specifically southern Alberta has always held a special spot in my heart.

My Dad is from there, a little tiny and I mean little tiny town called Welling. 

We'd go there as kids during the summer, I always loved driving through Idaho and Montana, the scenery was pretty great, but I think I liked the spirit of adventure on each trip we took to Canada.

Nothing dramatic or grand ever happened (much to my chagrin), although there were those times when my Dad would get pulled over for speeding in Montana. Come to think of it, I think it was EVERY. SINGLE. TRIP. But it was grand in my mind. The wide open prairie around my grandparents house, the giant white moon that would rise in the evening, the grass rolling in the breeze, and the yellow fields of mustard or clover or hay as far as the eye could see, the deer that would come right in their backyard every morning, my grandma's delicious and I mean delicious meals. Nothing extravagant, just basic good home cooking. I learned to love beets at my grandma's and grandpa's. My Dad let us drive on the dirt roads around my grandparents house, we got to ride in a combine, ride horses, swim in a creek with an actual real life beaver dam. My grandma would boss my grandpa around and say things like, "Roy, Kelli would like some popcorn, go make her some popcorn." (even though I never mentioned I wanted popcorn) Or "Roy, slow down, you're driving too fast." "Roy, do this or do that..."  One day he brought home a brand new shiny Buick and Mildred (my grandmother) made him take it right back. Poor Roy. And even though he was bossed around quite a bit, he would happily go about whatever he was told to do. Often humming an old song or whistling while he worked. He was a quiet man, who knew just about everything about everything. And had the funniest sense of humor the best part was because he was so quiet you didn't expect it from him, that and he'd laugh and laugh at his own jokes.  He was a farmer and always wore blue jean overalls with a tan button down work shirt  and  black dressy shoes (he had a high in step and couldn't wear boots). :) My grandparents house was small, and it had pink and blue kitchen cabinets. And green shag carpeting. And a black and white TV in the 2nd of two rooms. It didn't have a shower only a tub that was pink. My grandmother was a farm girl, lived her whole life around farming. And was quite refined and smart, she too had a funny sense of humor and when she wasn't bossing Roy around was bossing everyone else around. She was so generous and would love to take me shopping and buy me whatever I wanted. She was never in great health (at least for my whole life) and always a little frail, I never wanted to hug her too tight because I was afraid her bones would just snap. She was a tough cookie though. And she loved my grandpa to pieces. And he her.

I sure do love them and I didn't really realize how much I miss them until now, I'm grateful for those happy memories though..

With those happy memories close to my heart and on my mind, I was so excited to go back. I planned, and planned and planned our trip many, many months in advance. We secured our passports, we made hotel reservations we mapped out where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. I stressed and worried about it and was so relieved when it was finally time to leave..

We left sort of early on Saturday morning (Alex's birthday) with our trusted rented mini-van we hit the road, Jack.

 Aaaaahhhhhh, mountains! Don't they look velvety and soft?

 
 Somewhere in Idaho or Montana..

 We ate our picnic dinner overlooking Flathead Lake near Kalispell Montana, it was absolutely gorgeous!

These two were great little road trippers. They did SO great! I think they love adventures..

After stopping and staying overnight in Kalispell, we headed up to Glacier National Park, which I'm certain is a piece of Heaven on earth.

It was a bit cool and rainy that day.

We were really hoping that the pass would be open so we could go all the way through Glacier on the famous "Going to the Sun Road" but we were only allowed to go in about 16 miles and then had to turn around and come back, cuz the pass was full of snow. Darn! What we did see of Glacier was amazing!

 These pictures I think, were taken somewhere near Baab Montana, near the Canadian Border.

 Cows!

 We made it!!

 First stop, Waterton!! Waterton is one of my favorite places ever! It's small and quaint and a
little bit touristy but not too much. And the scenery is amazing! It's the Canadian side of Glacier, we stayed for 2 days in Waterton and loved every second.

Love me some Caramilk!!!!

 Beautiful Waterton Lake

 Deer!

 Cameron Falls

 This is heading up to Cameron Lake.

 Cameron Lake, so many tourists but that view can't be beat!

 Pa-pa enjoying the view

This picture just doesn't do the view justice! It was absolutely gorgeous!

 This is Old Chief (above), although I believe the actual name is something else, but that's what my Grandparents called it and my Dad and probably all of the other locals. According to my Dad my Grandpa hiked to the top (when he was a young man). And on a clear day you can see it from my grandparents old house.

There's tons of hiking to do in Waterton, I can only imagine the view you'd get on some of those hikes. We prefer the drive by tourist method, drive by, slow down, snap a photo, keeping driving...That was our M.O. throughout this trip. The one good thing about that is, you don't have to worry too much about getting to up close and personal with the wildlife, particularly the bears.

Speaking of...Check out this cute encounter with the wildlife.

That little squirrel just came right up to the kids..They thought that was pretty darn cool, especially Abby. She probably would've shoved the thing in her sweatshirt and brought it all the way back to Texas if we'd let her.

Speaking of Bears...Can't tell you how excited I was to see some bears in person, from the relative safety of the car of course. We saw another bear walking behind the car but I didn't get a picture of it, I was so excited to see them that I could "bearly" contain myself (thank you, I'm here all week), let alone get a picture.

You can see how the cub stood on his hind legs and looked around...

 We rode the boat to Montana and back..It was freezing cold that morning, Abby, Papa and I started above deck but Abby and I wimped out and had to go below deck.

 The Prince of Wales Hotel...Isn't it cool?

  Here we are on the Montana side of the lake.

 That's the boat we rode...No, they didn't leave us behind. :)

This is red rock canyon, for obvious reasons.

 You can see the different layers of colors going on here. Pretty cool!

 This is the view from the Prince of Wales Hotel

 The town of Waterton is just on the right.

 Cool, right?!

 More Cameron Falls

The next leg of our trip took us to Cardston, Welling, McGrath, Lethbridge...Part 4 coming up!