This morning we drove into Lander to take a tour of Wyoming Catholic College. I had thought that we might as well see it while we were in the area as one of the kids may be interested in going there one day. It is a very small school (currently with about 150 students for the 2015-2016 year). It is also a very new school as it opened in 2007. They integrate a lot of outdoor activities in the curriculum (incoming freshman do a 3 week wilderness campout prior to the beginning of the term). We have heard great things about them from a South Carolina family we know well. Maybe this tour will lead to something for one of our kids one day.

After our tour, we picked up the camper and pulled out of Lander driving east. We will be home in less than two weeks now. It is hard to believe. We needed to do some grocery shopping, so we made a couple stops and then kept moving. It is a beautiful, warm day with bright blue skies. The kids are mostly in good spirits, although Amelia keeps falling apart on us over every little thing. She hasn’t been napping and is in desperate need of one.

Driving through Wyoming we see mostly just more empty high desert. For miles, we saw next to no houses. There are pronghorn antelope everywhere. We trained the kids early on in the trip to at least give a direction for what they were seeing, so we are hearing a great deal of, “Pronghorn on the right” or “Oil rig on the left.” The further east we get, we finally begin seeing a little more grasslands than just high desert. There are no trees. As we begin going north in Wyoming we see oil rigs, grasslands, a few ranches, lots of train tracks, and oil storage places. It isn’t completely flat here as there are plenty of hills, but it is so different from the forests of the East.

While driving north on Wyoming Hwy 59, we see a lot of trains full of coal. I’ve seen this a lot in West Virginia and southwestern Virginia, but I had no idea there was coal in Wyoming. When we turn onto Hwy 450, we see one sign regarding the Thunder Basin Coal Mine and another sign saying Thunder Basin National Grasslands. At first we are admiring the grasslands, but then we begin to see big piles of dirt around big holes in the ground – a coal mine. They are literally moving the soil to the side to dig down and get the coal out of the ground, surrounded by National Grasslands. It did make me wonder, when I am in a grasslands area with no trees, why they are digging coal out of the ground when they could have solar panels or wind turbines sitting on top of the ground, probably not doing the destruction to the earth that the mining for coal does (sorry for that crazy sentence – hope it makes sense).

While we are driving, the kids do a variety of things. Most like to read on their Kindles (or play cribbage on them). There ia always a lot of conversation going on. Nicholas is trying his hand at some drawing. Sometimes they are going through a book on North American wildlife that we have. They beg me often to read out loud, books or blog comments. Of course, they all like to irritate each other at times. Alex has been having fun playing tic-tac-toe on the Magna Doodle with Damien. Charlie, of course, is always driving. Ryon writes in his journal at times and is trying to finish up some of his schoolwork. Some of the younger ones like to color with their colored pencils in their tablets (and then dump their colored pencils all over the floor and leave their drawings on the floor to be trampled on the way out of the van to the bathroom). However, for the most part, I hear a lot of happiness and curiosity about the world around them. I thank God for these days with my family seeing our beautiful, diverse country. I know that I will always cherish these memories (and the fact that I wrote so many of them down). I am so blessed to have the family that I have – a wonderful, devoted husband, 10 fantastic children, generous parents and in-laws, and countless other family and friends who love and care for us! Thank you all!

Blessings,

Rebecca

We began our day in a WalMart parking lot in Riverton, Wyoming. We decided to drive to Lander, Wyoming for Mass at Holy Rosary Catholic Church. When we drove into the town of Lander, there was a sign giving the population at 7000 +. It was my turn to be at the back of the church with any loudmouths that we have. I always stay in the back of the church until just before Mass begins so that I’m not wasting any quiet time AnaClaire may give me by sitting in the church waiting for Mass to start. Anyway, as I was in the back of the church waiting, I was watching the people come in. I was utterly amazed at the number of people coming in. I finally asked the greeter whether this church served a wide area or if there were really that many Catholics in the area. She told me that there are a good many Catholics in the area. Of course, this is also where Wyoming Catholic College is located, so I knew there would be professors with their families living in the area. She also explained that many of the students from the early graduating classes have remained in the area and begun raising families, so their Catholic population is growing. I saw a lot of young families. The Mass was beautiful. What I heard of the homily was great – Charlie said it was probably in his top ten homilies he has ever heard.

After Mass, we drove to a nearby state park called Sinks Canyon. There was a beautiful rushing river, and we found a very inexpensive campground to stay in right beside the river. We dropped the camper off and left for a day of exploring.

The first thing that we did was drive to the nearby gravesite of Sacagawea. She was buried in a Native American cemetery that is still active. She was the Shoshone woman who travelled with her French trapper husband and baby with the Lewis and Clark expedition. She later settled with the Shoshone people in a nearby area. It was really amazing to see her grave, as well as some of the older graves there and very new ones.

After leaving there, Charlie and I remembered seeing a sign for St. Stephen’s Mission, so we decided to go see what that was all about. Just before we left, we discovered another Catholic mission that was close to the cemetery he had visited. When we arrived at St. Stephen’s, they were just getting ready for Mass so we were able to slip inside to see the church quickly before Mass began and then walk around the grounds a little. This had been a Jesuit mission church also.

Next we did a little grocery shopping and drove back to the campground to grill our burgers and hot dogs. This was only the second time that we have indulged in burgers and hot dogs, so they were a real treat. Charlie did such a good job cooking them. The kids played on the gigantic rocks for a while, and then we decided to go walk to the Wind River for a little bit. We were able to walk across the river on a swinging bridge. The kids loved it, but it made me a little nervous. We all made it over and back safely and decided not to hike too much more as it was getting to be dusk, and we really didn’t want to encounter some of the wildlife that might be out and about at that time of the evening.

After putting the kids to bed, Charlie and I went outside to see the stars. As the sky grew darker and darker, more and more stars were visible. It was magnificent! We didn’t have a huge sky to look at because we were camping in a canyon, but what we could see straight above us was a treat. It was such a beautifully clear night. We watched the stars for a while, pondering the beauty of God’s creations.

Blessings,

Rebecca

As we drove through Yellowstone on our way towards central Wyoming, we stopped beside the Gibbon River to stick our hands in the water and see exactly how warm or cold it felt. Although I wouldn’t call it warm, it was certainly warmer than you would normally think mountain-fed river water would be at close to 7000 feet in elevation. Ryon was one of the first down there and immediately found a small snake. He detests snakes, so he was not at all happy to have found this snake. It was a grayish color with at least 2 yellow stripes running the length of the snake.

I have enjoyed Yellowstone because it is so different than many other places on this earth. It is one of only 2 hotspots in the United States, the other being Steamboat Springs, Nevada. However, evidently, Steamboat Springs tapped into the thermal areas below the earth to generate electricity, so much of their thermal features have been depleted. The one thing that I haven’t enjoyed about Yellowstone is that 80% of their trees are Lodgepole Pines. The way God created them to reseed themselves after forest fires was fascinating, but they sure are boring to look at. They aren’t visually beautiful trees in the slightest. I was so glad yesterday to venture into Grand Teton because they had more trees than just Lodgepole Pines.

Also, I have to tell one story from yesterday. We drove most of the way through Grand Teton National Park and had decided to stop at the Visitors’ Center just before leaving the park so that we could attend a ranger talk for the kids. I was so disappointed because this was the place I was supposed to be able to see a moose, and I still hadn’t seen one. I had even said a small prayer asking God to let me get a good view of a moose. We finally made it to the Visitors’ Center and parked. When we walked up to the Visitors’ Center, we noticed several people looking at something in the woods. Sure enough, it was a moose – a bull moose. He was lying down though and partially obscured by the trees, so we couldn’t get a great view of him. Well, I was glad to have gotten a look at one anyway. The next thing I knew, he stood up and slowly began walking towards us. We stayed a safe distance, but I was so excited because I was able to get such a wonderful view of him. What a magnificent creature! God granted my request in an outstanding manner!

We decided to take the route that would take us back through Grand Teton National Park. We stopped again at the Visitors’ Center at Colter Bay, just for a bathroom stop. However, it seems like those stops are never “just a bathroom stop.” I walked into the gift shop to see some beadwork that a Shoshone woman was selling. Then Charlie told me about a Native American artifact exhibit that I missed seeing yesterday. Next, we decided to see the film that they were showing about the park. Probably an hour after we arrived, we finally left.

We took a beautiful highway out of the park: US 26 and US 287. We made it up to an almost alpine elevation of 9544 ft. The mountains were amazing. After we descended the mountains we were quickly back in high desert territory, but the next thing we knew there were beautiful buttes on one side of the highway with high desert on the other. The buttes changed colors from being red and white striped to stripes of yellow, white, and dark gray, and then to a deep red. The buttes continued to change color just astonishing us at how quickly the landscape changed. We followed the curvy Wind River for a ways. This was such a gorgeous drive. I have been so pleased at the US and other highways that we have taken. Some of the interstates have been nice, but I have always been impressed with the scenery that we have seen when we get off the beaten path. We have even seen a good deal of pronghorn deer migrating up towards the Grand Tetons.

      Blessings,

Rebecca

Nathanael, why didn’t you want to leave here?

It is just beautiful. I don’t feel like we were able to see it all. My favorite part was the geysers. Old Faithful explodes approximately every 80 to 90 minutes. It was very amazing and beautiful. I think they have guided tours that you can take of various areas of the park. That would be really cool to take one of those tours. It would be cool to do a pack ride through some parts of Yellowstone or even one of the old yellow bus tours. It would be cool to do some rafting tours around here too.

Written by Nicholas:

 Today we went to the Grand Tetons by going through Yellowstone and seeing lots of animals. We saw snow covered mountains, which were the Grand Tetons, also the youngest mountains in the U.S. They are still growing too. John Colter also visited this area.

We first went to a visitor center with picnic areas where we ate lunch. Then we went into the visitor center which was interesting and Alex, Annette, Isaac, Amelia, and Dominic got into the Junior Ranger program. The visitor center had a back porch overlooking a lake and the Grand Tetons. Dad took AnaClaire out onto the porch to move around. She was walking very well except that she kept on falling down. I wish AnaClaire would walk more and not fall down so much, but she gets right back up and tries again. We bought some postcards and then we left. Next we headed to the next visitor center. When we got there, we saw a moose which was really cool. He was big, brown, but his antlers were not very big because he was still growing them, I think. At the same time we were caught in a thunder storm, so we went into the visitor center. While the storm was going on we looked around and went to a Ranger led program in the visitor center. After they finished with the program, they all got their badges. Then we headed back to the campground for dinner and bed.

Nicholas, what do you like so much about Yellowstone?

This place is so cool! I really liked Old Faithful. It was really neat. Yellowstone is interesting because, unlike most volcanoes, it has 2 magma chambers instead of just one, making it more destructive. I also found it neat that there are thousands of hot springs, and 2/3 of the world’s geysers are found here in Yellowstone. Even though it is a supervolcano, it has no appearance of it. It just looks like a valley. The rivers, even though they are so far north, they aren’t going to be as cold because there are hot springs feeding into them. Old Faithful has an actual plumbing system. If it didn’t have the plumbing system, it would be just a hot spring. It has a special restriction in the plumbing that allows the pressure to build up. Geysers need four things: water, heat from magma, rhyolite, and silica. I also find it neat that there are so many trees in Yellowstone, and one day they are all going to be gone from Yellowstone for a long time because they will be buried or burned up from the lava and ash from the explosion of the supervolcano that is Yellowstone. The Lodgepole Pines here have reseeded themselves because the only way their seeds come out from the cones is when the glue in the cones is melted by fire. Much of Yellowstone burned in 1988, and many of those acres were naturally reseeded by Lodgepole Pines. The Yellowstone Canyon was cut by the Yellowstone River which eventually leads to the Missouri River. The yellow in the canyon comes from limestone, which is a soft rock allowing itself to be more easily carved by rivers and glaciers. The rim of the caldera is growing. The caldera was created by the volcano, after erupting, collapsing in on itself. The last major explosion at Yellowstone was 640,000 years ago. When Yellowstone last exploded it left 1000 cubic kilometers of ash. When Mt. St. Helens exploded in 1980, it only left 1 cubic kilometer of ash, much less than Yellowstone.

(This last part, I began typing out because Nicholas just began gushing forth information and what he loved about Yellowstone.  I just had to get it written down.  -Rebecca)

All of us at Old Faithful

Another day in Yellowstone. Getting a decent internet connection, even in our campground, is difficult, so I am having a hard time getting blog posts out. Not to mention, there is the fact that every time I try to type something while I am riding in the car, I’m scared I’m going to miss seeing a moose or some other spectacular piece of wildlife that you really have to keep an eye open for.

Our top item on the agenda today was Old Faithful. We went straight there this morning. When we arrived, we had just missed the eruption, so we were able to get some great seats on the benches for the next eruption, approximately 1 ½ hours later. I took kids into the Visitors’ Center there to, you guessed it, go to the gift shop, while Charlie and some others held seats. Eventually, we were rewarded with a magnificent site in the eruption of Old Faithful.

After lunch, we went for some scenic drives around the park in the high hopes that certain crabby children would take some good naps. Although some got a semi-decent nap, others who needed one refused to sleep the whole afternoon and by the time we got home we couldn’t wait to put that particular two year old to bed. He was crying over everything.

We kept hoping to go on a nice hike, but the sky looked as if it was going to open up with a huge thunderstorm at any point in time, so we opted to walk around the Fountain Paintpots as we wouldn’t be too far from the van should a storm begin. The colors were amazing, but most amazing was the bison that walked up out of a distant meadow to stand just beside a hot spring with fumaroles around him and be very close to us on the boardwalk. We kept a good eye on him and snapped lots of pictures.

We finally decided to head back to the campground a good bit earlier than we usually do. Our campground had an indoor pool, and the kids have been begging us to go swimming, so we took them swimming for a while. Then we went back to the camper for dinner. The kids pooled their money to rent a four person “quad cycle” thing and rode around the campground for a little while. Poor Damien melted into a pool of tears each time he had to let someone else have a turn. He was asleep within about 2 minutes of finally putting him into his pack n play. It was nice to have an evening of just play at the campground instead of being out doing stuff so late every evening.

Blessings,

Rebecca

Kids’ Corner:

Dominic, what did we do/see today (6/4/15)?

We saw bison. We saw Old Faithful. We saw elk. We go hiking. We saw geysers explode. Went and saw waterfalls. We go to a museum and buy “Stickers…Stories…Bugs

What was your favorite thing we did today?

My favorite thing we do today was see the bison. So… I saw a bison get really close.

Author: First Man on Mars

Dictated By: Dominic

 We finally pulled ourselves out of bed and drove back into Yellowstone. The kids have all been so excited about coming here because a man named John Colter is considered the first white man in Yellowstone. My grandmother Worley’s maiden name was Coulter. My Grandfather Worley thoroughly enjoyed genealogy as a hobby, so I asked him one time if John Colter was related to us. His response was, “Well, we like to claim him.” Needless to say, I have no idea if we are actually related to John Colter, but that has given us a personal connection to Yellowstone which has made it all the more interesting.

So, the first thing we decided to do was to go to a Visitors’ Center with an exhibit on the people who have been involved in the history of Yellowstone. It wasn’t actually our first stop, but it was a nice exhibit from which we learned a great deal. It had just a small part on John Colter (who has a very interesting life as he was part of the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery and was the only person given permission to leave the Corps of Discovery on its return trip so that he could go explore even more. I purchased a book about him and look forward to reading it, probably after my dad finishes it 😊.)

Our first good thermal views were of Mammoth Hot Springs. They were beautiful. We had a great time walking around the boardwalks and viewing the many hot springs and various colors that were made from different minerals in the earth. And oh the smell of sulfur, yuck. That rotten eggs smell wasn’t pleasant, but it was worth it to see the beauty.

We primarily spent the day driving around seeing the park and wildlife. We did stop at another Visitors’ Center to get a better understanding of the geology side of Yellowstone. They had great exhibits on the volcanic history of Yellowstone. I particularly loved one part where they had large cubes of ash. One cube was showing the amount of ash generated from Yellowstone’s eruption 2.4 million years ago. The next cube showed the ash generated from the eruption 1.2 million years ago, and the third cube showed the ash generated from the eruption 640,000 years ago. These cubes were different sizes but all relatively large (I am dismayed to discover that I have totally forgotten the numbers that were in my brain regarding this, so you won’t get the full effect unless you actually see this part of the exhibit). But the thing that amazed me the most was the 1 very small cube that represented Mt. St. Helen’s eruption in 1980. The amount of ash generated from Mt. St. Helens was miniscule compared to the ash generated from Yellowstone’s past eruptions. It does make you wonder the effects on the entire country and world if Yellowstone erupts again.

I have been excited about the wildlife that we have been able to see in Yellowstone. There are bison everywhere. We have seen several elk, and today we were able to see a black bear. I was even able to get a glimpse of a mother black bear and her two cubs, but they all quickly moved into the dense forest where we were unable to see them from a safe distance. I am still awaiting a moose. That has been the one thing I have wanted to see the most of this trip, and so far I have come up empty-handed. Of course, our visit here is not yet complete.

Just before heading back to the campground, we stopped to see a thermal area called Artist’s Paintpots. We saw hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots. The colors in some of these thermal areas were unbelievable. Unfortunately, my camera gave me no warning and the batteries died before we were able to get many pictures. (I did have spare batteries, but I had left them in the camera case in the car which would have been too far to walk back.) We really enjoyed seeing this area of the park.

As it was close to 9:00 when we made it back to West Yellowstone, we stopped at a local restaurant called Gusher for dinner. They had a special on all-you-can-eat spaghetti, so you can imagine what our big boys got. I did too, though I only had one plate. The littles enjoyed their pizza, and Charlie chose a hamburger patty. It was good food, and everyone went straight to bed when we got back to the camper.

Blessings,

Rebecca

Kids’ Corner:

Q:  Amelia, what has been your favorite stop so far?

A:  “The Grand Canyon.”

Q:  What did you do/see there?

A:  We played with my friends. Played on a playground. I played in the sand. Played in the back of the house. Played on the ground. Played games like “dolphin tails.” I bought things. Watched a movie. I ran on the concrete. I climbed trees. I fell. I saw about 30 elk I think. I saw a river at the park in the Grand Canyon. I saw butterflies. I saw trees, cars, airplanes, water, bags, rocks, cooler, and Noah. Everybody else built a fire. Us went to a beautiful Church. I saw a rainbow. We cooked lunch and breakfast on the fire.

Q:  What was the weather like?

A:  Weather was like cold. 1degree. It was sleeting, snowing, raining, misting, cloudy, and foggy.

Author: The First Man on Mars

Dictated By: Amelia

Note from Rebecca: I gave Ryon a hard time for embellishing so much on Isaac’s Kids’ Corner, so he wrote Amelia word for exact word. Kids…sometimes I don’t know what to do with them – just sigh, smile, and keep going.

Last night as we were driving into Butte, Montana, we noticed something white up on top of the mountains. I had seen something about Our Lady of the Rockies, so I looked it up and discovered that what we were seeing was a beautiful, 90 feet tall, white statue of a woman. The statue, sitting atop the continental divide, was completed in 1985, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and named Our Lady of the Rockies. The website says that the statue is nondenominational and is in honor of mothers. I started looking into how we could drive up there to take a good look at her, only to discover that it appears that you need to take a private tour bus to the top of the mountain, that it is a two hour drive, and that it costs $20 per person. Oh well. We certainly didn’t have that kind of time. We did stay in a WalMart where we could see her looking over us.

The next day was our drive to the Yellowstone area. We decided to approach Yellowstone from the west entrance. We went south on I-15 first and had the most bizarre experience. While we were going 60 mph down the interstate, we saw a man standing in the middle of our lane up ahead. We honked at him, and Charlie tried to change lanes. However, when we changed lanes, he just got in front of us in that lane too. Charlie finally slammed on his brakes, skidding some, and the man finally stepped out of the lane screaming at us in bad language that he needed a ride. Of course, we didn’t stop, but I felt bad for him, wondering what circumstances he could be experiencing to behave in such a manner. I said a prayer for him as we continued on our way.

We finally got off the interstate and made our way to Yellowstone along some highways. We were driving a lot in the high desert again. I had no idea how much of the West is desert! Whenever we saw any green grass, it was all irrigated. Anyway, we eventually came to an area where we were driving by the beautiful Madison River. I have been so surprised at how fast some of these rivers flow. They look like they would be so much fun to tube or whitewater raft down. Then we saw signs about a Visitors’ Center regarding earthquakes. Since we have studied a lot about earthquakes this year, we pulled in to see what it was all about. It turns out that there had been a major earthquake in that area in August 1959. The earthquake had caused a massive landslide that dammed the river and created Earthquake Lake. We had just been wondering why there were so many dead trees in the river, and I had theorized that something had happened that changed the course of the river. Well, that had been the earthquake. The region was devastated and the earthquake affected Yellowstone National Park too. 28 people were killed. It was amazing to see the landslide that created so many of the problems, and the Visitors’ Center had a wonderful exhibit and moving explaining everything that had happened. We have learned so much to add to our Earth Science this year from seeing volcanoes, canyons, mountains, and earthquakes up close.

After arriving in the town of West Yellowstone, we found a campground that we liked, unhooked the camper, and headed into the park. It was into the evening already, but I wanted to make sure that we received our park map and newspaper so that we could at least get back to the campground and decide what we wanted to do the next day. We drove a little further in and were rewarded by seeing a bison up close as well as bison herds across the river. We were even able to see several bison walk across the river, which the kids absolutely loved. We drove a little further and took a little scenic side road down into the Firehole River Canyon where we were able to see a waterfall from the road and find out the volcanic history of the cliffs around us. The canyon was beautiful! Back to the campground for dinner and bed.

We are so blessed to have these national parks. They are one of the things I believe most people would agree that our government has done right. What a treasure they are for the people of the United States, as well as those around the world. I have been truly amazed at how many foreign languages I have heard on this trip. I pray that many of you will be able to visit some of these gems, especially if they are close to where you live. 2016 is the 100^th anniversary of the National Park System, and during the 2015-2016 school year each family with a fourth grader can receive a free annual National Parks pass which will give them free entrance to any national park or national recreation site for a whole year. That is an $80 value. Get out there and enjoy this wonderful country that God blessed us with!

Blessings,

Rebecca

Kid’s Corner:

Isaac, what has been your favorite stop so far?

“The Beach on the Oregon Coast was my favorite.”

What did you do/see there?

The beach we went to is about 20-30min away from the town where The Goonies was filmed, which all the older kids were simply awed by. Some of my siblings and I got into the shallow water and splashed around as well as climbed on as many rocks as we could while the younger kids played in the sand. We also saw only but a million starfish laying around on rocks and in shallow water, then there were like a billion Sea Anemones sitting around where the tide had been only minutes before. It was so cool being able to touch all the different sea life and even just to see all of them. Nathanael supposedly found a whole sand-dollar, but the rest of us don’t believe him. Ryon found an old crab claw about 2-3 inches long which was about 1 ½ – 2 feet deep which he was able to fish out and show everybody. It was quite fragile and broke from Mom not being careful. There was one tidal pool that had shallow water with sand at the bottom that all us little kids thought was quicksand. All the older kids as well as Mom and Dad thought that that was rather funny. I accidently fell into it and I came out soaked and sandy. Ryon as always had to do something stupid, he climbed up at least 20ft on a cliff and then just stopped and looked around before being called down. I think it really was a stupid decision to climb up with sandals on and black sharp things which covered a whole five feet at the base of the cliff. I also climbed up on it but only at the base to cross over to a smaller beach on the other side where we saw several starfish, and where we also found the crab claw, as well as a bunch of Sea Anemones. It was so cool to be able to see waves hit the cliffs and send a spray of water everywhere. The waves were larger than many of the waves that come up on an average day on the East Coast. The waves were however large enough for a large number of surfers to show up, even in such cold water. Most of the beach to our surprise was actually sand while when you got up towards the top of the beach it was rocks. The beach itself was surrounded on either side by HUGE boulders just lying in bunches of hundreds. I think over all this has been quite a beautiful and majestic beach.

Author: The First Man on Mars

Narrated Ideas: Isaac

After yet another late night, we all slept in until 8:30. That is totally unheard of at home (at home, if you can get littles to sleep until 7:00, you’ve done something!). I ran another three loads of laundry while the kids had breakfast and everyone worked to close up the camper and prepare to move out. We left the campground a little after 11:00 and went into town for gas and caffeine for the adults. By the time we pulled out of town, it was almost noon and the kids were already talking of lunch!

We took a scenic drive by the eastern shore of Flathead Lake. On the way we spotted a new Catholic church named Pope John Paul II. Further down the road, I was reading aloud to the kids when all of a sudden, Charlie took a quick turn. I stopped reading to find out what was going on. He had spotted a sign about the St. Ignatius mission church. We were in the town of St. Ignatius, Montana. He pulled in front of a beautiful, red brick church. I got out to investigate and found that it was open. We all got out of the van to see what we would find.

There was a sign indicating the history of the church, and that Mass was still being said there on a weekly basis. We saw a gentleman doing some odd jobs around there, and he told us that we were welcome to go in. As soon as I stepped into the church, my eyes filled with tears. It was so beautiful! It was just as beautiful as any of the cathedrals I have ever been in, and I would go so far as to say that I felt that it was just as beautiful as the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. The kids old enough to appreciate such beauty were instantly awed. What a magnificent church built and decorated to give glory to our Lord!

We learned that this was another mission church established by the Jesuits for the area Salish and Kootenai tribes. However, not only was a church built here (the current church was actually church number 3), but pretty much a whole self-sustaining village. They had a hospital, a school, a home for the priests, a home for the Ursuline sisters who came here to work, a flour mill, a water tower, a garden, a cemetery. Most of the buildings have burned, but the priests’ and sisters’ residences still survive as well as the mill building. They have quite the museum of pictures of the priests and sisters working with the Native Americans. There was a very moving picture of a tribal chief in his full regalia sitting outside on a log with a priest having a discussion. In the church, there were gorgeous paintings of Our Lady and baby Jesus depicted as a Native Americans as well as another of Christ depicted as a Native American. I picked up a booklet explaining more of the history and look forward to reading it soon. What a treasure for the people of that area and for all who encounter it. I had no idea there was such a rich Catholic history in this part of the country (Of course, we have been doing so much side reading in our American history this year that we haven’t quite made it up to the Civil War timeframe, and this mission was established not long before that – so I may have been more educated if I had made it to this point in time with our study of history. I guess we will keep working on that next year.)

After we said goodbye to St. Ignatius Mission, Charlie mentioned that he had seen on a map there that there was a National Bison Preserve just down the road. So, we drove down the road just a minute or two when we saw a lookout for the Bison Preserve. We pulled in there too and were able to see some bison grazing in the distance. There were signs explaining that agreements between the state of Montana and the Kootenai and Salish tribes about building the highway we were on had been established so that the highway would not bisect the grazing lands all around it. Therefore, there are lots of underpasses around this highway so that animals can move back and forth from one side to the other and to hopefully lessen the probability of animals being killed by vehicles while trying to cross the road. It was nice to see evidence of something positive coming out of agreements between the state government and the Native Americans. While at Glacier, I had read so many stories of misunderstandings in agreements between the US government and the Native Americans. The Native Americans have been so taken advantage of that I have felt truly ashamed.

We finally got moving again and headed for another WalMart farther down the road. What a wonderful day! God is good all the time (even when I’m having a bad day), and all the time, God is good (a saying we learned from the movie “God’s Not Dead” – if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. It’s on Netfilx now.)

Blessings,

Rebecca

 

 
This morning we woke up and got ready for Mass. We drove into the town of Kalispell, Montana and went to the 9:30 Mass at St. Matthew Catholic Church. I didn’t find out the history of the church, but it was a beautiful church on the inside and the outside. A lady was playing the piano and cantoring. She did a lovely job. The priest was from Africa, I believe, and although he had an accent he spoke excellent English. We had a beautiful Mass and afterward took the kids to a local restaurant for brunch.

Next, it was time to head back to Glacier National Park. After changing our clothes, we decided to drive up into the western side of the park that I believe isn’t quite as popular. We had a lovely drive through an area of burned forest that had become more like meadows. In one area we saw probably a dozen deer grazing. Some of the area that we were driving in took us just to the outskirts of the park where several homesteads were established. There is no electricity run to this part of Montana (around 30 miles south of the Canadian border), so all of these homesteads were off the electrical grid. We saw lots of solar panels, but there may certainly have been some people up there not using electricity at all. This kind of lifestyle always intrigues me as I have had a desire to be a pioneer living on the frontier for a long time. Charlie and I would love to one day have some solar panels generating most, if not all, of our electricity.

Due to my adventuresome spirit, I had Charlie take a narrow dirt road to Bowman Lake in the park. This was only supposed to be a 6 mile drive, but it took us at least 20 minutes to get to the lake. When we got there, everyone jumped out for a trip to the local pit toilet. Charlie got out and left the van door wide open. Soon after, I noticed giant, bird-sized (at least they seemed bird-sized!) mosquitos flying into the van. I quickly ran around and closed his door and rolled up the window. They were everywhere while we were up at that lake. I know that mosquitos love water, but we have been around a lot of lakes at Glacier and haven’t seen any mosquito problems until now. Believe it or not, this was really our first encounter with mosquitos on this entire trip. We haven’t opened up a single bottle of bug spray yet. Due to the mosquitos and needing to get back to the camper to do laundry, we only drove by the lake and took a few pictures instead of getting out for a hike. The way back down that road didn’t take as long because we didn’t encounter any other vehicles heading toward the lake that we needed to pull over for.

On our way back we stopped into a local store/restaurant/tavern called Home Ranch Bottoms that was selling Huckleberry ice cream. This was one of those locations that was off-grid, so I enjoyed seeing some of their set-up. The couple that owned the place was really nice. He explained how labor-intensive picking huckleberries is. Evidently they are so small that it can take 4 hours to pick one gallon. That is so much worse than picking blueberries! Anyway, the kids loved the huckleberry ice cream! Silly me didn’t take any pictures of that experience!

 

 
Back at the campground (we were staying at a really nice place in Kalispell called Spruce Park on the River: RV Park and Campground), the hostess was so nice to keep the laundry open for me a little later than she would normally have had it open. I managed to get 5 loads of laundry completed. The kids pitched in to clean up the camper and van. Charlie made dinner, and then they settled down for a Wilderness Family movie (the grizzly bear and mountain lion scenes don’t seem to have scared anyone away from hiking in areas where grizzlies and mountain lions live – thank God!). Charlie and I took a beautiful walk along the Flathead River there at the campground and were even able to watch the moon glowing on the river. What a blessing! How beautiful it was!

Blessings,

Rebecca

PS: I’m starting a new segment: Kids’ corner, especially for things that non-writers want to say.

Kids’ Corner

In the last week, tell me about something you saw and enjoyed.

Annette: My favorite thing was going to that church, St. Matthew. The church was really beautiful. The huckleberry ice cream was REALLY good. At the Old Mission Church in Idaho, I liked the circle part in the middle of the top of the church that had the letters IHS on it. It made the church look really pretty. In the church there was this old confessional where two people could go in on the sides and the priest could be in the middle. There was a person on one side of the priest and another person on the other side of the priest. The priest would hear one confession at a time. While he was hearing one, the other sliding screen to the other side is closed. When he finishes hearing one, he closes that screen and then turns to the other side and opens the screen to hear the other.

Our intention today was to get up and head out nice and early, but we all slept in to almost 8:00. We finally got everyone into the van and started driving back to Glacier. We made it about 15 minutes away from the campground when we realized that no one had grabbed the breakfast food for the kids (we were going to eat breakfast in the car to save us time this morning). I let everyone know that it wasn’t a big deal – we would just stop at a grocery store and pick up something. Probably two hours later we still hadn’t found a grocery store. We did finally find a gas station, so I ran in there and bought peanut butter crackers and pretzels for everyone. We had wanted to get an early start because we wanted to get to the eastern side of the park and hopefully see some wildlife over there. Several of us really wanted to see moose, and a ranger had told us that we had the best chance of viewing moose on the eastern side of the park.

After a 3 ½ hour drive we finally made it to a Visitors’ Center where the kids were able to buy their postcards and such. Then we drove to the Many Glaciers entrance to the park for some wildlife viewing (hopefully) and some more hiking as the weather had cleared up from the very rainy morning that we had started with. We did another wonderful hike to the Redrock Waterfall and got off the trail just in time to avoid the brewing thunderstorm.   We made another quick stop for some of the older kids to stick their feet in one of the lakes up there, but they came whooping and hollering back about how cold the water was. Unfortunately, the only wildlife we saw were a couple deer on the trail and about 4 horses that we encountered hanging out in the middle of the road. We wondered if they were wild, but they had brands. We had noticed signs to watch for ranging cattle and had crossed cattle guards going into the national park, so we figured there were just free-ranging horses too.

I did ask a ranger about the purple and green rocks that I had seen. She explained that they were argillite. There is a small amount of iron in their makeup. If oxygen was present when the rocks formed, then they took on a red color (or reddish-purple in my opinion). The lack of oxygen present at a rock’s formation created a green color. Anyhow, they are beautiful. She also explained that the rivers were a beautiful green color and the lakes a beautiful blue because the water came from the glaciers, and as the glaciers move they have ground some of those colorful rocks up so finely that the rock particles end up in the lakes and rivers giving them beautiful colors.

After we finished our hike, we drove up to the Canadian border. We were only about 15 minutes or so away from it. As I have never driven out of this country, it was very different to see signs that said, “Leaving the USA”. Of course, none of us has valid passports anymore, so we couldn’t venture across the border, but the kids really liked the idea that they could look down the road into Canada.

The kids have been busy working on their Jr. Ranger booklets again, so tomorrow we shall go back to Glacier so that they can turn the booklets in and get their badges. Tonight we decided to try someplace local for dinner on our way back from the eastern side of Glacier. We stopped at a place called Elk Grill. I have been wanting to try elk, moose, or something of the sort, so I ended up ordering a Bison chopped steak with mushrooms and onions. Boy was that good! Ryon also was adventuresome with his food choice, so he tried an Elk burger and enjoyed that also. Charlie doesn’t step out of his comfort zone in terms of his food choices very often, so he settled on a grilled sirloin steak, but he did try a bite of my bison.

What a beautiful country we are blessed to live in! Glacier National Park is only one of the many treasures that the United States has to offer. However, I have also experienced over and over on this trip that our most important treasure this country has to offer are the wonderful people who live here. We have been so blessed by all of you, our friends and family, as well as by the many people we have met on our journeys. Thank you for the blessings that you are to our lives!

Blessings,

Rebecca