We are in Glacier! Very exciting to be here as this is the furthers north we will make on this trip as we are trying to avoid snow and freezing temps. Hoping the kids will be done with school work early so we have some time to explore today and tomorrow, I know we’ll make it a full day Saturday.
Well, so much for hoping. Today was one of the toughest virtual school days we’ve had. Bella was just complaining, not doing work, messing around, not reading the work and just guessing to be done, asking for help but without even trying first. She definitely pushed me, and tested my patience.
Bia was doing ok, just complaining here and there that she had too much work to do, but was doing it, trying at least. But Bella, not so much, she just wanted us to read everything for her, then she guessed answers, or didn’t want to even try. I showed Bella what she all needed to do and went for a run around 10.
We are at a campground called West Glacier RV Park, which is 2 miles from the Glacier National Park entrance, so I decided I’d run that direction and go into the park.
Lake McDonald is pretty close to the entrance, so my goal was to get to the lake, take some pics and come back. That was a nice run, one of the nicest in a long time. Road had a little shoulder I could run on, almost no traffic, and the amazing views of being in the middle of the mountains.
Once I got in the park, it was even nicer, windy roads, lots of trees, fall colors everywhere. I eventually took a trail within the park to get to the lake, quick trail, maybe half a mile.
And then, there it was, that is an amazing sight to see. The lake water is clear, and with no wind it was like glass, reflecting the mountains behind it, awesome view and picture opportunity.
I enjoyed that view for a few minutes, walked around the stones that made up the beach in that area, and left to run back.
Run back was the same path, and I just took the opportunity to take a picture by the Welcome to Glacier National Park sign. It was a nice 5.5 mile run.
I got back and Bella was outside playing (or messing around), and while I was gone for an hour, she had only completed a one page activity. I got her restarted on work outside, and helped Bia with her PE class tennis assessment.
They both had the same tennis assessment for PE, which was to record them bouncing a ball up as many times as they could, then striking a ball towards me (or over a net) as many times as they could without missing.
We had asked the teacher if there was an alternative to this activity since we didn’t bring any tennis equipment, but she said there was not, and we should use any object to strike any type of ball. So, we looked around and realized we had a mosquito zapper which is in the shape of a racket, and Carol had a small foam ball she uses for stretching and massaging under her foot (she steps on it and rolls her foot), and that’s what we used.
I had recorded Bella already, and after I came back I recorded Bia. They both did great, and reminded me that they took tennis lessons for two summers in a row, so they were quite good. Bia kept playing as her break, and I continued helping Bella. Little blue flies came out again, and as the quantity of them grew, we decided to move Bella back inside.
Well, she continued to do her thing for the day, ask for help, not try, then guess the answers wrong… very frustrating. I was getting mad. I took another break from this to shower, and then we stopped them to have lunch. We cleaned up the table from school work, and we all sat to eat. I started asking them about how they feel doing school work is going, what is frustrating to them, what is hard, what we can do to make it better, etc. And we talked about what is not working for us too.
Bia gets it, she just gets frustrated when there’s too much work, or the class is moving fast and she didn’t understand. Bella knows what to do, but she messes around sometimes and is not paying attention to what the teacher is doing in the live class, then has a hard time doing the work, and just makes it worse by asking us to help and almost do her work.
After lunch, Bia just went to get her work done, and moved her computer to our bed, closed the doors and focused on getting it done, and she did. Within an hour she was done, and outside riding her bike around the campground.
Bella stayed inside with me. I told Bella she had used all the help from me she had for the day, so she’d have to find the answers on her own, read the book again if needed, etc. I’d only help one or two more times, help her find where the answers were so she knew how to look on her own. We had one more little situation after lunch, but she finally got going, did her work, looked for answers, re-read what was needed, and got done. She was done around 3pm, so they are both all caught up.
I gotta say, dealing with the non stop asking for help, guessing of answers, complaining about work and such, is very tiring and frustrating. Now that they were both done, they were playing outside. Carol was taking a nap since some time after lunch, so I just went outside and sat there and caught up on some emails and social media. Not much after this Carol woke up, got some snacks ready, and we left around 5pm to check out Glacier National Park.
I decided we’d just drive as far as we could to kind of scope around the area, and my goal was to get to Logan Pass at least. We drove in, and stopped at the first stop to see Lake McDonald, and Carol and the girls were amazed.
If the park had ended there, it was enough to say it was really pretty, and we’d be back for trails and maybe kayaking there. But, that’s just the beginning! We stopped very few times, so one more stop by the lake, and we kept going.
The road basically turns and starts going up into the mountains, and soon enough you’re driving on the side of the mountain.
And the views get more and more amazing as you get higher and higher, reaching 10,000 feet in some points.
You get so high up in the mountains, with so many around, and valleys and water falls, and the sun setting, it’s just breathtaking, unbelievably amazing. This is one of the most amazing views I’ve ever seen, and I don’t think there’s a way to not feel this happiness in you when’re you’re up there. This feeling of thankfulness, as you look at this majestic sight.
We zigzagged on the side of the mountains going up to Logan Pass, enjoyed all the amazing views and kept going for another 15 minutes. We stopped by a lake lookout and had some sandwiches quick before we turned around, I didn’t want to be in the park in complete darkness and we wanted to try to catch the sun still setting by the lake by the entrance.
We started driving back, and I was going as fast as I could while being safe, so around 40-45mph max… then suddenly I saw a black animal move on the shoulder at one point, and I stopped as fast as I could. There were no cars behind me or ahead, so I reversed quickly. Carol was kind of freaking out not knowing what I had seen, so I told her I saw an animal and for her to look, and there it was…. It was a black bear! And I had seen the cub near the road, but the other cubs and the momma bear were just up the mountain.
That was cool, we finally got to see the bears. We stayed there while they moved around, and until we almost could not see them. That was something special. Carol was so happy we finally got to see bears, and the girls were super excited.
We continued driving and enjoying the amazing views. By time we were back by Lake McDonald, the sun had already set behind the mountain, so we could not see the yellow shades on the water, which is what Carol wanted, so we kept going.
The way back didn’t have any more awesome surprises aside from the views, but we were going fast. After we got back, we got everyone ready for bed, kids read their books and were playing a bit on electronics. We got them to sleep around 9 so they can rest up for tomorrow, hoping we can have extra time and maybe do some walks by the park. Tough school day, amazing end with the park.