Leaving the Country Again

In our post Natural Wonders we noted Yellowstone National Park as the capstone of our park visits to date. The wildlife and scenery amazed even the two of us who had previously visited Yellowstone. Before leaving, we hopped into the "boiling river" where the natural underground runoff from Mammoth Hot Springs merges with the cold water of the Gardner River. We were able to adjust the temperature of our bathing by moving a few inches left or right. I liked it best somewhere around 100 degrees.

Leaving Wyoming, we drove to Montana's Glacier National Park with cameras still clicking away at great wildlife and panoramas. We marveled at the work of the CCC as the park shuttle took us to the top of the incomparable Going-to-the-Sun Road where we disembarked to hike the Highline Trail.

Along that hike, we encountered big horn sheep and mountain goats.

We had heard from a few friends that a trip to Glacier isn't complete without visiting the other half of what is an International Peace Park. Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park borders America's Glacier National Park. So we checked the dates on our passports and once again left our native land, this time to see what beauty Canada had to offer.

The lakes gave a different look to the mountains than our vantage from the U.S. side had. The boys struggled to grasp the idea that the mountains rising up from the Canadian lake they were swimming in were actually in the United States.

Waterton also gave us the best bear viewing to date.

Add a bike ride and a dip in a freezing river, and that wrapped up our visit to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

But before returning to the States, we figured we might as well check out a couple more Canadian parks. Though it might be hard to believe the scenery gets better. We'll save that for our next post. . . .