We woke up early today and checked out of St. Mary Village. The night before I had noticed a cafe nearby that had nutella croissants. Brooke had her first one in Sicily last year and has talked about them several times since then. So, in the morning I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and Jaclyn/Brooke split the world’s largest nutella crossaint.
We were on Going to the Sun Road (the main road through Glacier) by 8:30. We got to see all of the breathtaking views that we had seen the previous day so that was a bonus, not a bad road to do twice! This time we stopped a little less because our goal was to arrive at Trail of the Cedars as early as possible to hopefully snag a parking spot.
It was about an hour-long car ride to get there and we got really lucky when a nice couple was leaving and let us take their spot. They even denied it to a person in front of us just so we could get it! The woman (passenger) got out of her car while her husband was backing out of the spot and wagged her finger at the other driver to signal that he wasn’t “allowed” to park in the spot they were leaving from. We were laughing, but thankful they chose us for some reason!
We got packed up to hike (for the last time). Unfortunately, Beckett was not in a mood to hike at all. Luckily, we were hiking a very easy trail that consisted of either flat dirt paths or boardwalks. So, we unloaded our umbrella stroller from the cargo box which had traveled 6,000 miles with us and was yet to be used! It saved the day and Beckett was very happy with the stroller and a snack.
As we walked through Trail of the Cedars it was a strange mix of our trip so far. The cedar trees were massive and over 1,000 years old (like the Redwoods) but then there were also areas where trees had moss growing all over them (like the Hoh rainforest). We meandered through the trail for an hour or two and we ended with the kids finding a stream and throwing rocks into it. Jaclyn and I think this might be the only reason the kids hike, they will throw rocks into water for as long as you let them.
After we finished the trail we left and drove a short ways to Apgar which is just outside the west entrance to Glacier National Park. We stopped in the Apgar Nature Center (which Jaclyn had previously found online and thought the kids would enjoy). The kids learned about the different animals in the area, put on a puppet show, made (sand) glaciers and played around with the various other things in the nature center.
Since we had a little extra time we decided to have our lunch on the beach of Lake McDonald which just happened to be right next to the Apgar Nature Center and had gorgeous views with Glacier as the backdrop. This was our last outdoorsy thing on our trip so we were sad to go and say goodbye to the all the mountains, hikes, lakes, rivers etc that we had experienced over the last 2.5 weeks.
Although our outdoor adventures were over we still had one adventure left. For those of you who don’t know, prior to the trip we actually bought Jaclyn a new car in Missoula, MT. This was pretty much a pure coincidence that the exact vehicle Jaclyn was looking for was for sale in Missoula and they had the best price. Originally, we were going to ship it back but we decided why not see if we could pick it up ourselves since we would be in Glacier in July.
Ironically, the exact vehicle Jaclyn was looking for was the exact vehicle Jaclyn had, just a few years newer. Unfortunately, she had a tree fall on her car earlier this year and that started a sequence of events where we decided it was probably best to get rid of this car. But she loved the car so we decided to just get a new one.
So, we drove down to Missoula to do the swap. We stopped by the hotel quick and unloaded as much as possible from Jaclyn’s old car. Then we snuck in a quick dinner for everyone and went to the dealership.
In the 90 degree blazing sun we moved all of the remaining items from one vehicle to the other. This definitely took some time and was highlighted by the need to remove the cargo box and roof rails and re-install them on the new vehicle. We had hoped maybe a nice Montanian would be nearby to help us lift the cargo box onto the new car but we had to settle for Jaclyn standing on our cooler to lift up the cargo box.
Everything went smoothly but we forgot to bring one of the head-rests that came with the car (we took it off to accommodate Brooke’s booster seat), we couldn’t get one of Jaclyn’s license plates off and we forgot to look at the odometer for our trip mileage! I reached out to the salesperson to hopefully help with the last two things…
Jaclyn drove her new car to the hotel and instituted the “no eating messy food in the car” rule. We arrived at the hotel to a room that was littered with our trip stuff everywhere. Jaclyn and the kids would be flying out of Missoula at 8am in the morning so our task was to somehow pack it all up and make sure that Jaclyn had everything they needed for home. This was difficult being in a hotel room with two sleeping kids. So Jaclyn and I were essentially trapped to the bathroom area where we could talk/turn on lights.
As we were packing up in the bathroom, around 10:30pm, I saw a notification on Jaclyn’s phone from American Airlines that the flight had been canceled. At first, Jaclyn didn’t believe me and thought I was playing a trick on her. Unfortunately, it was true and we needed another plan.
I spent the next two hours online researching different ways to get home (flying out of Missoula, Bozeman, Great Falls, flying to Boston, Manchester, Portsmouth, Portland). I tried manually creating different flights between two carriers but nothing great existed. So, we bit the bullet and purchased more expensive flights from Bozeman -> Boston. This was great that it was only one flight but it meant we had to get on the road early and drive 3 hours to Bozeman. The family road trip continues!
Jaclyn continued to pack everything up as I looked at the flights. Our room was so packed with bags and stuff that we literally couldn’t even open the door to leave the room!
Around 12:30 I went to bed and couldn’t sleep as I thought about…how do we feed the kids breakfast without wasting time if we can’t eat in Jaclyn’s new car…is Beckett going to get car sick on the road to Bozeman (he seemed to get car sick for the first time on the drive to Missoula)…is there a time change between Missoula and Bozeman etc.
Eventually I fell asleep….
-Jay
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