Up at 6:30 to pack up the car and drive the 8.5 hours to Glacier National Park. It rained a little last night, keeping it oddly warmer in the tent. We’ve been blessed with very little rain on this trip.
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| All the wildlife we killed in Yellowstone |
After very serious grilling, the kids received their Jr. Ranger badges at the West Yellowstone Visitor Center on the way out of the park. It was dicey for a few moments there.
Driving Interlude
I talked to my sister, Gayle, on the phone yesterday. She said she loved reading the blog and wished she had taken us up on our offer for her family to come with us on this adventure. She said we make camping look glamorous. The point of the blog, I suppose, is to record the highlights. There have been occasional lowlights. For example...
It takes 2 hours to either set up camp or dismantle it. The kids do not help at all. And if they ask to help, then it becomes ‘help’ in quotes. While setting up/taking down camp, the kids
a. yell at each other at 6:30 am, waking up all the other campers.
b. become so dirty that you are more inclined to throw away the clothes instead of wash them.
c. require nourishment, individually, every 15 minutes.
d. have to go to the bathroom, individually, every 15 minutes.
e. all of the above.
It also takes 2 hours to shower and do a load of laundry. It’s such a waste of time – not to mention often complicated and expensive – when there is so much to see that we only do it every 2-3 days. As the showers become less frequent, so do the hugs and cuddles.
The inability to get away from each other for 2 weeks has consequences like punching, sulking, tattling, anger-flares, and storm-offs. And that’s not just the kids.
Sometimes, the bathrooms have no soap or hand sanitizer. This was the case at the campground bathroom at Grand Tetons. So every time we washed hands, we were just spreading the germs around.
The Keens and the feet that were in them really smell bad after 3 days of use and no shower, an unfortunate side effect when you have to sleep in a tent with those feet. The alternative is to wear them with socks, making the socks black instead of white.
Gas and groceries in the wilderness are absurdly expensive. It’s like being in Hawaii in the forest. A 12-pack of instant oatmeal costs $7.04 and low octane gas is $4.09/gal.
Campground life can be a smoky blend of cottonwood, aspen, and pot. Like living in a dorm, you occasionally have to sleep through rousing games of Spit, lots of giggling and beer-soaked conversations about whose canoe is the biggest and more river-worthy.
Finally, when in the car, you are completely surrounded. There are 5 of us in the minivan. While we can leave our tent, sleeping bags, clothes and chairs at the campground, everything else comes with us on every excursion due to the bears. At Grand Tetons, we were fortunate enough to have a bear box in which to store the stove and cooking supplies, but not so at Yellowstone. So that means all the food, coolers, art supplies, books, etc. are with us at all times. I have arranged and re-arranged the car at every stop.
Despite all this, we are actually having a great time. This is certainly a trip to remember.
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