Just Like an Old-Fashioned Slide Show...

Remember the good ol' days, when you would go to someone's house and they would break out the slide projector and show slides of their vacation? This is sort of like that. Only you're not at my house and you don't have to sit through this if you don't want to.

Anyway, this was our epic trip. Just a few shots from each place. 3650 miles, 14 days and a whole bunch of fun. We even had a family theme song, which we'd play each time we'd get into the vehicle. "Oh, Happiness" by the David Crowder band.

Here goes - we started in Medora, North Dakota at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Beautiful badlands of North Dakota. We all enjoyed it.


From there we drove to Big Sky, Montana (which you will see in a bit), but we took a day trip to Yellowstone in Wyoming.
We saw hot pools and mud pots and smelled more sulphur than we cared to.

Geysers...

Wildlife...

And a very pretty waterfall.

Mineral deposits ended out our trip to Yellowstone.

In Big Sky, the three bravest members of the family prepared to do the 3 zip-lines.

Jake.

Mags.

Scott.

Our resort was beautiful.

And another waterfall. Then it was time to drive north to Glacier National Park in Montana.

Another waterfall. We fjorded this river and walked over to the waterfall. That water is about 40 degrees. I really thought my legs were going to fall off and a few tears squeezed out of my eyes while I was being brave. It HURT.

We took a boat across Two Medicine Lake to do some hiking....

Fjorded another river....

And saw some more waterfalls.

Drove by a bear.

And ran into a mountain goat,

and some big horn sheep in a parking lot.

Saw more beautiful mountain lakes.

And went sledding on garbage bags, of course.

Jake got a little road rash on his behind, because what you don't see just below him, is pavement. And of course, he didn't just stop at the end of the snow, he kept going. Laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. And then we packed up and headed north yet again, to Banff, Alberta, Canada.

This was my favorite spot - Lake Louise. The color of the lake is the most amazing thing I've seen. It was beautiful.

We also took a gondola ride to the top of some mountains there. And did some other things, hiking, shopping, swimming.

And then we got back in the car, played "Oh, Happiness..." and drove away. For hours and hours.

We had a blast - the kids did great and we got to listen to "Where the Red Fern Grows," "Anne of Green Gables," and several of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. That made the time in the car fly.

We're already talking about what to do next year. (But we may fly.)