Going to the Sun

On Saturday, after another scrumptious breakfast from our B&B, we checked out and took off driving. The plan for the day was to drive across the famous Going to the Sun Road (henceforth referred to as GTTSR), doing a couple of hikes along the way. Then, we'd head up to Canada where we'd spend the night.

In case you haven't heard of the famous GTTSR, I shall explain. Back in the 20's, the National Park Service decided to build a 50 mile road straight across the interior of Glacier National Park, winding up around mountain passes and back down as it traverses east to west. It was quite the engineering feat for that time (and still, really), and it continues to be a major feat each year to get the road plowed for the tourist season. (The plows have to deal with up to 80 feet of snow on that road!!) In fact, this year, they only finished plowing it a couple of days before we drove it, because of a series of snowstorms that came in May.

I was very glad that it was open, and also that we had fantastic weather that day and could enjoy the whole thing with the roof down in the convertible. (Well, except for the "Weeping Wall" where we opted to put it back up briefly...) The whole thing was...hmm, words fail me. Spectacular? Awe-inspiring? Unforgettable? Check, check, and check. The most beautiful drive I've ever been on? Yes, I think so!

About half way across, we stopped at Logan Pass, which is also the highest point on the road (well, actually we stopped lots of times before that for pictures, but this was the first "real" stop). I had plans to hike the short (3 mi round trip, if I remember correctly) trail to Hidden Lake, which everyone says is a not-to-be-missed hike full of alpine meadows brimming with flowers, spectacular mountain scenery, and a gorgeous lake at the end.

The only problem? Logan Pass was still covered by about 5 feet of snow! Not to be deterred, we decided to snowshoe it. (Our awesome B&B host lent us a bunch of equipment, including snowshoes, crampons, and hiking poles. Thanks, Mark!)

I was excited because I've always wanted to try snowshoeing. It *was* lots of fun, but it was also quite exhausting to snowshoe up those hills! I think the snow made it much more strenuous than the hike usually is, so it took us probably a whole extra hour. When we got to the lake at the end (which was still frozen over), we ate our lunch while fighting off aggressive ground squirrels.

Overall, it was still a fun and beautiful hike, although I sure didn't see any wildflowers! Maybe someday I'll get to hike it later in the summer.

After we got back to Logan Pass, we climbed back in the car and started the descent down the other side of the pass. It continued to be beautiful, and we continued to be flabbergasted.

We had intended to do another short hike to a waterfall at the end of the road, but since Hidden Lake took longer than expected, we opted to save that for another day.

Once we made it to the end of GTTSR, we turned north and headed up towards Canada. We were planning on spending the next couple of days in Waterton Lakes National Park, which is across the Canadian Border. Glacier and Waterton are really one continuous park--it just changes names when you cross the border. In fact, the two are officially known as the "Glacier-Waterton Internationl Peace Park."

I'll talk more about Waterton later--for now, all you need to know is that we made it safe across the border, checked into our next B&B, bought some outrageously expensive groceries, and ate dinner at a place called Zum's. We split a milkshake for dessert, which the waiter insisted we drink the "cute way" with two straws rather than two cups. Awww.

And THEN, went back to the B&B and relaxed in their WOOD-FIRED HOT TUB! More on that (and pics!) later too. For today, I'll just leave you with the vision of us driving off into the Canadian sunset.

Five Years' Celebration!

Friday was our actual anniversary day (FIVE years--I *still* can't quite believe it's really been that long). We planned an action-packed adventure of a day to celebrate.

First of all (after an amazing breakfast made by our B&B), we went to Whitefish Ski Resort and did their ziplines. It was way fun, even if only 3 of the 6 were open that day (at least they gave us half our money back, though). We splurged and bought some of the pictures their professional photographer took of us, because they were MUCH better than ours! (Plus, I couldn't exactly get out my camera right in the middle of a zipline). What a blast! Someday we'll have to go back and do the other 3. :)

After ziplining we went back to the B&B and ate some brown bag lunches we had made, and put our swimsuits on underneath our clothes because next up, we had whitewater rafting on the schedule! We went with Glacier Guides, and it turned out to be a private rafting trip for the two of us, because no one else had signed up for our time--score! We had to wear wetsuits because the water was barely above freezing--coming, as it did, straight from melting glaciers. It was my first time rafting ever (I've done canoeing and kayaking before, but never rafting). I thought it was quite thrilling, but Kevin (who has been on lots of rafting trips) thought it was a little "tame." Nevertheless, we had a fun time. At the beginning it was rainy and windy and we were pretty cold, but it let up later and we had nice weather. The mountain views in the background were a definite bonus.

We splurged AGAIN and bought a picture from their photographer too (we couldn't even take our camera on the raft for fear of it getting wet and ruined). Perhaps I was too caught up in our fun day to really make a wise economic choice about the photos, but hey--they're fun to have.

After rafting we went back and changed again, then went to dinner at a place called the Three Forks, which our B&B host assured us was a "four star chef at three star prices." It did not disappoint! I'm trying to remember exactly what we ate, but mostly I just remember it was good. I know mine was some sort of meat (chicken?) involving a sauce with huckleberries.

We unfortunately had to do our laundry that evening (what a romantic anniversary activity, right?) but at least the B&B had machines we could use, which were located in a game room with a pool table and an air hockey table, so had good entertainment while we waited for the dryer. Even if Kevin DID win practically every game....

Our first day in heaven. I mean Glacier.

On Thursday, we got up early (although not as early as the day before!) and flew to Kalispell, Montana. I was relieved to find that our backpacking packs fit in the overhead bins with lots of room to spare, and we didn't even have to wrestle anyone to the ground for the space. We had one layover in Minneapolis--not too bad, especially considering we were going on frequent flier miles.

We arrived in Kalispell about noon, and went and picked up our priceline-bid-for Mustang convertible. I was soooo excited to get that car--I bid just a little higher than an economy car would have been, and the bid was accepted--yay! It was a pretty sweet ride, I must say--and SO great for taking in all those mountains!

Anyways, we immediately put the top down and drove the 30 minutes or so to Columbia Falls, where were staying at a Bed and Breakfast called the Bad Rock B&B. We stopped along the way and had some incredible sandwiches at Montana Coffee Traders (but no coffee, don't worry).

The owner of our B&B was a retired nuclear chemist with a Southern accent and a humorous disposition. Their B&B was outstanding--highly recommended if any of you all are ever looking for a place to stay in Columbia Falls, Montana. :) We chatted with the owner a bit, unpacked our stuff, and then headed off for our first foray into the park.

We hiked to Avalanche lake, which was a nice easy hike to start out with. It's four miles, round trip, with just 500 ft elevation gain. Most of the hike was through some lush wooded areas, along a rushing river and deep gorge. Then at the end, the landscape opens up to this gorgeous lake surrounded by cliffs with numerous waterfalls streaming down them. We thought the hike was beautiful and we were very impressed by the scenery.

After the hike, we drove back to Columbia Falls, stuffed ourselves with ribs and fry bread from a restaurant called the Back Room, picked up some groceries at the Super One grocery store nearby, and then turned in for the night. What a great day! One of my strongest memories from that day is just how GOOD everything smelled. All that crisp mountain air. The area was filled with cedars and pine trees, and driving around with our open aired car was just so invigorating.

The vacation begins...

Last Wed, we left our house early--in the middle of the night, really, as far as I'm concerned. It was *before* sunrise (I know, I know--there's a sunrise too?? Who knew?). We'd called a taxi the night before and scheduled a 5:15am pickup. (I couldn't bear to ask any of my friends to give us a ride at that ungodly hour). I had good intentions of getting ourselves to bed early the night before, but it was not to be--with last minute packing to finish and Kevin trying to finish work stuff up and so forth, it was after 1am before we went to sleep. So, needless to say, we were tired.

We caught the 6:05 Amtrak train to Chicago--we paid extra for a sleeper car, which we have learned from past experience is TOTALLY the way to go--comfortable, private, free meals, treated as a "first class" passenger (allowed to board early and so on), and of course, the seats fold into beds! Awesome. We thought we'd be able to get some z's on the way to Chicago, but actually neither of us ever did fall asleep. We did eat a nice breakfast and at least *tried* to sleep, but we arrived in Chicago still groggy and sleepy.

This vacation was actually all about Glacier National Park in Montana, but I decided to tack on some sightseeing in Chicago before and after, since our plane left from there anyway. So the plan was to spend the day in Chicago, then sleep at a hotel near the airport before our flight the next morning. We "only" live about 3 hours south of Chicago, but we rarely make it up there, and there were lots of things on my list that I'd been wanting to see.

I'd planned a jam-packed day of fun sightseeing stuff in the Windy City, but it turned out to be the Rainy City that day, so things had to be rearranged somewhat. Ironically, I had previously spent like 30 minutes agonizing over whether or not to take up precious luggage space by packing the umbrella. I finally settled on bringing one, but when stashed our bags in a locker at the Amtrak station, I forgot to take out the umbrella from the bag. So, naturally, it was raining steadily when we exited the station. It made me grumpy, but actually it wasn't *too* much of a disaster.

We spent the morning by going to the top of the Sears Tower (actually called the Willis Tower now) and standing on their glass-floored skydeck, wandering among Impressionist masterpieces at the Art Institute, and eating lunch at on the 7th floor of Macy's (formerly Marshall Field's).

Then, we took a bus (and consequently learned what it feels like to be jammed into a sardine can) to Navy Pier, where we got tickets for a river boat architecture tour and for the ferris wheel and other Navy Pier rides. We had bought "Go Chicago" cards, which covered everything we did this day and saved us lots of money. They were only good until 5:30 that evening, but in the case of the architecture tours, you just showed the card and then could pick up tickets for tours later in the day. Also, the man at Navy Pier told us the ride tickets didn't expire, even though the Go Chicago cards did. So, having picked those up, we had our evening activities all set.

We next rented bikes (also covered by the Go cards) and rode them along the lakefront down to the Field Museum and the Aquarium. By this time, it had stopped raining and was instead swelteringly hot and humid. But we enjoyed the ride nonetheless. The museum and aquarium were neat, but we were really running out of steam by this time, so we left a bit early to give ourselves plenty of time to ride back before the bikes were due. It's a good thing we did, too, because it started raining as we rode, and as we were arriving back at Navy Pier, the rain started to be torrential.

We decided now would be a good time to go inside and get some dinner. I was hoping that by the time we were done, the rain would have stopped or at least let up, but oh no--if anything, it was raining even harder. AND, there was a tornado watch and/or warning (we heard different things from different people), so pretty much everything was shut down for the evening--our architecture tour was canceled, and the ferris wheel wouldn't be running. I was able to get a rain check ticket on the tour, and luckily our Navy Pier tickets didn't expire, so we could use them when we got back to Chicago. But, it was a little disappointing to not go up on the ferris wheel and see all the lights at night, especially since we had done that the night we got engaged! Ah well. We were so tired by then, actually, that it was somewhat of a relief to just take a taxi to just ourselves to our hotel for the night and rest.

It wasn't the perfect start to our vacation, but we did have some good times that day. The crowds and heat/humidity certainly made more more excited to be going to Montana the next day!

Quit bugging me!

Yesterday I decided to work in our garden--pulling weeds and harvesting some green beans and so forth. (It really needed it, since we've been gone out of town for a week and a half and weeds grow like, um, weeds around here.) It was late afternoon, not dusk or anything, but I still got myself about 10 enormous mosquito bites that itch like the dickens. (Do the dickens itch?) These are not your run-of-the-mill bites, either--we're talking like two inches across, giant welt-looking mosquito bites. AND, to top it all off, I got stung by a bee or hornet or wasp or some such painful stingy creature. But, I did get a nice juicy bell pepper out of the deal. Not much of a bargain, actually, I have to admit.

The "G" word

On Thursday my advisor said the "G" word to me. Yep, GRADUATION. It was in a rather abstract and hypothetical context, mind you, but still. I might actually graduate after all! Hurray! He said (and this is VERY uncharacteristic of him) that maybe we should publish a smaller article, not in Science or Nature, on the work I've done recently (plus a few more things I'm still working on), rather than waiting for ALL of it to be done for the "Big Paper". (Ususally my advisor only likes to publish Big Papers). And he said I could probably GRADUATE on that paper, and then I could finish up the rest of the stuff as a post-doc while Kevin finishes up his Ph.D. WOOOOOO! Of course, this is all assuming that I get some more stuff to work as planned, etc. (and if there's one universal truth in research, it's that things NEVER go as planned) but I was still super excited to hear that my advisor is even thinking along those lines. Yay! Maybe I haven't completely wasted the last 6 years of my life after all!

So, obviously, my research has been going well the last few months. Wow, that is a strange thing for me to say/type. I'm very grateful--it makes such a big difference to how I feel to have things actually progressing. I still have lots of work to do, but I haven't felt this optimistic in a long time.

Kevin has been super busy of late, working on various papers and such for his advisor while also trying to release a new product for eFolder (that's the business he helped start before grad school and which he is now CEO for). It's nothing new--he's always super busy, but since about February it's been especially bad. He's also gone out of town like 4 times or something in recent months--mostly to conferences/trade shows for eFolder.

Last week we wrapped up this year's Stake Youth Conference (a 3 day event put on by our church for teenagers 14-18). I was in charge of registration and housing, which was no small task for a group of 250 people (we were actually combined with Peoria Stake as well, and they have twice the number of youth we do)! We had them all staying at host homes in the area--we had about 50 small groups to find places for, print maps for, etc. I also helped with the general running of things. All in all, it was quite exhausting. I slept for 11 hours the night after it was all over! It was a good conference--I think it was really good for the kids to get together and make friends and feel the strength of one another. The theme was "Forever Strong" taken from Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

Kevin and I will soon be celebrating our fifth anniversary (which I can hardly believe)! We decided we wanted to spend some time in the mountains, so we booked a trip to Glacier National Park in Montana. (Yay for frequent flier miles!) I at first thought we would camp, but Kevin vetoed that idea--he has a thing for actual *beds*. I think it's because he's so dang skinny that he has no extra padding for sleeping on the ground. So, it's not going to be the budget trip I was first thinking of. But, hopefully it will be worth it--the park is supposed to be spectacular. If it would just stop SNOWING in Montana, we might actually be able to do some amazing hikes in those mountains. :) I've been looking like a dork wearing my new hiking boots around all the time (with shorts and other various things that do NOT go with them at all) trying to get them all broken in. I'm also trying to get ahold of some of these bad boys:

I have heard they help prevent blisters, especially for people like me who have hammer toes that rub together a lot. We'll see (that is, if I can even find any to buy). Has anyone else ever tried these before?

We're also going to spend the day in Chicago before our flight leaves from there, which is highly appropriate since that's where we got engaged! It should be fun. The best part about the trip: backcountry hiking = no internet access!

Arachnophobia

I HATE spiders. Ever since I was a girl and a spider egg sack hatched in my open window, delivering hundreds of itty bitty spiders right above my poor little reading-in-bed-really-late-at-night face, I have hated them. (I sprayed an entire can of Raid in my room that night. I couldn't even go in there for days afterwards because it smelled so bad). And that movie--Arachnophobia, that came out when I was a kid--scariest movie ever. At least, that's how it seemed to my 10 year old self.

Anyways, back to the spider issue. I have found FOUR spiders in my bathroom in the last few days! A couple of days ago, I was about to step into the shower when a big ugly black spider jumped out at me from the drain. I made Kevin kill that one. Then, a few seconds later, I found ANOTHER spider on the shower curtain (I killed that one myself)! This one was light brown and smaller. Then, the next day there was a long spindly spider on the wall by the toilet (also killed by me). And today when I went to take my shower, there was another furry black spider in the tub! (Not quite as big this time though). What is going on? Did the Spider Association of America decide my privy would be the location for this year's annual convention? Now, I know spiders are helpful for killing bugs that get in the house, so I'm not on any crusade to go out and find them all, but they darn well better stay FAR away from me (and my bathroom) if they want to live another day.