Wow

We were certain that nothing could top Yellowstone. We are tired, a bit irritable, and nearing the end of our road trip. We have visited 11 national parks and a few national monuments over the past 3 weeks. Surely, Glacier National Park would just be a decent finale, a pretty drive with some mountain scenery, right?

We would like to add an addendum to our statement from a previous post telling all of you to go to Yellowstone. We would now like for all of you to go to Yellowtone, then rent a car and drive up to Glacier. Seriously, it will be worth your time. It has turned out to be our favorite park, which we didn't really expect. This area has been referred to as the "crown jewel of North America", and it's easy to see why. We have never been to a place more beautiful.

The main road through the park, the Going to the Sun Road, is famous for its beauty. It is delicately carved into the mountains, completed back in the 1930s. At the western entrance of the park, it starts meandering along a river, then climbs up a mountainside, winds to Logan Pass and the continental divide, then ends at the eastern end of the park where the plains meet the mountains. Every inch of the road provides you with the most spectacular view you have ever seen. Waterfalls galore, rivers rushing from melting snow, pretty royal blue and turquoise ponds and lakes, snow, glaciers, wildlife, wildflowers, and gigantic evergreens. The road itself is only about 50 miles long, but it has several pullouts and little parking lots along the way. Each stop and pullout was amazing. We don't want to be overly dramatic, but we were both literally left speechless several times, only able to state, "Wow. WOW!" So now, in the spirit of speechlessness, we will shut up and show you pictures of what we saw today.

View of St. Mary's Lake, one of the most photographed points in the park:

View of one of the remaining glaciers in the park. All are expected to disappear by the year 2030:

A field of wildflowers on a short hike:

Finally, we saw some wildlife! Here is a mountain goat..its two babies are in the background. We also saw a bighorn sheep about three minutes later on this hike:

Beautiful view of one of the glacier-formed U-shaped valleys:

Jewel-colored ponds and lakes:

One of the rivers flowing through the park:

View overlooking St. Mary's Lake:

View of Going to the Sun Road. This area was called the Weeping Wall, where waterfalls cascaded down the mountain and splashed the roof of your car.

Glacier was a great finale to the trip, and we ended up with an even dozen National Parks. We are planning on driving the next couple of days to our destination city of Corvallis. We don't want to say we are "rushing" through Washington and Oregon, but we do want to leave ourselves with plenty of day trips and weekend trips to explore in our new stomping grounds.