Once again we were greeted by animals munching away while we munched away on our breakfast of bacon and eggs. The kids were sad to say goodbye to their favorite campsite thus far. They had secret nooks and named every pathway on their little rock fort. This view will be missed. The running water bathroom will also be missed. It was one of the only ones in the entire campground. It is hard to express how good it feels to brush your teeth and wash your face with running water when you normally take doing those things for granted. Secretly I long for a shower, but even just a little bit of cleaning is greatly appreciated.
We attended a Junior Ranger talk at the Discovery Center at 10am. The Discovery Center was right across from our campsite in Moraine Campground. The ranger talk was about the different types of jobs you can have as a ranger: teacher, fire fighter, rescue ranger, and police ranger. Just before we left the campground I spotted an animal run across our campsite pathway. I said thinking out loud, “I just saw an animal and it wasn’t a chipmunk because it had a dark tipped tail.”
Brooke responded without skipping a beat, “That’s because it was a Wyoming ground squirrel.”
I smiled, but asked, “How would you know that?”
“I learned about it in my Junior Ranger book,” she replied.
While at the visitor’s center Brooke took the opportunity to show me what she was talking about in another Junior Ranger book. She was right. We saw a Wyoming ground squirrel. Not that I doubted her for a minute. She is very quick with spotting details.
The Discovery Center had some fantastic hands-on moving displays about moraines, glaciers, and tectonic plates colliding and separating,
After we looked around the Discovery Center we headed to the shuttle parking lot for some hiking. At eleven am there was not a single parking spot to be had. We heard that it had filled up by 10am. In true Scott-luck-style Scott just happened to see a gentleman he had been waiting in line with while trying to get a campsite yesterday. He asked him if he was leaving and the gentleman quickly moved to his truck to let us take his spot.
We took the shuttle to Bear Lake again to hike Alberta Falls. It was almost all down hill. Instead of having to do the reverse climb back up we just picked up the shuttle bus at Glacier Gorge. While at the trailhead one of the rangers noticed Scott’s t-shirt said he was from Illinois. The ranger happened to be from Rockford. Another ranger chimed in that her boyfriend lived in McHenry. Small world.
Right at the beginning of our hike Brooke pointed to a sign that said, “No swimming.” “See Dad,” Brooke said indignantly. Yesterday there were two ladies swimming in Bear Lake and Brooke told them, “You know there’s no swimming here?” The ladies were surprised. Scott responded, “Don’t listen to her. She might not even know.” We even asked a park ranger on the other side of the trail about swimming. She said, “I think its allowed, but there are leaches in this lake.” Turns out the little lady was paying attention to details again. Brooke knew there was no swimming allowed even when the ranger didn’t.
It took us forty minutes to get up to Alberta Falls. It was only two miles, but we rested quite a bit. Before we even started hiking Brooke asked, “Can we just pretend we went for a hike instead of actually hiking?” After we got to the falls Brooke said, “Two miles and I feel awesome! Can we do four miles tomorrow?”
This family photo above is my favorite thus far on this trip.
Scott caught sight of a chipmunk munching on a banana as we left Alberta Falls. The animals aren’t supposed to be fed people food. We think two young guys who were posing with the chipmunk might have fed him.
I know it is gross, but I had to laugh at this pit toilet sign. “Danger Confined Space Enter By Permit Only.” I have never seen that on a pit toilet before. Not sure I want to think of the mental image of illegally entering a pit toilet again either.
The picture of Brooke and Cody drinking is mid water fight. This was one of the first days where it was warm enough to want to play with water.
At 3pm we headed to Estes Park to walk around and get some ice cream.
A gentleman was kind enough to give us his seat so we could sit and enjoy our ice cream. I love the little girl behind Scott in the photo. I can almost hear her thinking, “If you aren’t going to eat that I can help you out.” The kids played in the stream in Estes Park before we headed back to camp.
Scott made some banana bread
It took awhile once we got back to camp for the kids to embrace their new campsite after how cool yesterday’s site was, but eventually they came up with a rock mine. Cody worked the mine and Brooke directed from her office. She is sitting in her office in the picture. She allowed Cody a ten minute break from moving the rocks, but he had to work during his break to earn more break minutes. We asked her to explain this more than once. I’m pretty sure it equates to Cody never really getting a break.
Scott made some banana bread with a lonely abused banana that was accidentally cooked on the dash. He halved his grandma’s recipe and cooked it in his Outback Oven. Scott shared some with a camp neighbor who had chatted with us for a while. When I asked what the gentleman did he responded, “I work with idiots.” Later it came out that he was a high school teacher who worked with at risk youth. He had some crazy stories about teenagers who had already committed murder in an attempt to get into gangs. What drew him to our campsite was Scott’s chuck box or camp kitchen. It seems if people can get beyond the distraction of our heavily loaded van they are interested in the chuck box. One camp neighbor called it a transformer. It is pretty handy.
The neighbor (Scott thinks his name is Jim) suggested ways to have the kids get more involved with the camping experience. He suggested bringing along gallon jugs for the kids to bring water to the campsite.
Technorati Tags: Cover Photo,Alberta Falls,Rocky Mountain National Park,Banana Bread,hiking
