Tubing, canoeing and flipping right outside Glacier

Ken, his friend Dave, Randal, Randi, and I went canoeing and tubing for the day. Randi was a little unsure of what device she wanted, the tube or the canoe? I knew she'd love the tube once in and moving. Of course she had to get used to the "freezing" temps of the water,60 degrees I'm guessing, which were probably at the peak in terms of warmth for the year.

She picked the tube! Loving it, we eventually tied her on to the canoe.

Randall just loves any adventure!

Oh and I forgot to mention Reggae who traveled with us too!

Here's a view of some fire damaged forest along the way. Still looks beautiful!

Yes, we did contend to some rapids. And no, I don't know the rating for it. And yes, we had everything in a dry bag: food, camera, change of clothes, sun screen, bug spray. And yes, that was a good idea because well, we flipped! Yea. Randi by then had joined us in the canoe. All three of us went right into the "freezing" cold rapidly flowing fresh water! "To shore" was the command by Ken and Dave, as I scurried to save the floating flip flops. Randall had Randi and the canoe back to shore safely. And Ken and Dave were right there down stream paddling to stay with us. No big deal, really. We had our life jackets on as we should have. The only real bummer was that the clouds came out and made it for a quite cold 2 hour row to the truck at least for Randi and I. We all had expected a 90 degree day for the voyage. But, you know those weather guys!

Now Randi, who did inquire as to why do we needed to wear those bulky cumbersome jackets, truly understands why. You just never know. Sometimes lessons are better learned by trial and error than just heard by word of mouth, really.

Canada, Waterton Lake National Park camping excursion

Just the adults decided to go on this quick excursion up to Canada. With back packs full of food(fresh fruit and veggies included), sleeping bags, tents, and other essentials, we were all set to hike and camp in Waterton Lake National Park which connects to Glacier National Park. All stocked up with food and drink supplies that we purposely bought in the US before we entered Canada was a good plan because as we suspected it's way cheaper here. At least we thought it was a good plan! So, from Whitefish on up through the outskirts of the two parks, the ride was glorious. Here's just a glimpse of a fabulous view on our route north:

Two unbelievable things happened to us on this trip. First we were informed about the absolutely outrageous pie that we just had to stop and have. It was at place called Two Sisters restaurant in a town called Babb. So we decided we just had to stop in and get the pie. Why not? Here we are in the middle of nowhere lallygagging along the highway admiring the views. All of the sudden we enter this little village called Babb, if you blink your through kind of thing. We see a sign for the best homemade PIE in town but don't see the name Two Sisters. We assume this must be it? With mouthwatering pies and a huge selection, we eat and we're off again. And as we drive maybe 1/4 of a mile down the road we see this sign:

"Darn!" We stopped at the wrong pie place! Now how could a village of maybe 50 people have 2 pie restaurants? Go figure! Of course it's not in Babb; it's just near Babb! Well it was unanimous that we stop here at the real homemade pie place, Two Sisters, on the way home.

Just a couple miles from the border, another hysterical thing happens. Ken, who by the way adores his fresh fruit, was all of the sudden panic stricken.

"Darn!" he says, "I always screw this up! We have all these oranges, apples, peaches, zucchini, Flathead cherry's etc. and we can't take these fresh fruit and veggies across the border! Darn!"

Randall to the rescue. He comes up with a great idea to salvage our produce.

"Let's just tie them up in the woods and come back for them on the way home. They'll be fine," says Randall. "I'll just set the GPS to mark this spot so we know where to stop on the way back. "

So we did. Jill, our trusty mentor, who has guided us across continents marked it as such :

.

So we arrive at the border on the Canadian side without our scrumptious produce. The security guy goes through the questions, do you have any alcohol, firearms, tobacco, drugs, bear spray, blah blah blah.... "No we don't" are our answers. We drive on through when it dawns on Ken first that he didn't ask for any fruits and veggies? "Darn! We could have kept them! "

So now we have the pie to eat again on the way home but first we need to locate and recover the produce in the woods! See the last picture on the post for the results. 8)

Before the hike we stopped at the Prince of Whales Hotel in Canada. Wow! Fabulous views and we were just in time for high tea. Not! At $30 a head and you can drink all the tea and pretty little snacks you wanted. So we just soaked up the atmosphere and moved on to our mission for the day.

Hiking into camp

Our camp site had not one other camper in site. We were kind of wondering why?

Randall built the fire.

We made dinner with our buffalo meat from Whitefish and our Canadian bought zucchini.

After dinner and before bed, we had to hang all food away from our tents for protection hoping to keep the bears away if one should pass by in the night.

Ken and Randall hoisted every tid bit of food and drinks up, up, and out of reach of the bears. As Janet says "a fed bear is a dead bear". Meaning if they find food, they'll come back to the same spot for more. If it's where campers go, the bears will eventually end up shot.

The morning view at our camp site was spectacular!

Janet and Ken made oatmeal for us for breakfast.

When we ran out of water, Janet filtered more from the lake water making it safe to drink. The carbon filter is capable of filtering out gi⋅ar⋅di⋅a⋅sis.

Well it was about a 5 mile total hike that we did. Maybe 3 of it we did with the back packs on. For an excursion to a water fall, we hung our back packs in the trees to await our return.

Thank you to Jill! On the way home, Ken was able to find our loot of fruit and some zucchini!

One happy camper!

A rainy day with quotes to ponder...

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

- Dr. William Arthur Ward

The other day my daughter asked me this very question. What is the difference between a house and a home? I think the above quote says it best. And really, we've experienced the concept ourselves. Not to say that once in a while she or I may have the desire to just "nest". But let's face it, you can nest anywhere. The love and cohesion of your family is all you really need.

We travel light. Clothes, shoes, toiletries, books, instruments, beads, cooler, laptops and that is it. Our stuff just fits in our car and on top. When we arrive, we unpack and dwell in our new already furnished habitat. We get to know our new surroundings and adapt to our new culture, whether it's here or in another country.

Every place we go, it is all about adapting. Change, which really is what adapting is all about, isn't necesarily easy. But once conquered, becomes a blast to experience.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. So many look to eradicate fear from their lives, when that is an impossible task. You can certainly experience moments in absence of fear, however accept that fear will be with you whenever you are in the process of living creatively. The challenge is to go ahead regardless, simply notice the feeling and manage being courageous.

-Mark Twain

I guess you could just say we have been living creatively the last 7 years of our lives. Taking the plunge to sell our house that we had spent 2 years of our lives creating in order to live on a boat, was a tad creative. Selling all the stuff we spent years accumulating was really, just liberating. Saying to ourselves that we don't need to earn more money to buy more stuff and that we have enough earned money to live a reasonable life took some courage.

And so why even bring all this up? Well, this blog is about going beyond our borders both personal and physical. It's about sharing the good and the bad as we transcend our borders. And, it's for those of you who are considering making a change, conquering those what if (fear) questions, and looking at life with a whole new perspective. Also, it's for me to contemplate where we've been and where we are headed next in our lives as the adventure continues.

Gunsight Lake inside Glacier National Park

Rising early to miss traffic and tourists, we entered the park around 9am hoping for clearer weather. Debating which hike to do today, we clearly decided that a lower elevation hike may give us better visibility along with warmth. We all agreed on Gunsight Lake just a mere 12.5 mile hike round trip!

At the entrance there were some warnings. Being with experienced local hikers, our bear spray, water, huckleberry bags and lunch we were prepared for everything!

Paths lined with wild flowers along with a few trail markers lead us to Gunsight Lake .

Not being in the clouds made for some fantastic views of glaciers, peaks and wildlife.

Randall got the bug - that is the huckleberry picking bug. It's amazing how those little guys just lure you into seeking and picking. In fact, we all got to the lake well in advance of him. He showed up with a big grin and a bag just about half full!

Here's the infamous huckleberry bush!

Finally,Gunsight Lake was at our feet. We sprawled out on the stones to eat, drink, and energize for the 6 plus mile hike back to the car.

Hidden Lake, inside Glacier National Park

A short hike, 6 miles, up and down into the valley to see Hidden Lake. A small effort to pay inorder to view such luscious landscapes made by mother nature and to gaze at wild animals in their habitat.

We were surrounded all day by natures wild flowers and animals!

Basking in the sun as they watched us crazy tourists take their picture.

Down, down, down we go with many steep switch backs...

We encountered so many wild animals that we often had to move out of their way!

Fish that you could easily see, were playing in the stream.

And then after lunch, we hiked back up.