Fish Tales!

Hi everyone -- I've missed blogging for the past 2 days, so it's good to be back. Saturday we went kayaking in Glacier for the day. Then, just out of the blue after church on Sunday I said, "Let's go camping!" So, we took a total spur of the moment trip back up to the park for the night. We drove a little farther to the other side of the park to Two Medicine campground. It's about 2-1/2 hours away, unlike the usual hour to the other place we usually go. Rick has 3-day weekends off, so it worked out well.

We got settled in our campsite and then put the kayaks in right away to take advantage of the calm waters while it was still light. One thing I'll never get used to is how light it is in Montana in the spring and summer months. It doesn't get dark here until 10pm and it gets light again around 5am. In July it's even stranger when it stays light until 11pm. Anyway, as soon as Nathan threw out his first cast, he got a nibble. Pretty soon he was pulling up his very first rainbow trout! He's caught fish before, but never a trout, and never one this big. He was so excited! It gave him quite a fight and jumped out of the water 3 times. He decided to release it, but not before getting a few pictures. He's still talking about it! We had a good night doing all the usual camping things -- BBQing dinner, cooking S'mores, and sitting by the campfire. After we finally went to bed, the wind really picked up. It was so bad that our trailer was shaking. The next morning we noticed all the tent campers had packed up and left because it was so bad. We have a 26' travel trailer though, so we were fine.

It was just a one night thing, and very spur of the moment, but it was fun. It was a good trip to see how everything was working in the trailer after being in storage for the winter. I'm hoping we can go back again either next weekend or the one after that, and maybe for a couple of nights this time. Two Medicine campground just opened up about a week ago. Up until then, they still had a lot of snow on the ground. It's on the east side of Glacier National Park. Usually when we go up for the day, we go to the west side. The Continental Divide separates the two sides, so the weather differences can be like night and day. Two Medicine has special meaning to me because this is the campground that inspired me to write my very first children's story, Manny the Mountain Goat. If it weren't for this campground, I might never have gotten interested in writing stories for kids, so it's probably my favorite campground in the entire park. I hope we can go back next weekend!