The Start of the Summer Trip

We began our adventure by driving from Wisconsin to western Montana. If our camera were with us for this, the pictures would have involved a lot of concrete (in the midwest) and asphalt (in the west), yellow paint road lines, setting up tents in North Dakota, and visiting some interesting US Plains parks like Fort Abraham Lincoln and a Mandan village. There would also have been pictures of Dan & Claudia in Rexburg, Idaho and the 4th of July parade there, along with many explorations of the Nature Park there.

But we don't have any pictures of that, so you'll just have to imagine. The first pictures we have are of Crystal Park. For those who haven't been there, it's a park made for people who like finding pretty rocks. Basically, you drive up with your shovels, dig, and take home whatever you find.

Sylvia insisted on getting to work right away!



Noel, Asher and Mattias were more serious, long-term miners.



The mosquitos, however, were nearly as big as Sylvia so after an hour or so we retreated and headed towards our favourite campsite, Georgetown Lake. This led us through some mazy mountain paths and we discovered a little stream that turned out to be very cold, clear and fast-running. It was very refreshing to see water doing something like that, after living in Wisconsin for two years and seeing warm, algae-ridden, sluggish water constantly. So we had to stop and play in it.



The more adventurous among us change into their swimsuits even! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of that.

Lots more to come...