Photos of Iowa

I love to take photos! I love capturing awesome moments, great places, and wonderful people through the lens! ... and as I have gotten better, I have been enjoying it even more! I am learning better photography skills through simply being out there with my camera. I have a long way to go, especially in editing, but I love sharing my photos with others along the way. Most of my photos are of nature, because I love using my camera as an excuse to go be in nature. I also love to take pictures of children, though I don't have those on hand to photograph on a daily basis :-)

This week, I entered my first photos into a real photo contest! The contest is for Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and is about photos of Iowa's natural land. I decided to wait to reveal the photos I entered until I find out more about how I did, but here are of few of my "rejects," which really just means I had too many photos I wanted to submit! If you'd like to see more of my photography, you can check out my flickr.

Glacier National Park: Day 1

And so continues my adventures in Glacier National Park! We arrived by train early in the morning, and the first thing I noticed was the smell! This may seem odd, but the smell of pine and fresh air was overwhelming as we stepped off the train. Incredible! We stayed at the Whistling Swan Motel in East Glacier, and the owner was wonderful! They set us up with a rental car, and had everything ready to go for us every step of the way. The rooms were small and simple, but clean and comfortable. Exactly what we needed for crashing at the end of a busy day. East Glacier is a very small town, but has a nice strip of restaurants and shops along the main road. We could walk to everything, which was great.

To start day 1, we drove around south of the park and over to the west entrance. We stopped at Apgar Village to look around the shops (a really neat area!), and then drove East on Going to the Sun Road. We drove just to the edge of Lake McDonald on this day, and did two day hikes along the way:

Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake

Trail of the Cedars is a short trail that is kind of like a boardwalk. It is accessible and goes through a beautiful cedar forest. If you continue past this loop, you can follow the trail to Avalanche Lake. The trail follows Avalanche Creek, which is a loud, rushing stream down in a little gorge: 

The trail is beautiful, and was a great way to start our trip! We saw multiple mule deer:

And if the trail wasn't great enough, this is your reward at the top:

This is a great place to eat lunch or stop and take a load off. It was pretty busy, but by walking away from the main "beach," we had plenty of space to ourselves for lunch. I would put this hike on a "must see" list for Glacier National Park for sure!

John's Lake

Okay, there really isn't much to tell here. John's Lake was not impressive, and our plan was to go on to McDonald Falls, but we couldn't figure out where to go (we didn't have a good map with us - we thought we knew where we were going), and we eventually gave up. Note: we were not the only ones on that same path looking for McDonald Falls, so I guess the moral of the story is, "If you want to go to McDonald Falls, make sure you know where you're going!"

Our day ended with a dip in Lake McDonald:

I highly recommend doing this whenever possible during your trip! It really eases the muscles and joints at the end of the day. I have bad knees and did not have any problems during this trip. I credit this to 1) knee braces, and 2) "icing" them in mountain lakes/streams whenever possible!

Christmas Tree Splits - Before

I found that it was difficult to create a blog that focused on one aspect of my life, so this new blog is perfect! I can share my fun craft ideas, but also share everyday happenings and more. This portion of my blog is dedicated to my aerial life. I have been taking aerial classes (think Cirque du Soleil) for over a year now, and have loved every minute of it! This week in class, we all decided to take part in a challenge called the "Christmas Tree Splits Challenge." The idea is that you take a picture of your splits "before," then practice every day and take a picture of your progress in front of your Christmas Tree on Christmas morning! We decided our before pictures needed to look sad, as they always do on the infomercials... I feel the need to explain the "lovely" faces I'm making! Without further ado, my before pictures:

Glacier National Park: Amtrak Travel

We had the great pleasure of traveling to Glacier National Park this summer! Our goal as a couple is to eventually make it to every National Park in the country, but we have a long way to go! This is park #2, only preceded by Hot Springs National Park (hard to call this one a National Park - more like a historical site or something. I will post on that adventure another time). We traveled with my in-laws, so we had 4 in our party, and this is one trip I did not plan myself! I thought rather than making a huge long post about our trip, which was INCREDIBLE, would split it into different parts, starting with our trip there!

Our trip started with a drive up to Minnesota, to catch the train!

We took Amtrak there and back, and while it wasn't a short trip, it was a lot of fun! Many people have asked me whether I recommend taking the train for travel. Here's my take:

• Don't take the train if you need to be somewhere at a certain time (a wedding, a graduation, an important meeting, etc), unless you are planning to get there like 3 days early. Our train was 10 hours late getting to Glacier. As long as you're on a flexible schedule, that's just fine! 10 hours late is not normal, but 1-2 hours late is considered "on time."
• If you want to be able to enjoy your trip, and your company, the train is great! If you just want to get there, fly! The great part about a train is that, while it takes about the same amount of time as driving once you figure in stops, etc, you can move around, play games, etc, while you're on your way! So as long as you are willing to just chill, go with the flow, and enjoy yourself, go for it! Kids can get up and walk around instead of having to stay in their seats, and everyone can join in the fun instead of the driver getting left out.
• I loved the friendly atmosphere on the train! When you fly it is all rules, stress, and "let's get this over with!" Everyone is on a time-frame, and while you might have a good conversation with the person next to you on the plane if you're lucky, most people are ready to just get in and get out. On the train, everyone (including the staff) is quite friendly! At meals in the dining car, they combine parties to fill each table. My husband and I had a wonderful meal and conversation with an older couple from Wisconsin. It was such a joy! My husband took Amtrak along once, and he was playing games with other passengers, talking with them, etc. 
• You can take more luggage on Amtrak, and more items that are not allowed on planes. There are technically limits on bags, but they are not very strict, and include a lot of luggage. We checked a few bags, but were able to carry on our backpacking packs, which would have been more difficult to check on a plane (and nerve-wracking with all those straps and everything!) There are luggage areas in the downstairs where you can leave things that you don't need/want by your seat, but you can still get to them if you needed to. We had a couple boxes of food, and a cooler!
• I will admit I was a little stir crazy by the time we got back to MN (about 5 hours late), especially when I realized I still had hours to go in a car! However, I would definitely do it again! If you have the time to spare and the patience to not care if it's running behind, it's a great trip!