I just returned from an amazing trip to Glacier National Park.  I know that this post is sort of off topic for my blog, but I needed to share this trip with you.  We drove up through Wyoming to Grand Teton and camped overnight in Jackson.  The Grand Teton Mountains are amazing because they just rise up from the plain without any foothills in front of them.

We had a great campsite in Jackson at the Snake River KOA.  Our campsite was located at a point where the Snake River and another smaller river met.  It was beautiful and the sound of the rushing water put me right to sleep that night.

We then made our way through Yellowstone.  I am sure that I could spend at least a week at Yellowstone by itself, but we only had part of a day so we could only stop a few times.  We saw the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and some very beautiful landscapes as well as the aftermath of a huge forest fire.

We arrived Sunday in Montana and spent the next few days running around Glacier National Park.  I think that Glacier is more pristine than any of the national parks that I have been in.  The mountains, lakes and rushing rivers and waterfalls made the park like no other.  We wound up having to use 3 different entrances to the park in order to be able see most of the park because the Going to the Sun Road was closed due to over 50 feet of snow still covering the road near Logan Pass.

Later however we were able to see all of the park from a helicopter.  It was the best way to see the park.  I don’t think I blinked for the entire ride because I was afraid that I might miss something.

Our ride home was pretty uneventful other than the herd of buffalo crossing the rode in Yellowstone which cost us 2 hours in traffic.  The photo on my flickr stream shows my reaction.

Overall we saw some pretty amazing things on our trip includeing, big horn sheep, grizzly and black bears (the grizzly had a cub with her), mountain goats with kids, moose, mule and whitetail deer, pronghorn, and some mountain orchids.

I am writing about this not because it has anything to do with technology or education, but because I think that everyone should take opportunities to explore and learn about the natural resources around us.  Exploration is a part of education that we often forget about when we are so focused on test scores and essential learning outcomes.  Even if it is only on a summer vacation we need to continue exploring as educators and bring back the things we learned about to our classrooms.  Maybe we will inspire some students to do the same.