This July we went on a five days road trip to Glacier National park along with my friend Satya and her family, yes the same friends with whom we did our first RV Trip!

Needless to say,we had an amazing time.

Did you know that there are 63 national parks in USA?In the past five years we have covered Mount Rainier(WA),Olympic(WA) and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes(HI) national parks,this year we added the Crater Lake(OR) and Glacier(MT) national parks to the list.

There is a lot to cover and like the RV trip,I’ll be covering our trip in more than one post.

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Day1:Drive to Spokane(WA)

The trick to having a successful road trip with kids is to carry their favorite snacks,sketch pad,colors,books and this is a big one,planned rest breaks!

Knowing his girls,S had the saved the entire trip marked with rest areas in every 40 miles,you know,to avoid the last minute “I gotta to go right now..” 😂

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We left for our first stop Spokane on Thursday afternoon,the first thing you notice as you drive from the east towards the west is the changing landscape.

We are so used to seeing greenery that this sudden change was very pleasing to the eyes as shades of green slowly metamorphosed to warm shades of yellow and brown.

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And right then,in the middle of these plains we spotted the Wild Horse wind farm.

This wind farm reminded me of our trips to Belgaum and the windmills you see near Chitradurga on highway NH 48,ah those carefree no children travel days!!

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We reached Spokane in about 4 hours, just in time for dinner.We picked naan and butter chicken from a local Indian restaurant and headed straight to the hotel.

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Day 2:Playing Tourist in Spokane

The next morning after breakfast,as planned we stepped out to explore the city of Spokane.We had big plans of covering all the close by tourist spots including a gondola ride over the Spokane river.

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Unfortunately the weather was not on our side,it was going to be a hot day,so after much deliberation we decided to visit the famous Riverfront park in downtown Spokane.

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The riverfront park has an amazing play area and much needed splash pad to cool that burning skin! Trust me,it was that bad.

The kids were having a blast but the heat and lack of breeze got to all of us.Ms. V started complaining of headache!

We left for a early lunch and soon were back on the road heading to our next destination the Volunteer Park,MT, about 3 and half hours drive from Spokane.

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Oh, by the way Ms. N and Ms. A, two out of the four kids had got the sniffles!So now our travel kit included all sorts of meds,a steamer,vitamin C shots and two runny noses in addition to countless other things!

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Day 2:Entering Montana

We crossed into Idaho and soon were in Montana.Thanks to honey cough syrup,Ms. N was in deep slumber,Ms. V kept herself busy on kindle while Kishore Kumar yodeled in the background.

Montana is known for its majestic mountains and Huckleberries.Enroute to the Volunteer park Satya and family stopped at a shack to take a sip of famous Huckleberry shake.

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At one point during the drive we entered US 200 highway a scenic and yet as described by many a desolate-lonesome road.Miles and miles of plains with no rest areas,no houses,not a soul in sight just a few cars heading in the same direction as us.

Imagine if you get a flat tire on this road or are traveling solo late in the day.

Day 2:Volunteer Park (Montana)

We didn’t want to deal with tired cranky kids and that is precisely why we kept taking breaks.

Our next break came three and half hours later,when we stopped at Volunteer Park,a small park right on the shores of the beautiful Flathead Lake in Lakeside MT.

This park came highly recommended by Kiran’s colleague and rightly so,it was a great spot to flex those tired muscles.

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Coming from Washington,where we rarely get warm water lakes this was such a welcome change.The water was unbelievably warm.

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As expected the kids went crazy,the other three adults happily joined the kids,I as always stayed out of the water!

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After spending over an hour at the park and plenty of warnings later the kids were finally out of the water!It was time to head to our final destination, Whitefish MT.

Day 2:Whitefish MT

We stopped in Kalispell city for lavish Mexican dinner at Casa Mexico and reached our Airbnb in Whitefish MT at around 9 pm Mountain time.

Rated as one of “Top 25 Ski Towns in the World” by National Geographic, Whitefish is a quaint little ski resort town located just 35 minutes drive away from western entrance of Glacier park,perfect for us.

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The guys left us with the kids to get staples from nearby Safeway.Our airbnb had a character of its own,squeaky ladders,hidden basement,only yellow light lamps and a huge teddy bear in the kids room!!

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After the fun at the lake,the kids were surprisingly anything but tired.We just plopped them on the bed and turned the lights off ignoring all the whispers coming from the room 😜.

Finally at 12am,the entire house went to sleep.Day 3 and Day 4 were the explore-the-parks days,details of which are in the next post.

“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin”~Tony Robbins