Kristina's Commentary on the Trip North

• The water in Crater Lake really is an incredible blue.
• Hiking 2 miles with a 700 feet elevation change (down to the water at Crater Lake) is not that impressive, though we felt it was at the time.
• Not all of OR and WA are rain forests. Actually, the eastern part (where we were) is dry and brown and desert and empty.
• If you stay in enough Motel 6's, you will eventually find one that has a spa, wireless internet, and other unlikely luxeries. The sad part is, we are impressed enough when they just have interior hallways.
• Northern ID looks skinny but still takes about as much time to cross as the widest part of RI.
• The sky in MT is beautiful, but I'm still not convinced it looks that much bigger than it does in, say, ND.
• The best place to cross the Rockies is MT, because they are only about 35 miles wide there, as opposed to further south,where they take up most of CO and chunks of UT, too. That almost makes the trip worth it right there.
• Glacier NP lives up to its full name of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site by being full of Canadians who make fun of US glaciers as puny, but maybe still worth the little jaunt up a 7000 ft mtn, because in Canada elevations like that are nothing to write home about either. However, when you are about dead from climbing up said mtn, such comments are not promoting peace.
• The glacier pictures in your Earth science textbook could have come from Glacier NP. U-shaped valleys, morraines, arrettes, you name it -- all right there.
• Hiking 11 miles with a 2300 ft elevation change trail _is_ impressive. I still don't know how we made it, and my feet hurt for about the rest of the trip, but the mtns were beautiful, and we got a good view of a glacier.
• The hands-down best way to see a Grizzly bear is through a telescope. Especially the day after a beaw mauling happened in the park!
• MT is bigger than it has any right to be. Luckily, the speed limit on essentially all roads is 70 mph. Towns on the map actually exist in reality only about half of the time; Also, "town" doesn't necessarily imply "gas station".
• The grass starts to get green in ND. However, this is the _only_ noteworthy thing, unless you are into giant statues of cows and buffalo (if you are into giant statues of Vikings, MN is your place. Also if you want your greenery in the form of trees).
• MN may really have 10,000 lakes, but partly because they also name ponds (and possibly puddles) as such.
• People in Darwin, MN, take their "biggest ball of twine" (if you know the Weird Al song) seriously to a scary degree. But for all that, its impressively big.
• Upper Pennisula MI is also much bigger than it has any right to be, especially when you factor in that sliver of WI you have to cross. And the fact that they are no longer letting you drive like a maniac. At least not legally.
• Lake Superior has green water and white sandy beaches and doesn't look like a place you would expect to find in MI. Otherwise, the Great Lakes all look pretty much alike, but it was still neat to see them all.
• The part of Canada between MI and NY is very flat and apparently full of zillions of golf courses. At least that seemed to be all they listed off every exit.
• In the end, THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME! :)