Montana is incredibly beautiful in the spring, and it's splash-and-dash storms always keep you on your toes whenever you plan to be outside. A few of these storms occurred while we were there. Once, we were outside of Bozeman at a nearby lake, called Hyalite Reservoir, fishing. A few times throughout the day, we scurried off of the lake, out of our boats, and into our nearby parked cars to wait out the rain flurries. When the weather cleared, it was a beautiful, fruitful day. Plus, I got to spend time with my sweet doggie-niece and nephew, Daisy and Kype.
The other storm we experienced worth mentioning is one that hit my parents' house, with force! A big black cloud rolled in out of the west, lightning and thunder crashed, seemingly only a few feet from the house, and rain fell by the bucket full. For twenty minutes, this went on, and then nickel-sized hail began pelting the house and ground. What a ruckus! When the storm passed, two inches of rain had fallen in half an hour, and my parents drive way was now a raging river. But, mother nature heard us crying mercy and offered a double rainbow in apology!
Festivities and my friend Michaela's beautiful wedding followed, and soon it was time to say goodbye to our family and the farm and continue our National Parks tour. We couldn't bear to leave southern Montana without seeing Yellowstone National Park, and there we enjoyed abundant wildlife, spectacular geysers, and beautiful scenery.
A long, hot drive from West Yellowstone took us through southern Idaho, and landed us just outside of Portland in a sweet little town along the oh-so-grand Columbia River Gorge. Here, we met up with John's family, enjoyed swapping stories, shared a delicious meal, and took an afternoon to explore the Sandy River.
From there, we caravan-ed westward to the coast with a somewhat smaller group. We gorged on Tillamook ice cream, and enjoyed the quiet, scenic farmland of western Oregon. Landing just outside of Lincoln City at a beautiful house directly on the beach, we raced down to the sand to enjoy the sunset.
Our week of fun in the sun, boogie-boarding, and metal-detecting went by all too fast, but we were able to get some fun photos during our stay!
