Finally, I finished my NY tour diary and I can start my national parks part now. It's kind of hard to practice English at home in Summer vacation, so I am thinking to make this diary in English. The other reason why I want to write it in English is because I wanna share my pleasure with my best traveling partner Nao. Hoping there are not too many grammer mistakes or spelling mistakes in the article~
Befor we went there, I had been preparing this trip for about 6 months. I was not so interested in Ntional Park when I first came to US. But after Jerome and Nao invited me to travel together, I realized that I do love the natural. I was amazed by the natural several times and it made me feel smell at that moment. When Jerome invited me to go Yellowstone national park together last year, I was so excited because Yelloestone might be the only national park I knew at that time. (Yellowstone and Yosemite are the only two national parks I knew before I came to America.) Although we didn't make it but the idea to go to Yellowstone national park has always been in my head. So after my first semester in USC, I started to plan my US traveling plans for the next one and half year. NY and Yellowstone are the fist two must-go places in my mind.
I began to read the blog Thor's hammer which I always read before the trip at the begainning of spring semester. The first messamge I found was that I have to make the reservation for hotel 6 months befre I go... WTF is that? Yellowstone National Park is too pouplar that I have to make the reservation so early? Fortunatly, I am still a student so I can sure I have time in Summer... I spent lots of time reading the blog and taking notes. There are too many things to see. At the time I was reading the blog, I noticed that there is another amazing park "near" Yellowstone and the name of the park is Glacier National Park. Both Yellowstone and Glacier are big national parks. Usually, 3 days is enough to finish a national park. But for these two parks, it will be great if we can spend one week for each of them. Just like the NY tour, I decided to spend two weeks in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton. (Grand Teton is the park right below Yellowstone)
It's been a pain in the ass planning this trip... It's hard to resver hotels in park and it's far more expensive than traverlodge and super 8. It's hard to rent car too becaure the flight I choose. I am going to skip this long, boring planning process. Before we go, Joyce and I read the whole blog again to make sure we don't miss anything and it cost us 5 days to get it done...
0708 The first day of the trip:
We woke up at 3AM to catch the prime shuttle. Let's have some America geography. The fist sop Glacier NP is located at Montana state. Yellowstone NP is located at Wyoming state and it takes 6 hours to drive from Glacier to Yellowstone. Grand Teton is right below Yellowstone. Actually, they are linked together. We stopped at Seattle and then Kalispell. We arrived Kalispell at noon. After putting our luggage in Super 8, we decided to go Glacier right away although we were tired.
Photo before we took off
It's a 40 minutes drive form Super 8 to Glacier. I was kind of tried so I drank a bottle of red bull to keep me awake. The weather was not so good at that day. It was very cloudly. The trail we planned to go is called Trail of the Avalanche Laket, and I thought it is a easy trail that might takes us 1.5 hour to finish it which is totally wrong after we "really" hike it... (I will explain later) It's so exciting when we saw the sign "Glacier National Park" because it took me so long to be there! Before we hike, we followed the sign to visitor center. I got to have my NP cancellation stamp first!!!
Just when we stepped outside, we saw the sunlight! The weather changed so fast that that 20 minutes can be a different stroy. The visitor center is right next to a lake called Lake Mcdonald. The view I saw is so beautiful and it reminds me once again that I was really there. "Finally, I am not staring at the screen but here" I think. it's a pleasure time to have discussion with Joyce in topic "how to get good photos of Lake Mcdonls". How lucky I am~
So happy to be there National Park cancellation stamp and sticker! 
Lake Mcdonald is so beautiful~
After taking tons of photos at Lake Mcdonald, it's about time to go to Trail of Avalanche Lake. We drave on the road called going-to-the-sun road which is the most famous road in the park. They even make stamp and stickers for the road. We stopped by the turnout(路肩, they call it pullout in Yellowstone.) a lot because of the amazing sceneries. It's always good to see the river along with mountains and trees. It took us more time than we expect to get to the trai because we stopped too often. And here comes a bed news, the sky is getting dark again...
It must be a tremendous feeling when you at that spot! Feel so smell standing there. 
oh no, the sky is getting dark... I thought this trail is easy... apparently not
At the beginning the trail is easy. And I thought it is a 1 mile round trail, we can finish it in an hour. But after 15 minuties, the road condition was getting worse. There is not too much thing you can see while we were hiking. The virw is almost the same which made us bored. What really made me crazy is that there is no sign to tell you how far is it between you and the destination... While we were hiking we kept making stupid noises to keep away the bear. We didn't have bear spray or any other weapon so we just making funny noises to let bears know we were there.
First bear warning sign we saw in this park
It took us probably 80 minutes to reach the Avalanche Lake. Once again, I felt a sense of accomplishment when I saw the scenery which is exactly the same as what I read in the blog. Maybe this is the benefit to travel by ourselves instead of follow the package tour. It's like you achieve something big after you prepared so much and finally get there.
You can see there is ice melting and becoming rivers going to Avalanche Lake. You can also saw glacier and Glacial relics on the mountain. We took lots of pictures together and don't wanna leave. Unfortunatly, just 20 minutes after we arrived, it started to rain. Although We had water-proof jecket but I was afraid that the temperature will go done very fast. So we quickly packed our stuffs and ran into the forest to avoid the rain.
Avalanche Lake
Calm before the stron
It's truly a unforgetable experience jogging in the forest and making noises togeher. We were exhausted when we arrived the trail head. The rain came fast and gone fast. Perhaps this is the tipical weather in the mountain. Before we went back to hotel, we stopped by Lake Mcdonald for the sunset view. The sky was clear at that time so we can see sun light reflected on the cloud which made the cloud red.
You can see mountain's reflection on the water. Sunset time in Lake Mcdonld
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