Here are some pictures of the rest of the grounds and villages.

Italian Village

Italian Village pool and hot tub

Cascades pool in Caribbean Village

Iguana pool in Caribbean Village

Kids play area in Caribbean Village

Caribbean Village

Some of the watersides at Pirates Island

More of the lazy river

Lazy River at Pirates Island water park

Kiddie slide area at Pirates Island

More slides and the tubes for the lazy river at Pirates Island

The Flo Rider at Pirates Island

Bobby D’s – a great place for burgers and fries and milkshakes

French Village

French Village Pool

French Village – restaurant area

French restaurant

Beaches Turks and Caicos is one of my favorite resorts in the Caribbean.  It is made up of 758 rooms in 4 villages.  The resort boasts 20 gourmet restaurants, a 45,000 square foot waterpark with a lazy river and 10 water slides and a surf simulator, 14 bars (several of those are swim up bars) and 10 pools.  There is something to do for everyone. The beach and ocean water here are just amazing!

For families they have kids camps – they even accommodate infants!  Camps are infant to 24 months, age 2-4, age 5-7, age 8-10, tweens and teens.

Water sports such as Hobie Cats, Aqua trikes, snorkeling, kayaking, stand up paddle boarding, windsurfing, waterskiing, Wild Cat tubing and SCUBA (if you are certified) are included as well.

For our stay this time we are in a Key West 1 bedroom concierge Villa Suite.  It is great for a family of 4 as there is a king in the bedroom and a trundle bed in the living room with a full bathroom.  A washer and dryer is even included in this room category!

Here are some pictures from the resort so far. Please contact us if you need quotes for this or any other Sandals and Beaches Resort!

Key West Village

View from the Sky restaurant at dinner

The amazing water and white, powder sand beach!

Kimonos – the Teppanyaki style restaurant

Trundle bed – so you can see the size – we get asked about this a lot

The blue water just beckons me!

Key West Village infinity pool

Beach wheelchairs are available upon request

The bedroom part of our suite

The living room part of our suite

We started the day with a boat ride in the Two Medicine section of the park, so named due to two different Native American women selecting the area for a medicine lodge many years ago. Anyway, the boat dropped us at a trail head to several different locations (Glacier is packed with great hiking alternatives) and we headed a little over 1 mile in to a spot called Twin Falls. As you might have guessed, beautiful! We caught the boat back to where our car was parked and were off to travel the Road to the Sun one last time.

We made a planned stop at the Logan Pass visitor center, praying for some parking, and were lucky to find a spot within a few minutes of arrival. From there, we took the Hidden Lake trail and hiked to, well, Hidden Lake. Okay, we didn’t make it to the lake itself, but we did reach the lake overlook about 1.4 miles, and 450-plus feet above, the visitor center. I don’t believe in an actual Stairway to Heaven, but for a guy like me there were times on this climb that I was beginning to feel that I might need to rethink my position. Fortunately, the scenery was stunning and we were able to see mountain goats up close when we reached the top.

Speaking of wildlife, we entered the day with a checklist of the animals we had hoped to see, but hadn’t yet. These included the aforementioned mountain goats, bighorn sheep and a grizzly bear. By day’s end, we had seen them all, plus a moose that basically sauntered through the parking area at Two Medicine. The bighorn’s and the grizzly, with cub, were pretty far away, but they were easy to make out with binoculars, so they count!

Tomorrow it’s a 4 am wakeup call and two flights with Delta. Here’s hoping for smooth air, on-time flights and an easy connection in Minneapolis!

Sherry and the kids opted for the horseback ride. The crew at the corral did an excellent job offering instruction and making sure they would have a safe adventure. Their trusty steeds, Gus, Jazz and Gilligan were up to the job. The two hour ride ended up being a little longer and Sherry said the views were stunning. Unfortunately, you can’t take a camera on the trail – something about not wanting someone to get yanked off of their horse by a camera strap caught on a tree. It was probably for the best.

Since I’ve never had much luck with the horses, and they didn’t offer Clydesdales so there wasn’t really an animal prepared for a man of my carriage, I opted to hike instead. I made the loop around Swiftwater Lake and added a quick detour to take in some of the north side of Lake Josephine. Altogether, it was about 5 miles of relatively flat hiking and a great time.

Here are today’s best pictures, enjoy!

The scenic drive from the west side to East Glacier Park is one of the most stunning scenic drives I have ever seen. Weather wasn’t perfect, and the views were still simply jaw-dropping. Scenery on this route is the closest to Alpine Europe of anything we’ve witnessed domestically. The kids even got to pose for a few pics with snow still on the ground!

Besides a couple of squirrels, we didn’t catch any wildlife today. For the next two nights we’re at the historic Glacier Park Lodge. I assume it’s historic anyway, because it doesn’t have an elevator. Fortunately our room is on the top floor. Thank God for the bellman!

As I said, Yellowstone was amazing. All of God’s creation is beautiful, but when it comes to Yellowstone, there is no question that He was just showing off. At every turn, there is another stunning view, and we did our best to enjoy them all. Perhaps the only thing that even rivals the beauty of Yellowstone in terms of being awe-inspiring is the capacity of a pre-teen girl to act as if she is completely unimpressed. We love her anyway, however.

We stayed in the park for a total of three nights, two at the Lake Lodge cabins and one at the Snow Lodge by Old Faithful. Whichever inside-the-park accommodations you choose will likely be fine, just be sure to choose something inside the park. On our way out today, we saw lines of traffic full of people who had stayed outside the park trying to get inside. The park is huge, maximize your time by staying in the park and taking in its beauty rather than spending hours staring at the back of the car in front of you.

Over the three days we were in the park, we took almost all of it in, at least everything you can reach by car. We didn’t hike specifically, but we did take in all of the “boardwalk” points of interest. Besides all of that, we had time to take in a couple of night wildlife drives as well as an evening guided fishing trip. Someone who wanted more hiking time could easily spend 5 or more days in the park and not grow bored by all it has to offer. That is, unless, nature’s stunning beauty bores you like a pre-teen girl!

A visit to take in Yellowstone should be a bucket list item, no matter who you are. Here are some of my favorite pics!

Excelsior Geyser Crater near Grand Prismatic

Old Faithful erupting during sunset

Grand Prismatic at Middle Geyser Basin – The parking here is a zoo, but very worth it!

Firehole Lake – Part of a two mile scenic loop that includes several geysers, two that erupted while we were there!

Josh had the only catch during our fishing trip, a 20″ Cutthroat Trout. This the lake’s native fish so they are catch and release only. The trip was A LOT of fun, even if the fish were a little slow to bite.

The lower (taller) falls at Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. This was taken from Artist’s Point, which is aptly named. If I could paint, you might have found me there.

Sunset over the Yellowstone River

Phelps Lake

Lewis Falls

Bear fresh out of the Yellowstone River

On the advice of our rafting guide, we headed to the Death Canyon trailhead and hiked to the Phelps Lake overlook. It’s about 2 miles round trip and the view is worth it. For more adventurous hikers, you can head down about another mile to the lake and do some swimming. We were happy at the overlook and then headed back to the car. From there, it was on to Yellowstone.

We waited to enter the south gate for about 15 minutes. There are two lines, we chose the one with the chatty ranger. No lie, the ranger working the other booth processed at least 15 cars in the time our line handled 4. The ranger in our line was a woman, the one in the other was a man, do whatever you please with that information.

Once in the park, we headed to Lewis Falls to do a little creek stomping. From there, we headed to the lake lodge in order to check in to our cabin and have dinner. After a quick meal at the cafeteria, we headed out to the Hayden Valley for some wildlife viewing as the sun was setting.

The wildlife was plentiful. We saw several bison, two different elk herds and a bear. The highlight of the evening, however, was a pack of wolves that we were able to watch work its way across the valley. At one point they appeared to be hunting an elk that had wandered from the herd, but they ended  up moving along, much to the relief of said elk. It was really something to see all of the elk on high alert as the wolves meandered along.

Our cabin at the lake lodge is nice and as I type this everyone is already conked out from another long day. Tomorrow it’s all day sightseeing in Yellowstone capped off with a fishing trip in the evening. Can’t wait!

Sunset over the Yellowstone River

Phelps Lake

Lewis Falls

Bear near Yellowstone River