First -- a little background. We decided this summer to do a 10-day driving vacation, starting in Seattle, then Vancouver, Banff, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Jackson Hole, and ending in Salt Lake City. As the date for our flight to Seattle drew closer and closer, my work deadlines were keeping me from making reservations. Finally -- with about a week to go -- I turned to tripadvisor.com, read the top hotel reviews for our key stops, then made my reservations. As those of you with more than four in your family (we have five: my wife and me, plus two teenagers and a nine year old) know, it can be a real challenge finding suitable accommodations that don't leave someone sleeping on a sofa or on the floor. Almost without exception, our hotels were real winners, with a couple real gems, and just one clunker. And no one had to sleep on the floor.
Of course, our vacation just happened to fall during the HEAT WAVE OF THE CENTURY. When we arrived from Banff by way of Glacier National Park -- at about 8pm (still sunny, that time of year) -- the cabin (Two Bears) was completely closed up and very hot. There is no air conditioning, just one fan upstairs. I set up the fan to push the hot air out, and by 11pm it was almost comfortable enough to sleep. Other than that, the accommodations were fine for our family of five (two beds upstairs, a sleeper sofa downstairs) and I liked the rustic feeling of being in a cabin in the wilds of Montana. We ended up booking a whitewater raft trip at the resort, which turned out to be a GREAT call. My wife and kids had never before done whitewater rafting, and we had a great time. Food at the resort was nothing to write home about -- we instead had dinner at a trading post/restaurant in town that was quite good (the name escapes me...). Long story short, a good choice, but it would have been nice if the place hadn't been so hot when we checked in.




