My romantic vision for the trip is to show up at our campsite at 3:30, give the kids a whistle and a walkie talkie, and send them off to climb rocks, hike trails and explore the wilderness until dinner is ready. In reality, this fantasy bliss will likely be replaced with arguing over who gets the pink cup and whines of “why can’t we watch another movie?”

One problem with this plan (among many others) is that our first three main waypoints (Glacier, Yellowstone, Tetons) are littered with Grizzly and Black bears that are fresh off of hibernation and I’m assuming hungry for small children. So we decided to search the Internet for advice on how to prevent bear attacks. Predictably, this did not go well.

We watched three videos that were all pretty clear about what to do if you see a bear. But Greta is incapable of keeping her composure under even the smallest amount of stress and she panicked when confronted by a Kellan bear in the hostile confines of our playroom. Kellan meanwhile only retained knowledge about how best to attack and kill a person if you are a Grizzly bear. Needless to say we will not be letting them get too far away from camp.