On the Road Again

Joni made everyone her famous “world’s best scrambled eggs” for breakfast this morning, and then we were off, heading west, back home again.  It was sad to say goodbye to our sweet spot by the riverside (above), as they are such a hospitable family, but we didn’t want to overstay our welcome.  It was amazing what we saw and did with just two days in the park!  God really blessed the time we had and I’m thankful for that.

We stopped in Bozeman to make a Wal-Mart run as Kaleb needed a swimsuit and an inverter so he can charge up his electronics with the RV battery when the generator isn’t running.  Priorities.  Tina bought some “Angry Birds” fruit snacks and the boys set up their own challenges with those treats, throwing the birds at the pigs and if they knocked them off, they got to eat them.  It was pretty funny to watch. 

The best bakery in Montana is just outside Bozeman, started by a Norwegian immigrant.  Wheat Montana is a destination place in itself, so we made sure we stopped there for lunch and to buy a few items for the road.  All I can say is that the bread is as good there as it is in Norway, so that guy knows what he is doing.  Yum.

We also stopped in Missoula again to gas up and to let Are go back to a sporting goods store and buy a few more things for a quarter of the cost they are in Norway.  Tina and I used the time to shop at Ross, next door while the boys just played with their Nintendos in the RV. (These wild purple flowers covered the hillsides in one area we passed.)

While we were waiting for Are, I ran into a store to buy some veggies for dinner.  I took out the trash before I left.  While I was gone, Tina started looking for Daniel’s glasses, worried he’d left them back at the Robert’s house.  When she couldn’t find them anywhere, all she could think was that they fell off the table and into the garbage can below.  Since I’d just taken out the garbage, she ran up to the store and found the bag I’d dumped, sitting on top of the can, then started going through our trash.  Sure enough, they were in there.  We couldn’t have been more thankful to God for that entire series of events.  Amazing all the way around.

Two years ago when we made this trip to Yellowstone, we passed a tourist trap called 10,000 Silver Dollars.  It’s now called 50,000 silver dollars, as that’s how many more dollars are hanging on the wall with the name of the person under it that donated the dollars.  What a gimmick, but it provided for a good stop when we needed it and Kaleb and Daniel both bought some knives there.  It seems they are now at the age where these things matter.  They were happy campers, to say the least.

Once we hit Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, we had to pop in to the Dollar Store to show them what they can buy for six Norwegian kroner.  It was the biggest store I’ve been in so I was able to spend a few dollars there myself.

We debated about eating dinner in the parking lot, as we were all starving, but it was getting late and I was worried about making it to our camp ground for the night, before the Ranger Station closed.  Boy was I right.  We pulled in to Farragut State Park two minutes before 9pm, so God was directing that decision.  I heated up dinner (it was already pre-planned, made and in the freezer), and we enjoyed a very late night dinner at our campground.  It didn’t take long after that before we all decided it was time for bed and that was the end of our long day on the road.

Tomorrow we stay put and let the boys go to Silverwood, a big water park/theme park, in Idaho, and Kory and I get a day of rest.  Not sure what that will look like, but maybe we need it.