This first chunk of blogging is all I got done on the road, at the hotel in Spokane...
Day One -- North to Hardin, Montana
NOT your typical beginning to a road trip -- we left Denver at 3:00 p.m.! Matt, Kimberly and I all had responsibilities at church, then we went to lunch at the CrackerBarrel on the north edge of town. What an adorable place! Rocked and played checkers on the patio while we waited (and waited...and waited.......), bought some old-fashioned candies, had some good omelets and fried chicken and sech like, and we were off!
It's probably a good thing that the trek across Wyoming happened on the first day. I think that our excitement about the trip carried us through, even when we discovered that the car only has a 10-gallon gas tank (whoops!), Matt's "nationwide coverage" proved pretty suck-y, we couldn't stay in very good touch with the other half of our group, and we finally arrived in Hardin at 11:30 p.m., met by semi-grumpy fellow travelers...we had forgotten that their luggage was in our car!
Not that it would have mattered -- I slowed us down considerably when I tried to rearrange the car a little, left a bag on the roof and drove off with it still up there. It finally slid off as we got back onto the highway, so Matt had to run back and gather up my belongings, assisted by a highway worker who then drove him back to the car.
All of that, and we still had SUCH a good time! We laughed and listened to good music all the way, punctuating the conversation every so often with an "OHMIGOSH, WHAT ARE WE DOING???" Neither of us has ever been on this kind of a road trip, so it felt SO WEIRD to drive and keep driving, away from home!
One cool thing about Wyoming -- they must know that the drive north is pretty boring, so they have "decorated" the hills along the highway with occasional metal silhouette sculptures: a buffalo greeted us at the Colorado border, and there were cowboys and buckin' broncs all along the way.
No time for anything in the morning except a quick breakfast at the hotel (6:00 a.m.!!), and it was already...
Day Two: FURTHER north to Conrad, MT!This was our first "real" stop on the road trip -- more than just a stopover to sleep. We pulled into Conrad at about 2:00 p.m., met up with Kimberly and her carfull, and drove over to the Hudderite colony where she'll be teaching in the fall.
What an experience. As soon as I get a chance, I'll upload pictures and write more. For now I'll just say that it felt like stepping into another world. They even speak another language -- a dialect of German. Everything in the colony is neat and precise. A place and a system for everything. We spent the afternoon with a wonderful woman named Katie, a grandmother who opened every cabinet and storage area to us -- kitchens, chapel, even the slaughterhouse! -- as we marveled at the organization of this community, and an ever-changing and ever-growing group of children flowed around her skirts everywhere she went.
Kimberly is in Seventh Heaven. She really seems to have found her niche in this place, and the prospect of her first real classroom all her own is so exciting that it glows in her face. It was fun to help her bring her things into the classroom and even more fun to watch later as she opened up big bags of huge stuffed animals and let the children (who had now begun to flow around HER) meet their new "reading buddies." What a privelege to be there for the beginning of this beautiful adventure for her!
Back to the hotel for us, a nap, and a discovery -- it was nearly 10:00 p.m. and still light out! We hadn't thought about that. We were now so far north that the days were actually longer!!
Matt and I borrowed a portable DVD player from Barb and tried to watch An Officer and a Gentleman before sleeping, but we mostly slept through it. It was filmed in Port Townsend, a place we plan to visit this week, so my friend Peggy lent it to us. I don't know if we saw enough of it to remember any of the locations -- we'll see!
Finally got a good night's sleep on Night 2, had breakfast at The Home Cafe in Conrad, hugged Kimberly and her clan goodbye, and drove off for...
Day 3 -- Glacier National Park, Northern Idaho, and Spokane
This was our longest day of driving, but by far the most beautiful yet. There were decisions to be made at several points, and that made it even more fun! The MapQuest I had printed for the drive to eastern Washington showed 8 hours to Grand Coulee Dam (where we planned to sleep over), but it didn't match the route we wanted to take -- north to Highway 2, then west.
Everyone we talked to gave
us a different version of how long the different options would take. One man we met at a gas station said there was "no way" we'd make it to Grand Coulee or even Spokane in one day, even if we didn't go through Glacier. We looked at the map and it seemed like nearly the same distance to go *through* the park as it would be to go *around* it on Highway 2, but one person said it would add an hour and a half to the trip, and another said four hours!!We finally decided to go through the park -- when would we ever be here again? -- and we don't regret it one bit. So BEAUTIFUL! I finally made Matt pull the car over and we took a "snaps for God" picture.
The pictures below are all from Glaci
er National Park.SNAPS FOR GOD!! :)
And one more, from the Idaho border, far enough north and close enough to Canada to feel like we were already there. The trees and the lush forest were amazing...and it wasn't the last time we'd feel like that, as we visited the Pacific Northwest!The motorcycles belong to a bunch of guys from L.A. who stopped by the sign to take their picture at the same time we did.
