The ride to Dodson, MT

As I start this, I really wish I had done a day to day journal of it en route.  I had my lappy.  Anyways, better late than never right?  lol

Andy and I were actually ready to go before our ride got to our house - I know, amazing huh?  We made a mad dash home from work Thursday afternoon and I gathered up the dogs and all there things, yes they have "things", and rushed them over to Dan and Denice's while Andy stayed home and gathered all of our things for the trip.  I got to the Boe's and no one was home.  I was a bit surprised by this because Denice had had surgery that morning and I thought she would be home at least.  I knew how to get in and quietly went down the hall expecting Denise to be asleep in their room, but no one was there.  Hmmm.  I was a little concerned by this.  I got the dogs and their kennels and their travel bag in and got got them settled and headed back home.  I tried calling Dan and Denise both with no answer.  I called our friend Lorie expecting that she would have been kept up-to-date through the day, but she hadn't heard anything.  I got home and finished getting my stuff in our bag for the weekend and then sat down to wait for everyone to get there.

I decided to get a glass of OJ while I waited and get to get my laptop bag and camera bag together and organized at the same time.  In the process of doing this I managed to spill my juice.  Almost all of it.  All over a couch pillow, my purse, my shoes, and the floor.  Thank goodness it missed all the electronics.  My purse is toast which leaves me purseless and I'm not really sure how I feel over that.  My shoes, well my shoes have seen much better days and have been in need of replacement anyway, but when Andy spotted them full of juice he grabbed them and through them in the trash.  My poor rocket dogs are gone.  I will miss them.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to mourn or clean up as that's when the family decided to arrive.  I had to quickly sop everything up and empty my purse and get everything wiped off and spread out to dry as well as decide what I really needed out of it for this trip.  We got loaded and headed out.  This is about 5:30.  I tried calling the Boe's again, with no answer and more concern.  Stacie decided they needed a potable dvd player and we had to stop at Walmart and then had to go find a maverick gas station.  We finally left Salt Lake at about 6:30.

We finally got under way but I was having a growing concern about Denise and my puppies.  What if something went wrong, what if she needed to be admitted, what if it was serious? What if Dan doesn't remember that the dogs are waiting in their kennels at their house?  Will they get let out?  Will they get fed?  Oh no!  But Andy finally got hold of Dan and everything went well, just took a little longer than expected.  Whew.  Denise did really well and was home and resting.  Dan had some brief questions about Mr Chewy's meds and that was that.  Now on to an all night drive to Dodson, MT.

We got under way and so far so good.  Stacie and Becca sung some songs to stay entertained.  Becca is so cute, she knows the words and all the actions to several songs.

 Here they are doing Itsy Bitsy Spider.  They entertained us for quite a while, and to my surprise Becca did actually watch a little bit of a movie on the player.  She's not a movie and tv type of kid.  I'm so glad she does so well on car rides. 

We got to Downy, ID and decided to stop to stretch and see what the cafe looked like at the gas station there.  Andy and I got some lotto tickets and we all decided to go on and find somewhere else to eat.  As we were loading back in the van, this car pulls up and three girls get out.  I get ready to climb in the van and out of no where I hear this blood curdling scream behind me and then another.  I turn around and two of these girls are just screaming away looking at the building, and I'm like "wth?" I look over in time to see a mouse, a mouse, running along the building and then under the ice chest.  The third girl and I just burst out laughing and then everyone else once they found out what was going on.  The first girl made the second girl carry her into the gas station.  It was too funny.  What wusses!  haha

I'm so glad we decided to go on for food.  We stopped at this diner in Pocatello, ID called Elmer's.

What a great place to eat.  The prices were a tad high but the service was good and the food,  the food was awesome.  My dear grandma was an excellent cook.  I never thought I would ever taste her food again.  No one can cook like her.  Well guess what?  Stacie got the roast beef and potatoes and oh my goodness!  The gravy tasted so close to hers it just as well be hers.  It was delicious.  It was the real thing, made from actual roast drippings.  No packet gravy there.  All our food tasted fresh and made from scratch.  It was awesome.

We made one more stop at another Walmart for forgotten supplies and we were once again on our way.  We traded drivers and took turns sleeping all through the night with a stop here and there for gas and stretches.  There was no moon so it was a pitch black night.  The sky finally started to lighten the sun started coming up.  Let me tell ya, when the sun comes up straight from the horizon with no mountains, it looks huge!

Here is the sunrise over the station we stopped at for gas in the morning, somewhere in southern Montana

I got this great picture as we were getting off the freeway.  Love it!  Too bad the bug splats on the windshield showed up...

We drove on, and on, and on.  We ended up stopping in Loma, MT for breakfast.  We stopped at this little diner called Ma's Loma cafe. They were open and there were people inside so we went in and found a table.  This guy came over with menu's and I looked up and thought, "Holy cow, Captain Kirk is gonna serve me breakfast!"  I kid you not, this guy was William Shatner's doppleganger.  I am a geek and a die hard Trekie.  I loved it.  Anyway, he took our orders and then told us that his cooks weren't in and it would be another 20 minutes or so to get our food.  Why couldn't he have said that before sitting us and taking our orders?  Oh well, we went outside and wondered around the property and found some really nice hunting dogs int he back to say hi to, and get our legs stretched out.  Turns out it was worth the wait too, the food was delicious.

We're running behind.  On the map, it's a 12.5 hour trip.  I estimated we could do it in about 14-15 hours with stops.  We get to Havre, MT - so close! - and Dad decided to make one more stop to see this old steam engine on display.

The engine was neat and cool, but only Dad and I got out, we were tired, we were sore, and we were so close.  We needed to get to Dodson early in order for us all to get naps and showers before the graduation.  If it had just been me, I would have gotten out, taken five pictures,s and got back in the car and went.  But no. 

Dad had to go around back and watch the trains in the active train yard for a bit.

I was starting to get annoyed, but then Dad found a couple of engineers and they were nice enough to let us up in the cab of the first engine in the previous picture.  It was awesome.

Looking out from the cab.  It's really tight in there.  With four of us, no one could move.  We didn't stay long and went on our way soon after.  After Dad had to watch the train leave of course.  : )

Dad had to chase the train for a bit and we followed it and it followed us all the way there.  We finally made it.  Yay!  But the 14 hour car ride turned into 17+ after all the stops.  We were all ready to get out and be done, but overall it wasn't a bad trip up.

More to come tomorrow.