Road Trip!

I've been out of town a lot recently spending Christmas week in British Columbia, then the archeological tour in Mexico and Guatemala, and then a road trip to the northeast corner of North Dakota, 1700 miles each way.  Right after I bought my Subaru I hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the family and as we were all comparing new vehicles (3 of us bought cars within a 3 week period) someone asked me where I wanted to go for the first road trip and I said "North Dakota."  Almost immediately my sister-in-law said she would go with me.  Then she apologized for inviting herself along on my vacation but she felt that Neal had urged her to go with me to help.  I was delighted she wanted to come along and my daughter was thrilled.  So we made plans for her to ride out with me and return by Amtrak so she could get back to work and I could stay longer.  Our plan was to make the trip in two long days, staying overnight with a friend in Billings the first night and arriving in Langdon on the second night.  But while I was in Guatemala weather in Seattle was less than lovely and Lisa lost a couple of vacation days because she couldn't get to work.  Her daily two-hour commute from Pt Ludlow to Everett could be an entirely separate blog entry!
Anyway, we left Lisa's new Ford Escape in my garage and headed out early on April 14th.  Saturday was a long day but the weather was nice and we had long talks.  We arrived in Billings later than planned so poor Rondel had to wait up for us but we were so grateful for two lovely guest bedrooms with comfy beds.  I had planned to show Lisa a little of Billings on our way out of town (the temple, my former home, the school where I taught, etc) but it was raining and we needed to meet Anne & Will at a truck stop east of town so she got a quick look at the temple and then we headed to the freeway.  The kids had been in Billings that weekend for a wedding and travelling back together was easier for all of us.  Celestina convinced her parents that she needed to ride in my car so we did some relocating of containers to make room for her in the back seat.  She was a good travel companion - playing Trivial Pursuit and other games with us while we travelled.  It rained and the wind blew and I didn't see much of North Dakota due to the need to keep the kids' truck in view.  However I did take one photo on the road.

Why is there a giant cow sculpture on the hill???

This is the only picture I took of Lisa - Celestina was reading to her.

In order to make sure Lisa was on time we drove to Devils Lake the night before and stayed in a motel so she could meet the train at 6:13am. It was only 20 minutes late - not bad.

These two pictures were taken during our evening meal.  Dreygan loved making faces with the straw but would stop whenever he saw the camera.

Back home he entertained us by reacting whenever his mom put the cold sippy cup on his bare feet.

Look at that mouthful of teeth!

 Birthday time!  Before her party Celestina opened family gifts.

A glass box from Auntie Brenda.

A Boeing shirt plus many other gifts from Auntie Lisa.

I forgot to take pictures of other presents but this was the "best" gift - Mario Party for her DS.

Dreygan loves the cat and the cat is very very patient with him.

Snack time - the diapers on the floor and the misplaced dog dish are due to Dreygan's fascination with tossing diapers or dragging the dog dish from place to place. The boxes are probably some of my treasures to be sorted.

 I had a couple of reasons for going to North Dakota.  One was to go to Celestina's baptism, another was to take things to the kids that couldn't be shipped easily, and the other was to go through 32 boxes of "treasures" and decide what I still wanted.  I came home with 5 boxes, one Rubbermaid container and my old sewing machine.  It's amazing how treasures lose their value as time passes.

Since I would be driving back alone I didn't try to make the return trip in two days.  In fact the first day I only drove to Bismarck, but that first 160 miles was the most stressful for me so I knew I'd need a break by the time I was in Bismarck.  One thing I did there was find the temple.  It is lovely and worthy of its own blog post later.

Bismarck Temple is small but there is an amazing feeling of serenity around it.  I didn't want to leave.

The second day I drove from Bismarck to Billings and spent two days with Rondel.  She is preparing for her Bat Mitzvah and I was amazed that she is reading and learning her portion in Hebrew.  She has a lovely home - wish my photos were better to show all the rooms.

She did the needlepoint on that bench in the entryway.

Master Bedroom - lace canopy will be put on soon.

Leaving Billings I drove to Wallace but that was a tough day - heavy snow (saw 3 snowplows on Bozeman Pass), high winds, rain, cracked windshield - not fun.  I was in bed by 6:30pm at the motel in Wallace.

Saturday the 28th I drove from Wallace to Renton - an easy day except for construction and oversized loads that blocked traffic.  

So that was my road trip.  I still need to share photos of the birthday party and the day of the baptism but that will be another blog entry.