Sunday, April 21, 2013

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN-PART ONE

I am eager to write some entries about the recent trip to Montana to do some work on the house! My best friend Brenda flew down from St Louis to embark on the "Mother Of All Road Trips!" I had loaded the van to the gills before she got here and yet somehow, we managed to squeeze in a few MORE things!



(Just when I didn't think we could shove any more into the van, we did!!)


We hit the road by 5 AM and stopped at a BRAUM'S in Oklahoma for breakfast. Eight hours later we stopped in York, Nebraska and met a friend of mine for lunch (we had been next door neighbors from 1986-1990 when we lived in Lincoln.) We drove westward and I marveled at how LONG it took us to get across the state of Nebraska!! We stopped in Sidney to grab a bite of dinner at the Cabela's grill and look around. The grill was closed and we settled on Subway for dinner, eating it while driving Interstate 80. With a huge storm on our heels, we had lots of wind and a killer sunset!



I had hoped to make it to Casper, Wyoming and spend the night there but we were really getting tired. We realized that fact when we found ourselves slap happy over the tumbleweeds! We didn't see an occasional tumbleweed, we saw "herds" of them and they were pummeling the van right and left! After 971 miles, we made it to Cheyenne, Wyoming, found a motel and slept soundly! The next morning I went to check the oil in the van and saw that we still had a few tumbleweeds attached to the van! Naturally, this produced even more laughter!



We hit the road early again and headed north on Interstate 25. In Buffalo, Wyoming we picked up Interstate 90 and crossed over into my beloved Montana! We were excited even though we had to go *500 miles still to make it to the Northwest corner of the state!!



We stopped just west of Billings and met a friend and his children for lunch. We met Rich Holstein back in 2006 when I read an article about how he was using wood reclaimed from the Old Faithful Inn to craft frames and other works of art. We have numerous frames and since that time he went on to make us a beautiful mirror and a custom coffee table all from the Inn's flooring! This picture is from the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation's convention in Ft Worth. Rich created a gorgeous gun cabinet for the event and brought it down to Texas where we met up with him and had dinner one night.



Although it took us 2 days and *1900+ miles to get to the house, the time as well as the miles clicked off. Brenda and I laughed that we "talked our lips off" because our throats were getting hoarse and we needed chapstick for our lips. We had such sweet fellowship together, sharing deep spiritual things as well as laughing hysterically as we remembered the tumbleweeds! We finally arrived in Columbia Falls, made a quick stop at the grocery store and were at the house by 9 PM. We both agreed to only take in our overnight bags and leave the unloading for the next day. I gave her a quick tour of the house which included seeing some of the improvements first-hand then we blew up the air mattress and crashed after the long drive. Morning would come quickly and then we would begin our work.

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