Day 9

Day 9

Get up in the same clothes we went to bed in, our new Grizzle attire. We have the kids eat a quick, free, express breakfast and the Best Western in Butte. We drive, heading east for home, with numerous laughs, memories, and life long bonds with cousins made. We start to see signs outside of Bozeman for the “Live Grizzly Encounters”, after about the 5th sign we are hooked and decide to take a morning detour. We pull in and wake up the kids saying we have a surprise for them. As enthusiastically as their little tired bodies can, they peek their heads up. Nora reads the sign Grizzly encounters out loud and this gives them the incentive to put their feet on the ground and journey outside to this road side attraction. We stayed for about 30 minutes, really pretty cool, took some fun pictures of Maggie and Jake the 4year old bears. On the road again we head toward Billings, nearly running out of gas, the light was on for 15 miles, and we do an illegal turn with our 30 foot rig to make it happen. Bricker gets a horrific nose bleed that takes and entire box of tissue and numerous baby wipes to contain. While Bickers’ bleeding, Beki is trying to get wireless service to figure out how to stop the gush of blood. Bricker thinks Beki’s reaction is funny so he shows her frequently the blood ridden tissues. We are now in North Dakota. We were informed that his would be a pretty way to go home. We looked up the word pretty on the computer dictionary and North Dakota does not seem to fit. BB wants to stop and look at some time shares in hopes of picking up a few acres of quiet solitude. Beki won’t stop so we continue to drive across this barren land. We pick up a screwdriver at the truck stop to repair the arm that has fallen off the couch. We make a call to our friendly Crusin American rep to report the kissing mirrors; they do not seem to be too concerned. We know this seems to be and ongoing theme for this trip but the stench that is engulfing us is really unbearable. Tim just leaving the portable gas chamber has opened Pandora’s Box with the most unfathomable odor. Beki, again while driving, has her head out the window. Between full on gags, she is laughing as she looks in the mirror to see the kids with their heads also out the window. A car is passing by and the driver is buckled over in laughter. This has got to be a sight. BB, bless her heart, goes in for the kill, only to be forced to come out for air, it is truly indescribable. Did we mention we ran out of drop ins and are still using this forsaken invention? So we pull off into a small town in North Dakota. We go into the service station and ask the very friendly lady, while the kids have all rushed outside for fresh air away from the PV, where to do a pump out. She said she would not charge for this information because she could tell by the look on our faces we needed it. With rubber gloves in hand Beki and BB get the job down at a local park down the street. Now to find the toilet drop ins. This trip has truly come full circle, we are back to where we started. We all get back in and continue to take in the pretty scenery. We play a game of count the hay, Nora wins. We pull into Jamestown ND, and get what we are told is the last ‘master’ suite in town. Not telling how many we have, we enter the hotel in shifts to take over our one small room with a king bed and a pull out. The kids and BB head to the pool, Beki makes sandwiches for dinner. Kids play competitive game of catch followed by numerous other water act ivies. All others have now left the pool area where we have dinner pool side and retreat up to our room. Halee, Beki, Nora, Bricker and Tim pile into the King to watch TV while Peter rubs BB’s sore, steering wheel formed hands on the pull out. Anther priceless day comes to an end.

This blog cannot begin to express the incredible time we have all had together. For the past 9 days we have had an angel over us, assuring that Faith and family remain and integral part of our lives. Truly a trip of a life time