On The Road...Again

Road warriors extraordinaire

Driving across the country is something you should do at least once in a lifetime.  But after the 6th or so time, the epic journey loses a bit of its romance.  We've already kept track of license plates (North Dakotans are everywhere now), counted the Wall Drug signs both eastbound and westbound, and taken pictures of all the state lines.  The dogs have peed in all four time zones and Carl has downed more energy drinks than he'd care to admit.  We left Chile on January 29th, and by February 11th we had arrived at our new home in Ennis, Montana.  That's approximately 10,052 miles in 14 days.  We're ready to be off the road for a while.

From West Virginia we drove west to Bozeman to stay with our friends Amanda and John.  On the way we stopped for the night in Rapid City, SD, exhausted and ready to find some fried food.  You wouldn't think that the first weekend in February would be such a busy time but every hotel we drove by had a full parking lot and was charging premium prices for their rooms.  Turns out it was the last night of the stock show and Rapid City was bumping.  Who knew.

On to Bozeman, where our friends were kind enough to let us sleep on their futon while we searched for a place to live.  Much to our surprise, it took all of  one day.  Carl had the genius idea to stop in at the local paper to see if there were any classifieds that hadn't run yet, and lo and behold there was an old farmhouse for rent.  We drove out to see it, got the key from the neighbor who stands a full head taller than Carl, and decided that it would work perfectly.  I think it was the rotary phone and creepy root cellar that really sold us.  That, and the wilderness area two miles up the road.

That accomplished, it was off to Oregon via a visit to my aunt and uncle north of Spokane, WA, to retrieve our worldly belongings.  Everything fit in the 24' moving truck with room to spare and the roads were clear all the way back to Montana.  Unfortunately, we did have a casualty: our Portland Timbers gnome didn't survive the journey.  The dogs were super troopers through the whole ordeal, although by the end Bubba wouldn't leave the car in case we left without him and Luna refused to get back in.  But once the couch was out of the truck in and in the house, the dogs finally realized that we were home.

Home sweet home