Montana Bound ~ A Story

Hey all! 

So, as you may or may not know, I was recently down in Montana for a wedding with my family.  I thought you guys might want to hear about the trip!

(If not feel free not to read this :)

Also this is for me to look back on and so that's why there are some seemingly random facts that are still important to me, and that I don't want to forget.

Note: Dad had to stay home to do the chores so he isn't really in this story.

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Friday 6:00 AM.

We get up six to do the chores...chores are not fun. XD

In the morning the chores take about an hour if all goes well.

7:00 AM

We eat a breakfast of eggs and bacon, then we get dressed in our travel clothes and pack the van with everything we need. (Clothes, food, water...siblings. ;) 

And we're of by about eight-ish.

8:00 AM - 11:30 AM

For four hours we drive, and drive and drive. Mostly I read out loud to Mom to keep her awake while she drove.

Thank goodness for long Agatha Christie books.

12:00 AM

For lunch we had a picnic at a nice park, where a cat tried to eat our sandwiches. 

1:30 PM

We reach the border.

It was very anti-climatic.

We got through with no problems. :)

1:30 PM - 8:30 PM

It was a long stretch of lonely road... with many strange sights including, a wild turkey sitting on a cow, a herd of goats in a tank yard, and the towns Grass Range and Roundup in order. 

8:30 PM

We finally arrived in Billings! So I, being the designated navigator, pulled out Mom's phone to get the map, and look up the address of our hotel.

And I realised Mom didn't get an International phone plan.

We had no map.

We had no Internet.

We didn't have anyone down-there's phone number.

So we had to phone my Grandma to get us directions.

We eventually got to the hotel... at ten thirty.

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Saturday 7:30 AM

We got up and had breakfast at the hotel. 

All the staff were super nice and helpful, they gave us a map and directions to everywhere we needed to go.

9:00 AM

We met our friends at Cabela's and looked around for a while. We also went to Toy's R Us. I was hoping they might have some AG dolls but they only had, like, two Wellie Wisher sets.

OK, so really weird thing we noticed.

There are at least seven different kinds of Montana licence plates. It was strange. Are all the States like that?

12:00 AM

We went to Golden Corral for lunch.

Oh my goodness! I've never seen such a big buffet! It was insane! 

Plus, I found a package of 'Rockets' and it said 'Smarties'. That made us all laugh.

3:00 PM

We went back to the hotel to get ready. The wedding was at six in the evening, so we had two hours to get ready. We ironed our clothes, showered, and did our hair.

And we were ready.

6:00 PM

Alright, so, you have to have a bit of background for this next part. Our three families, our friends, the family who was having the wedding, and us, used to live very close to each other. We were all close friends, until we moved to Saskatchewan, one family moved to Montana, and the other family moved to eastern Alberta. We hadn't seen the family who moved to Montana for about seven years. 

But, when we got to the wedding, it was great to meet old friends, and fun to see what changes in seven years.

The boy I remember as a goofy eleven-year-old is now graduated.

The two girls I remember as the cool teenagers are now both beautiful, funny, married young women. 
And my friend... I barely recognized her. Now she is so much more mature and beautiful, but still fun and goofy.

Cole walked up to my seven year-old sister and thought it was me. He said 'Hi, (My name)." and my sister said, "I'll tell her you said 'Hi'."

 It was really awesome. XD

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Sunday 6:30 AM

We had breakfast at the hotel again.

At one that afternoon, the family who had the wedding were going to have a church service at their house, but we couldn't go. It would have been to late :/ 

We were going to visit them before we left.

10:30 AM

This is my favourite part, but you'll need more history.

Our van's starter doesn't work too great, but if you crawl underneath and tap the starter with a hammer it will usually start.

When we tried to start the van after we had fuelled up at the gas station, it wouldn't work. We were a little panicked. 

Mom went into the gas station to phone a mechanic from the phone book, because we couldn't look up the number on her phone.

As she asked the teller to see the phone book, a man came up and asked if we were in trouble. Mom told him what happened, and he said his friend was a mechanic and he could call him. Mom thanked him and came back to the van. He came out and told us that his friend would be there in about an hour. He said he felt bad leaving us, but he had to go teach Sunday school. Once he left we prayed and tried to start the van again,and it still didn't work. The sheriff parked beside us was watching, and so he came over and asked if we needed help. We explained the situation, and he asked if we had a plan. We told him about the Sunday school teacher, and he gave us his phone number and said that if we couldn't get the van started, to call him and he would come help us. 
Mom went in to the gas station again, to see if our friends phone number was in the phone book. She didn't find it, but as she was coming back to the van an old man stopped and asked if we were OK. Again mom explained, and he said he was a mechanic and he could look at it for us. As he was under the van, the Sunday school teacher came back. Mom said "Why are you here? You can't have taught your lesson already." He answered, "Well, my lesson was on 'The Good Samaritan' and I felt fairly hypocritical teaching that and leaving you guys here. So with both men under the van fiddling with the starter, we got the van started.
Americans always say that Canadians are so kind, but we got to see how kind Americans are. :)

11:00 AM

We visited with our friends after, but we didn't turn the van off again. ;)

Sugar, our friends dog, was still there. Grandma, still remembers when she and Grandpa went to Winnipeg to get Sugar.

After having her for a week, Grandpa didn't want to give her back. XD

As we were sitting and talking, Becky looked at mom and said "Hey Gill, would be OK if... you know what, I'm not even going to ask." and she hopped up and walked to the kitchen. Mom called,"I can't take anything alive across the border! And don't do a Jody on me! That's not fair!" (Inside joke.) 

Becky gave us a huge bag of M&Ms.

12:00 AM - 9:30 PM

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. 

Mom told the border guard  that she couldn't turn off the van and explained why. He looked skeptical. Mom shrugged and said "I couldn't make up something this crazy!"

And so we got home safely.

And I'll always remember the memories we made on the way. :)

~ The Human