Montana Day 3 - On the Road Again

We got up and got ready to drive the 300 some miles to Billings. In Missoula the girls got to sleep in a bunk bed, which they absolutely loved. We cleaned up stuff, I repacked the car, and we got going.

Driving through Montana is beautiful. Just the change in geology and landscape is incredible. We got thought Butte, made a quick stop in Bozeman for batteries, and kept going. The girls did great for the 5 hour drive.

We arrived at Stephanie's parent's house, just on the west side of Billings. The girls ran around and showed off their bike riding skills for grandpa and grandma.

Elaine made a great dinner and we all enjoyed catching up. We're going to hang out here for a few days and relax and enjoy family.

Montana Day 2

Yesterday we spent the entire day enjoying Missoula. We started with a visit the the University of Montana where we graduated from in 2002. It was wonderful for the girls to run down the tree lined paths of the beautiful campus. We were impressed with the new construction and improvements.

While Stephanie meet a friend for lunch, I took the girls swimming in the hotel pool.  They really love the water and we are looking forward to beginning swim lessons this summer.

Later that afternoon we walked down to Caras park and went on the famous carousal. It went really fast and Elise and Charlotte had Big Sky smiles the entire ride.

We had been looking forward to eating at McKenzie River Pizza. In fact, many of our Missoula's destinations were for food memories. On the way to pizza we walked past Montgomery Distillery... More on that later. Pizza was great, then we hit Big Dipper for ice cream. I would've gladly driven 500 miles just for Big Dipper.

After the girls went to bed, I went back to Montgomery Distillery. They create vodka and gin from local grain. The still is German made, and they really seem to have a passion for what they do. And they do it well, it is some of the best I've ever had, and I'm bringing some home.

We had a full and complete day in Missoula and were able to check almost everything off our list.

Montana Day 1

Yesterday  wrapped up the first day of our trip to Montana. The girls are four now so we felt they could handle a 1600 mile roadtrip.... The question is, can we? We prepared by getting a portable DVD player, books, snacks, and leap pad tablets. Their daycare friends have them, and Elise and Charlotte have been politely asking for the little learning tablets for months. We were fortunate to find 2 very reasonably priced ones on craigslist. The roadtrip was the perfect chance to start indoctrinating them into the personal computing world. They can't text, yet.

We began our trip at 6:30, and made great time until snoqualmie pass where we sat on I-90 for over an hour. They did some rock blasting the previous evening and were cleaning it up.

Traffic finally got moving, and we made it to Ellensburg where we stopped for brunch at IHOP. On the road again, we didn't need to stop until Spokane. The girls did great in the car, even snoozing for awhile... But truly, who doesn't want to snooze through Ritzville?

Stephanie drove through Idaho, until I finally had enough being the passenger and finished up the day pulling into Missoula.

We checked in (at the "showntell" as Elise and Charlotte call the hotel), grabbed some dinner, drove around a bit, then hit the hay.

The day wrapped up with Elise climbing up onto her bunkbed, telling Charlotte, "Charlotte, I will think of you when I asleep." To which Charlotte replied, "Why Eyese?" To which Elise made the perfectly reasonable reply of, "Because I like you."