Road Trip!

Yesterday M, G, Z, and I went for a road trip to Montana! We hopped in the car. Hopped is a relative term. First you have to get bottles filled, extra toys packed, make sure you have enough diapers and wipes, bring cereal just in case you happen to be gone over suppertime, change diapers, get them buckled in their carseats, run back in the house to grab the camera, and review over and over in your head that you have everything you might need in every situation possible. It only takes about 30 minutes. Hopped, yeah, sure. We then filled the tank up here in Crosby and headed west. We drove through the booming towns of Ambrose and Fortuna. I think they have population of around 100 each. And I may be exagerating the truth a little there.

After 30 miles or so we came to Westby. An incredibly scary, small town to welcome you to Montana. First there is a big sign telling you that white crosses on the side of the road mark the scenes of fatalities. I personally find it very morbid to know every spot a soul has passed on while driving. Especially on a roadtrip. Next on the side of some building there is a creepy painting that says "METH: NOT EVEN ONCE". Really, quite a way to say welcome. There was also a visitors center. Not really sure what that was there for. Westby is about the size of a quarter.

As we drove along MT Route 5, I couldn't help but find myself looking for the white crosses and counting them. I got distracted and lost track after 8.

We stopped in Plentywood, and filled our bellies up on chips, energy drinks, and chocolate. Yes, the lunch of champions! We had decided that we would drive until the tank was about half empty and then turn around.

Which lead us to Scobey, MT. Someone M graduated from the Academy happens to be working there. We drove the 14 additional miles to the border on the chance that he was working, and since they are almost always working, he was there! We stopped in and said hi.

And that put us at just about half a tank gone. We turned around and headed home.

On the way out there we had seen a massive length of railcars sitting on the tracks that ran along next to MT RT 5. When we headed home and came up on the beginning of them M set the trip odometer. We were right, it was massively long. 16.8 miles of rail cars. There was about 15 miles of "All Purpose Spine Cars", whatever they are. And the remaining (almost) 2 miles were dump cars and tankers.

The boys couldn't have been better. They napped on and off during the trip, and the rest of the time they spent looking out the windows and playing with Mount Toys that I had brought.

(video clip)

G&Z at the end of our long, fun day.