Yes, you read it correctly...we are in Wyoming. Not necessarily by choice but here none the less.Yesterday morning we decided that instead of camping for another night at Glacier that we would spend the morning driving through the park then get on the road heading toward Aunt Angie's. No one slept well camping, the boys both felt pretty cruddy and Mike and I did not want to spend two days in the car driving 8+ hours. We figured by leaving the day earlier we could take the hours to Minneapolis and split them into four days instead of three. So we headed out.
We made it though the park in great time. We stopped and had lunch at a little cafe in St. Mary's. The Park Cafe was recommended by Tucker and is said to have the best pie. Since it was nap time the boys were a bit done so we had a quick lunch and took our pie to go. Once on the road we discovered why we were told to stop. In that moment we wished we would have bought an entire pie.
Life was good, both boys were asleep and we were getting ahead our our planned route. Then we hit this.It started as rain and quickly moved to the worst hail storm I have ever witnessed. It was hitting the car so loudly that we thought we would surly end up with dents. Mike and I couldn't even hear one another over the pounding. We figured we were doomed and the boys would be screaming any minute. Amazingly they slept through the entire thing. Thank God for training with sound machines.
After the rain and hail stopped we ended up with a beautiful countryside to drive through. We decided at that point that we would make it to Lewistown, MT and evaluate how the kids were doing.
We hit Great Falls, MT and stopped for dinner. We then put the boys in their jammies and figured we would make it a few more hours. We hit Lewistown around 9:30pm. Both boys were asleep so we figured the two hours to Billings, MT would not be a problem. We sleepily pulled into Billings at 12:15pm. The first hotel stop had a sign saying they didn't have any rooms so we headed to the next one. I took a deep breath realizing a bed was only a few moments away...or so I thought.So apparently every hotel in Billings was completely booked. We called around for about a half hour before realizing that this was true and that we were without a place to sleep. To say the least we were frustrated, tired, and ready to give up. So our options...sleep in the van, find a place to camp, or drive to the next city. Since the first two were not options we called Sheridan and found a room at the Best Western.
Two more hours in the car. We pulled into the hotel at 3:15am. Both boys woke up and figured it was time to play. We quickly got in our room and hit the pillows pretty hard. 3 hours later after sleeping for 9 hours Liam was up...so were we!
So to say the least we are tired today. We are planning to head to Wall, SD to have lunch then explore the Badlands. We may then up in a hotel pretty close to there so we can all get a good night's sleep tonight.
