Winding Down

The babes are sleeping soundly as I listen to them snore and enjoy my first wi-fi fix in 5 days! The trip has been amazing but I think we are ready to be home. At least for a few days before turning around and heading out on our next adventure on Tuesday. I have a few more entries waiting to be posted from the weekend but they need a bit more time to compose so for now I give this quick update on our final days of travel.

Started out with me packing up the car this morning to realize that I had a dead battery from leaving the electric cooler plugged in all night. GRRRR, luckily it was easily charged up before leaving Uncle Pat's house. UNFORTUNATELY, something go messed up with the DVD player that I had just spent too much money replacing and it is out of commission. The first 30 minutes of the drive were painful as the girls whined about what were they going to do. But the next 4.5 hours were quite pleasant and enjoyable. In fact, I think I enjoyed that portion of the drive more than any other over the past week and a half. We interacted more, commented on beautiful scenery, played fun car games, sang way too loudly and out of tune and more. We even saw 2 moose, but by the time I realized it I was all ready past them and couldn't pull over for a photo.

The highlight of the girls' day could have been the numerous carousel rides in Helena, thanks in part to Madison getting the brass ring 3 times in a row!

And Nora getting none but having fun riding the triceratops, otter, horse, spinning cup and jack rabbit.

But even more special was the stop at their FAVORITE rest stop. Not sure how many children have a memorable state rest stop but my girls do. They have been talking about and requesting this one since day one of the drive and it didn't disappoint. There is a village of prarie dogs that live right there and are obviously well fed by the people who stop by.

I typically would not encourage the feeding of wild animals, but I seriously doubt you can classify these guys as wild so I gave in to the girls' pleas and opened up the cashew can. Their excitement was priceless!! I am embarrased to admit that I have 50+ photos of these little guys!!

It was a great time until 2 mini-vans full of wild children arrived. The girls were quite distraught with their rude mistreatment of prarie dogs so we made a hasty get-away before somebody started a confrontation that may have ended ugly!!

We load up tomorrow for our final 6-7 hours of driving. I look forward to sleeping in my own bed and getting back to some "normalcy" in our lives!