I’m late with my update, yet again! It seems to me that as the summer winds down time is moving faster and faster. We are already in the final countdown of the kids going back to school (and true confession: I still haven’t turned in all of the forms and made the pedi appointments that I was supposed to make. I think I need a personal assistant LOL).
We left for Montana last Friday (August 7th). As usual, I planned on leaving at 1pm, but we didn’t manage to get out the door until 3. Still, I consider that a success! Andrew was not at all excited about the trip even though he had bugged me multiple times about when we would be going. Once the date was set and the bags were packed, he changed his mind.
Still…here are the kids on our way out of the driveway:

Amanda and her best friend, Phedon, who made the journey with us again this year!

Alex, Aidan and Zoe “how much longer?”

Andrew reading about wyoming as we left.
I listened to nothing but complaints about how boring the trip was going to be for the first hour or two, and I have to admit that as the flat landscape stretched out in front of me, I began to have serious doubts about my ability to make it from St. Cloud, MN to Glendive, MT. Though I had packed a cooler full of food, we kicked off the trip with a stop at SubWay about 30 minutes from home.
Our first real stop was in a small town called Dawson, North Dakota. I was looking for a gas station, but the only one in town was closed at 5pm. It turns out that Dawson was a historic town and the kids were desperate for a stop, so we ended up getting out of the van to stretch our legs.


Amanda after climbing a tree.

Zoe going down the slide

Andrew and Alex on the teeter/totter

Aidan on the swing

The whole group.
There are more, but I’ll save it for when we actually got to Wyoming. I kept telling the kids that our trips are as much about the journey as the destination, and as I look back at the pictures, I am realizing how much we really did try and stop and enjoy the trip.
We made it to Glendive after 10pm and in the midst of a torrential rain fall. We were all soaking wet by the time we crawled into bed, and despite the long day in the car, everyone drifted off to sleep pretty quickly. The kids were all up and ready to go by 9am.
Montana was:

The kids watched movies on the TV/DVD player that I had duct taped to the table in the van LOL while I listened to the radio and talked to Andrew. The closer that we got to Wyoming, the more he seemed to warm up to the trip and to me.
The difference between MN, ND, MT and Wyoming was incredible.We went from rather flat scenery, to the edge of the badlands to more flat, long farmland to this:

As we approached Cody, Wyoming, the car fell silent. We were all mesmerized by the beautiful mountains.
I plan my trips for maximum flexibility. We never have to be somewhere by a certain time and I don’t tend to book hotel rooms or plan activities. I have a loose idea in my mind of what our trip might look like and then I let the rest fall into place. Though my friends who are serious planners cringe at the idea of not knowing what is next, I take comfort in just trying to enjoy what is possible once I arrive. The only thing I really wanted to do was to see the geysers at Yellowstone. I also knew that we might not see any of them “blow”, but I just wanted to have the opportunity to go there. Beyond that, I figured everything else would simply be icing on the cake. I did look up several possibilities before we left and I’m glad I didn’t plan too much. Things were much more expensive than I had anticipated or read and I know I would have felt let down.
As it was, we got settled into a hotel and spent some time walking down the streets of the old-fashioned, restored cowboy town of Cody.


Our hotel was right in the middle of town and we were able to walk out of our door and right into the heart of the little downtown. We bought some initial souvenirs and then as luck would have it, we arrived in the center of town just in time for an old-fashioned gun fight!


It was a little hard to hear and the kids were restless, so we watched half of the production before moving on.
That night, the kids and I went swimming and then we later drove to the outskirts of town for some Dairy Queen!
As we were preparing to leave for Yellowstone Park the next morning, our hotel phone rang. I had checked in as 2 adults and 5 children (counting Andrew as an adult instead of as a child) and the hotel had counted 6 children total. They assumed that instead of 7 people in our party, there were 8, which was a violation of their fire code. We were forced to leave the hotel because of this. I tried to explain that I was traveling alone with the 6 children and when I checked in I didn’t want to draw attention to this fact and that is why I had said that my teen-age son was an adult. The manager didn’t care and was quite rude about it. “You are kicked out”!
I guess it’s a good thing I’m flexible…and that I had brought my lexapro with me LOL
All of our food was organized in the drawers, and I was able to neatly re-pack the car within 15 minutes. I cleaned up, checked out and found a new (better and cheaper!) hotel that was affiliated with Holiday Inn within another 10 minutes. This one actually provided 2 bedroom family cottages. In a way, I felt like we had lucked out.
In retrospect, I have to say that I was pretty surprised by how calm I was about it all. I just decided that it wouldn’t change anything to get upset and let it go!
We finally headed out towards Yellowstone at noon.
I *might* have underestimated how far Cody was from the park. It was a good hour from our hotel to the entrance of Yellowstone. The trip was incredible.
We drove through a mountain

and when we emerged, we were confronted by this:


All of Us!
The Shoshone forest that preceded Yellowstone was beautiful

We were captivated for the entire drive to Yellowstone.
So captivated, in fact, that I forgot to look down at my gas gauge.
We entered Yellowstone and the scenery was breathtaking…absolutely incredible.
Andrew and I were sitting in the front and he kept begging me to stop and take photos…we were pointing out trees, snow on the mountain tops, the incredibly beautiful Yellowstone Lake. Honestly, driving into Yellowstone was a spiritual experience. I was completely blown away by how incredible it was….



….which is about the point that I realized that I had meant to stop for GAS before we entered the park. I was afraid to look down at my gas gauge. My heart started pounding and I got that really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I looked down…I was on empty.
I flew into a panic.
“Guys. We’re out of gas. We have to turn back. Do you remember if there was a gas station back at the store we stopped at for water?”
“DUH. NO. They don’t have gas stations in the middle of the forest” came the helpful reply.
I turned the car around and Andrew and I started mentally calculating how many miles we had driven since being at the store. It was at least 20 minutes behind us. No one said a word as I headed back. I honestly didn’t know if I had enough gas to get us back to the store where we could at least call a ranger for help. I had no doubt in my mind though that we didn’t have enough gas to get completely out of the park.
As we arrived at the store, I looked at the signs:
Services available included Gas. Now it seems silly to think that in a 2 million acre forest they wouldn’t have a few gas stations. Of course, it’s even sillier that I didn’t tank up before entering the park…but with 19.5 gallons put into my 20 gallon tank, we headed out to the Geysers!
It turned into our lucky day! We walked through the Geyser area and were able to see 3 Geysers (including old faithful) erupt! It was incredible. We also looked at the various chromatic pools and enjoyed talking and laughing. We all had a great time!











We ate dinner at the restaurant that faced Old Faithful, had ice cream as a fun snack and then headed back to Cody late that night. It was an incredible drive, but I don’t know what was better…the incredible scenery or finally reconnecting with Andrew after a summer dominated by teenage hormones.
The next day, we visited a real, old-fashioned western town.







After soaking up the life of Wild Bill Cody, exploring the old saloon, homes and shops, we were ready to head back to Yellowstone.
For day 2, we planned a trip to the Canyon area of Yellowstone.
Like day 1, we were mesmerized by the scenery. Unlike day 1, I put gas in my tank before we arrived at the park!
On our way up to Canyon, we saw roaming Bison

and once again made many stops to photograph and enjoy the wildlife all around us




The Canyon of Yellowstone was….yes, I know I’ve already said it, but…it was breathtaking…incredible…beautiful. We hiked down into the canyon and were able to even get close to the waterfall!







I was absolutely exhausted by the trip up and down the canyon and so we decided to head back to town earlier so that we could make it back for the Cody Rodeo that night!
The girls argued and generally did not want to go and made a point of not enjoying a single second of it!

The boys and Zoe and I had a great time though! Alex and Aidan were even allowed to join in on a calf-catching competition! They didn’t win, but they had fun chasing!
By the end of the rodeo, I was definitely ready for the day to end! We all went back to the hotel, took a short walk and then drifted off to sleep.
It sounds crazy, but the next morning we checked out and headed back towards home. We had all agreed to try and make it back to MN from WY in one day. We would have managed it, but we decided to stop at Makosheeka State Park in Montana before entering ND. What started out as an idea to visit their dinosaur center and take a short walk evolved into a great tour and learning opportunity about the Montana Dinosaur trail and a long hike through the rough terrain of the park! We lost two hours plus, but … what a journey we had!!!!






We ended up finding a hotel at about 3am near Fargo ND and we slept in until check-out time. At about 3pm CST we rolled into our drive-way…
It was a whirlwind trip full of highs and lows…and in case you are wondering, YES, you do have to be a very special kind of crazy to travel across the country with 6 kids! The sound of kids fighting, the mess in the van and the chaos was overwhelming at times. I tried to take it in stride when I discovered that the girls had bought the latest issue of Cosmopolitan and were reading the article 25 ways to touch him down there. I even laughed about it with a good friend once I got home. I will admit that at the time I nearly flew right off of the highway going 75. There was the speeding ticket that I got in ND, the hotel fiasco and of course….there were all of the stops “I need to go to the bathroom, he hit me, I’m hungry….”
But beyond all of that, I feel that this trip was an incredible gift for me and I hope that someday my children will see this trip as something special that I tried to give them. The great moments of connecting with my children…each of them…even Phedon, visiting Yellowstone, enjoying the Rodeo, snuggling up to Zoe and Aidan in the double bed…even the trips for ice cream and the lousy country music in Montana….are etched in my mind. I had an incredible time. This is one of our best trips yet!