Second day out:
Go have breakfast with the bride's family and tour their beautiful remodeled home on the river bank. Catch up with tons of old friends from Clatskanie (can you pronounce that? :)
Meet Grandma and Grandpa (Brian's parents) and head north/east back through Washington. Cars become segregated as both Grandma's want to ride with Cory! Watch fields burning as we drive. You can see them for miles as it's so FLAT!
Stop in Ritzville for lunch. Get ripped off and insulted at Zip's. Whatever you do, don't eat there! The McDonald's or Arby's in the other parking lot would be a much better bet! The service was lousy and the food was way overpriced - my "chicken sandwich" was two chicken strips (like the kind you get in the frozen section of the grocery store) between a cheapy hamburger bun - for $4.00!
Continue on into Montana.
Get to hotel in Missoula to discover that it's "not what it seemed" on the internet. Note to self: Don't make reservations for a "local" hotel off the internet! Ceiling tiles falling out in the bathroom, not a single one of our rooms with a bathtub for Cory to take a bath in, sheesh!
Go out for dinner at Famous Dave's BBQ. Highly recommend it!!!
Watch some Olympics on TV - Brian and Derald go out and watch the Dark Night. Second note to self: Check the schedule and do not plan your major summer vacation to a place with no TV coverage while the Olympics are on! This was the only chance we got to watch them for a week!
End day way later than planned - we lost an hour in the time change.
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Third day out (Sunday):
Get up late.
Drive some more until we get to Bozeman.
Pick up Allison and Joel at their adorable B&B.
Go grocery shopping for week's food. Buy way more food than we need and spend too much money! Try to load cars in the 5 minute torrential downpour. Get thoroughly soaked and then it stops raining!
Drive some more. Start getting excited driving into the north end of the Park!
Don't stop for picture at the main gate (sad) because I have my times all mixed up for the Sunday evening service and think we just might make it.
Get to camp ground for ACMNP services. It's 6pm. No one is there.
Find Bible obviously belonging to an ACMNP staffer. Find sermon notes. Mom reads sermon!
Find staff members at bottom of trail. Service is at 7pm, not 6.
Go check in to Mammoth Hotel and Cabins. Get our rooms straightened out and try to rush back for the service.
My friend Dan never shows up. Have left 2 messages at this point. He's support staff for the college kids who come every summer and run the Sunday services (ACMNP). He was a really good friend to me the two summers I worked in the park. I was so excited to see him again after 6 years. I left at least 4 messages on his machine, 2 with our cell phone number. I never heard from him and it was the biggest disappointment of the whole trip. We came home to find 5 messages on our home answering machine from him. :(
Taiwanese employees who have come to the service are fascinated by Cory!
Are you tired yet? We've got 6 more days to go!
Glad you made it there finally. Don't you love those motel surprises.
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