Yellowstone

We have been on the road for six nights. It seems like longer. Jake has no nap/sleep schedule at this point. Most of the time I don't know what day it is or time it is. All I know is we made it to Yellowstone and have camped two nights and have two more.

It has been hot during the day and cold sleeping at night.

Yesterday we drove up to Mammoth Hot Springs. On the way we saw two huge elk out in a field and some buffalo. Mammoth was very crowded. There was a lot of elk roaming around the parking areas who didn't seem to mind people at all. We did a short trail with Grace and had a picnic lunch.

When we got back to the campsite there were buffalo in the campground. It was pretty cool to see. Later however, they walked right through our campsite, which way too close for my comfort. They didn't mind us being there at all. I knew they were close by but I was in the tent trying to get jake to nap so I wasn't sure how close they were. All I knew is I heard really loud snorting and grunting that scared the s*** out of me. Matt and the others watched them walk by trying to give them space without deserting me and Jake.

Dillon, MT

Our next stop was Dillon, MT, about 2.5 hours away. We had a two bedroom cabin reserved at Goose Down Ranch for two nights. It was probably our favorite drive so far with rolling hills, mountains and and beautiful skies. We stopped for lunch at the only restaurant/bar in a small town near Dillon. We were the only customers in the restaurant and had some great burgers. We got to our cabin around 4pm and enjoyed watching storm clouds and rainbows for the rest of the evening. The cabin was amazing. It was a few miles outside of Dillon surrounded by fields and mountains. There was nice green grass for the kids to play in and even a big pile of rocks in the front yard.

The next day Matt went on a 20 mile bike ride to a ghost town while the kids and I drove. It was literally out in the middle of nowhere. We actually had to drive through a herd of cows being driven by some cowboys.

After the ghost town we drove to Crystal park where you could dig for crystals. We found a few before we had enough of the mosquitos and heat. The rest of the evening we relaxed at the cabin.

A neighbor we had met earlier brought us a trout that he had just caught so we had fresh fish for dinner.

The next day we were headed for Yellowstone which we were excited about but sad to leave the cabin.

Missoula

On our way to Missoula we made hotel reservations and crossed our fingers that it would be as nice as it sounded. Well, it turned about to be a great place. It was called the C'mon Inn (isn't that cute). It had an indoor courtyard with a waterfall, little stream, game room, pool and hot tubs. We had a suite with one bedroom and sitting area. A nice balcony looked over the indoor courtyard. There was a Cracker Barrel right next door (literally). Grace loved the pool and got to going swimming twice, once with me and once with Matt. We enjoyed it too. Jake didn't care for swimming but liked wandering around the hotel. So far this is Grace's favorite stop.

Coeur D'Alene (sort of)

Our stop in Grand Coulee was more or less what I expected, Coeur D'Alene however was not. I am not complaining. You can't expect every day on a 30 day road trip to go great or as planned especially with two little kids. I just hope for more good days than bad.

We left Grand Coulee and stopped in Spokane for a couple hours. We walked around a nice park, had lunch, rode a carousel, and saw a really cool waterfall. It was only 30 more minutes to Coeur D'Alene. We had reservations to camp for two nights and we were all looking forward to it, however the weather forecast was pretty bad. In addition to the weather I was feeling really bad due to an ovarian cyst that ruptured (I recently had an ultrasound and knew it was there but was hoping it would just go away as they often do). This left Matt do all the work which is not fun. We decided against camping and found a hotel. We stayed in a nice overpriced hotel and tried our best to have fun. One reason for picking the hotel was the hotel clerk said there was a playground "right out back", apparently her definition of "right out back" was different than mine since it was actually 250 yards down the road, a big difference when you have two little kids.

Since the weather was bad we decided to cut our loses in Coeur D'Alene and get some more driving in. Our revised plans were to spend the next night in Missoula, hopefully things would go better there.

Our Dam Trip!

First stop: Grand Coulee Dam, one of the largest concrete structures in the world. It was kinda on the way and I thought it would be an interesting thing to see. We stayed two nights in a small but nice motel. We had two rooms and a small kitchen for $90. Right next door was Flo's Cafe with $.50 coffee. It was a good place to not do too much except see the dam, which we all enjoyed.

Bournonville Family Road Trip - Day 1

It was a busy day with Matt last day of work, Graces last day of school and Jake and I finishing cleaning and packing. We were able to head out of town (with one last stop at Cloud City) around 4pm. There was a lot of traffic for an hour, but then it was smooth sailing all the way to Grand Coulee, WA. Jake had skipped his nap in hopes that he would sleep in the car more. He took an hour cat nap around 5 then was awake for the next 3 hours until we got there around 9. We had made one quick stop for dinner. The kids did well but I am glad it wasn't any farther.

Moving Day!

The packers came on Wednesday and everything went great. I can't say the same for the moving truck. The truck came a couple hours late and it was already 75% full with someone else's stuff. There was no way all of our stuff was going to fit. So the movers stood in the driveway for an hour (smoking) waiting for instructions from dispatch. It was decided to load as much stuff as they could and put the rest on another local truck that would then be transferred to yet another truck. It is bad enough when your stuff goes on one truck and travels across the country, something always gets lost like socks in the laundry, so three trucks is pretty scary. Oh well, I guess we'll see how this turns out in a month.

Everything was finally out of the house about 7 that evening. We thought about a hotel but decided camping out on the floor would be easier. The kids thought the boxes and then the empty house with lots of running room was pretty cool.

Cutting the Curls!

Jake got another haircut to make it easier to keep clean while camping and to keep him cool this summer.  I was sad to see the curls go, but it is a nice change.  Jake was great about getting in the chair and fine for the first half of the haircut, but then he really freaked out about the hair clippings falling on his arms and shoulders (since he refused to wear the apron), so he screamed and held on to me for the second half.

Here is before and after:

Party!

Since we are leaving very soon, we had some friends over last weekend, a chance to have some fun and say goodbye.  We had burgers, beer, wine, smores and nine kids ages seven and under, yikes.  The kids played freeze tag, made tunnels with cardboard boxes, watched movies, climbed trees and made smores (ok so played with fire a little) and since the kids were happy, the adults and fun too!  We'll miss everyone!

Sunday morning

At Cloud City with Jake

After some coffee I will work on packing. We are going to miss this place.