Our Trip to Montana - Days 10, 11, and 12

Days 10, 11, 12
We woke up at 9am on Sunday and realized that we were supposed to be out of the cabin by 10am.  Well that wasn’t going to happen, so we showered and began packing.  By 10:30am the van was loaded and it was time to say goodbye to the family.  Soon we would all head out to our various areas of the country.  Michael, Amber, and RJ are stationed in Virginia.  Alan, Colleen, and Tim live in Oregon.  Andrea and James are in Washington.   Steve and Jan live  in California.  Pat, Jim, and Danette are in Iowa and we live in Wisconsin.  This leaves Charissa and Keith in Montana.
Ryan plays in Bigfork.
Our van forced us to stop for one last time in Bigfork.  Dave found a geocache and placed our two new travel bugs in it.  His bug wants to see all 50 states and mine wants to visit all of the National Parks.  Hopefully they will have successful journeys and not be stolen from there cache.  We continued our downward descend and moved eastward through the mountains.  Along the way we stopped to look for a few geocaches along the way.  We stopped for one at a prairie dog village state park in the middle of a thunder storm.  The guys jumped out of the car and ran to find the hidden treasure before the lightning got closer.  Unfortunately it was not a very exciting cache.
Dave called and made reservations for us in Billings.  We arrived at our Fairfield Inn, tired and ready for a break about 8:30pm.   Rosi and Ryan raced to the room to use the restroom.  I waited for Dave and Josh.  We headed up to the third floor via the elevator.  We were surprised to see Rosi and Ryan greet us at the door.  It turned out the King and Queen beds were not in the same room, but a choice for Dave to make when he was making the reservation of types of rooms.  We ended up around the corner at the Quality Inn.  The boys enjoyed the pool and cookie snack time.  For breakfast we had a great, made to order breakfast that was included with the room.  In the end we ended up with a much better hotel!
It was back on the road again on Monday. 
This time we made it from Billings to Fargo.  We discovered that there were not many options for lunch in Eastern Montana.  The boys had hotdogs from a gas station and the adults ate the lunch meat, cheese, crackers, and huckleberries from the cooler.  We stopped at the world’s largest crane, not to see the crane but to find a geocache.  We also placed a horse travel bug that we had found that wanted to visit ranches and get to Texas.
Guess they are afraid that people will climb the crane!
Ryan kept saying that it was not the world’s largest crane.  He insisted that he had seen larger crane’s at building sites.  We tried to explain the difference between the bird crane and the kind used to build things.  But in the end we gave up and told him he was correct!  We also stopped close to the world’s largest buffalo and yes once again it was to find a geocache.   In return for our picnic lunch we enjoyed a three course meal at TGI Friday.  We allowed the boys to swim until 11pm and then it was time for bed.  We enjoyed a great night’s sleep at the AmericInn in Fargo.
On Tuesday morning, Josh looked out the window and saw a blue angel airplane.  He was very excited to see that.  He has been trying to find a small blue angel plane for his geocache.  It turns out that the blue angels will be at the airshow in Fargo on Saturday and Sunday.  As we passed a Scheele Sporting Goods store we found a Navy Truck and Simulator in the parking lot.  We stopped and enjoyed a free ride in the Mission Simulator and received a lot of great Navy items, including sunglasses.  Our final stop was to a geocache where we picked up a new travel bug. 
Around 11:30am we headed back out on the highway.  Our destination was home! 
Getting Closer - Cows and Corn in Minnesota!
This became our day of rainbows as we saw rainbows 3 different times. 
The last rainbow led us into town and to our home.  Some may say your find gold at the end of a rainbow, but I found something better today…HOME!


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