Day 6 (also known as Tie Fighter Day)

Date: Saturday July 11, 2015

Location at the beginning of the day: a rest area outside Glascow Montana

Distance to drive: 357 miles

Hours to drive: 5 hours and 43 minutes

Destination: a rest area outside Rugby North Dakota

Planned activities: driving

Quote of the day:  The little one loves to have her window open when driving, so today Chad has been opening her window when the speed limit is slower as we drive through small towns.  As we speed up to return to 70 miles an hour the little one says, “Can we go speedy Daddy?”.   Chad replies, “We are going speedy”.  Her response is, “Actually we aren’t!”

2^nd  Quote of the day:  “I am like a kid in a candy store!”, says Chad, my weather loving husband, with glee as he sits by the window enjoying a second night of amazing thunder and lightning storms all around us.  These prairie storms are amazing.  The trailer is rocking, the rain is coming in the windows sideways and the sheet lightning is constant.  Mother Nature puts on quite a show.  Needless to say that Chad is getting none of his blog written tonight because he is too mesmerized by the storm. 

This morning we started out our day by befriending a dog.  It was a pit-bull terrier cross who had recently had puppies and seemed to have been abandoned at the rest area over night.  Our assumption was that someone had used her to produce puppies and then didn’t need her anymore.  She was very friendly and wanted to join us on our journey.  Luckily there was a Montana Department of Transportation Employee cleaning the bathrooms and he took the dog with him to take to the local animal rescue centre.     

Today was another spectacular day traveling.  There were no children bickering, limited whining and we didn’t even need to pull out all of the possible activities for the day. 

We spend the first part of today in Montana and the second part in North Dakota.  They may be neighbouring states, but they are very different.  Once we were through the mountains Montana was endless yellow rolling hills, whereas North Dakota is lush green fields with small pockets of trees.  The people of Montana were incredibly friendly and helpful.  The only people from North Dakota we have had contact with have been in Rugby (the geographical centre of North America).  They were all disgruntled and anything, but helpful.  I don’t know how happy I would be if by 5pm on a Saturday night the only places that were open were a couple of gas stations, a restaurant with lounge attached and the Dairy Queen.  Needless to say that we had dinner at the DQ.