We are officially on the road! We left Tuesday afternoon at 2:45 PM which was a couple days later than we planned, but some good and bad things happened in those two days. Adam found a new person to rent his place while we are gone (thanks for the help Theo!) so he needed a little more time to get that figured out. Overall, packing just took us way too long. Adam borrowed a sky box (is that what it is?) from his friends Blaine and Allison and it gave us an enormous amount of extra space. We went from carefully planning every nook and cranny of storage to throwing everything we might possibly need up top. I brought way too much clothes and an unmentionable amount of shoes, but I have no idea what to expect and think we’ll encounter a lot of different elements (good excuse, right?).
Before we left we stopped at Adam’s parents’ house on Monday to drop off Oskie. We had a delicious lunch and hung out for a little while. Little Oskie Pie is in good hands. Adam’s mom, Sue, lent us some sheets from her college days (original pink and orange floral print—extra groovy). We love them and are very happy about this. Thanks Sue! As we were leaving, his parents also gave us a very generous gift of gas money. This was very thoughtful and we are appreciative of their support. Thank you thank you thank you!! We filled up three times on day 1, so we know we will be working in a fishery in Alaska to make some extra cash in no time.
On Monday night the plan was for me to drive my car back to my parents’ house and Adam was going to pick me up so we could leave bright and early at 3 PM the next day. As I was driving home I got in a car accident. Some guy (that dang Jeffrey!!) totally crushed the back of my car and rammed me into the car in front of me. No one was seriously injured, but it left me having to deal with some insurance stuff before trying to leave for this long trip. Luckily I won’t be driving my car for awhile and like my sister said when I called her from the scene, “Well, at least it wasn’t the VAN.” So true Nickie! We still have things to be thankful for.
My smashed up car is sitting at my parents’ house and I’m trying to connect with the insurance agents while we are driving. Now that we are in Montana with spotty to no service, it might be a little more difficult. Oddly, the accident just makes me even more grateful for this trip. This is the time to do things and live like an open sunflower, as my friend Maddie likes to tell (shout at) me.
We landed in Glendive, MT around midnight and just parked on a residential street. The local bike gang welcomed us with some cool curb hopping bike tricks and rode in circles right outside the VAN. Shortly after, the 12 year olds must have hit curfew and ditched their bikes to run inside. So long story short, Adam and I have some new bikes to test out on the road.
Just kidding. Short story short, it was a nice peaceful night for our first night on the road. The bed sleeps pretty comfortably and we started driving at 7 AM the next morning (today). We are heading to Great Falls to see special attraction number one, Adam’s grandma! We plan to spend the day/night with her and leave for Glacier on Thursday morning. It should take us about 6 hours today to get to gramster from where we stayed.
Day 1: Minneapolis, MN to Glendive, MT
Day 2: Glendive, MT to Great Falls, MT
Day 3: Great Falls, MT to Glacier National Park
Casualties: 1 bird and 1 extra large dragon fly :(