It takes forever to get out of Montana, and boy oh boy is Highway 2 a long road. It was supposed to take us 14 hours to get to Stanton, ND and there was just no way any of us could handle that. And I was determined to stick with the plan and spend 3 nights at our next stop, so we could have a proper day of rest and slow the trip down. So, GPS-schmeePS. We decided to ignore anything interesting, eat in the car and Little Man promised to try to control his pea-sized bladder. Above all, we intended to speed. The speed limit is 70 in Montana and we went 90 the entire way. The traffic budget must have been cut because the cops simply weren't out there.
Peanut, Little Man and Doodle were remarkable. It was such a peaceful ride with such good (mostly calm) conversation and games. Niece said I'd prepared them well, but I think they're really just getting into the groove again. They all wanted to know if Niece was finished being sick and we assured them that she was okay now.
The North Dakota sign showed up out of nowhere with a brand new terrain behind it! Yellow grasses! Green hills! Little piles of stones here and there and everywhere -- we entertained the idea of crop circles or something, but realized they were likely just piles of stones cleared from the fields for crops. Cows! Cozy looking ranches surrounded by trees with ponds on their property. Long gone were the "NRA Rodeo Today!" signs and miles and miles and miles of uninhabited land.
Forever burned into our minds will be the North Dakota sunset that greeted us. It was an arresting site, lingering and lovely. To our amazement it lasted nearly 2 hours. Breaking the rules, we stopped 3 times for pictures!
Circling through each persons tunes, listening to Horton Hears a Who and Where the Wild Things Are seemed to entertain us plenty. When the sun went down the kids got out their flashlights and made shadow puppets on the roof of the car and got themselves into hysterics. I was overcome with how well they did. They were amazed by the night sky and all the bug guts hitting our windshield. They're so imaginative! I'm continually amazed at their anticipation for the new places we're visiting and how excited they are to tell people about our blog!
We reached our destination at midnight, thrilled to fall into bed after precisely 11 hours in the car.
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