Friday, September 5, 2014

Family Driving Vacation-Day 1: Minot, ND to Havre, MT

Day 1: Minot, ND to Havre, MT

This trip has been in the works for quite some time now, and I’m so thrilled that we’re finally getting the chance to go!  I worked hard to plan lots of details of the trip and it was one of my big distraction projects while Mason was gone at Weapons School.  Three weeks in the car with the four of us-oy!  We even got to leave a day ahead of time because the Friday before our trip happened to be a down day for Mason at work, so we were able to pack in advance and hit the road early so we could spend an extra day at Glacier National Park. 

We ended up getting a little later start than planned, but we didn’t have too much of a real plan anyways, other than to get to our destination, Havre, Montana.  This was a 7 hour drive.  The kids did pretty well, although both of them had periods of crying and whining.  Woodrow is just at that perfect age where he doesn’t really nap much in the car anymore and he can walk, so he doesn’t want to be still long.  He’s also eating like crazy!  I think some of this is due to the fact that he is drinking waaaaaaay less milk these days, but I felt like I couldn’t keep the food coming fast enough for him. 

The drive was flat at times, hilly at others, but throughout the drive we were next to the BNSF railroad line, so that provided lots of entertainment for Theo.  Trains the whole way!  We also saw lots of cows, horses, and sheep.  Mason also says he saw some antelopes, but that wasn’t confirmed by a second passenger, so not sure if we’ll take his word on it just yet…Theo also enjoyed passing by a huge windmill farm. 

When we arrived in Havre, we checked in to our hotel, Best Western.  It was a nice room, reasonable price, and although we didn’t take advantage of it, the pool was a pretty decent size. We dropped off our things and the kiddos went bonkers in the room!  They really, really liked having some room to run around.  We had packed overnight bags to bring in since we’d just be here for one night, and that was a huge help.  We drove around and found a local park for the kids to run around at.  Theo was happy to play in the sand, and Woodrow liked playing on the bottom of a slide.  We had dinner at a local restaurant called Char’s.  It was pretty good food, and although Mason and I thought the kids were being squirmy, we got compliments from the one guy working and said they were awesome and we left the place cleaned than when we had gotten there.   Nice to hear, after it felt like they weren’t being that great. 

Bedtime was a little tough.  Our room had 2 queen beds, so Theo got his own bed, and Woodrow got the pack n play, but in the hotel room it was hard to position the pack n play in a spot where Woodrow couldn’t really see us, so he cried for about an hour.  Ugh!  We kept trying to rock him, cuddle him, etc…and he just didn’t want anything to do with us.  Finally he fell asleep, and fortunately Theo was a trooper and fell asleep pretty well. 

Long day 1, and we only contemplated turning around a few times. 

  


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