Back In The Big Sky

After 3 weeks on the road, we are back in Missoula. We have returned to a familiar apartment, but our upstairs neighbors are new. While we were away on break our old neighbors moved to Indiana and took Missoula and Montana with them. The new neighbors are Sheena (21) and Jessica (27) and Brooklyn (10 months). No Brooklyn isn't a baby, she's a PUPPY! Both of the girls are really nice and we are glad they are here. Since we were gone for 3 weeks, they started wondering where we were and when we would be back! Ha ha, I think I would have been curious as well. Brooklyn is a very well behaved dog. She doesn't jump up on us, she doesn't bark (unlike the rest of the dogs in the neighborhood) and she plays fetch VERY well. Here's a picture from this mornings game of fetch.

Now about the trip. We spent the first week in Cheyenne with Laura's parents before heading to Nebraska for 10 days to spend time with my family. While we were in Kearney we met up with sererall of my friends (now our friends) - we went geocaching about 40 miles west of Kearney for a day, and then finished up with a few caches in Kearney. Laura and I have found all the active caches in Kearney now - well over 150 caches in town. It was nice to have that goal achieved. We also had three caches left to find in Cheyenne to have all of the city completed, but we never found the time to search for them - that's ok though, we will have other opportunities. We also helped Andy and Amber with their basement which they are finishing. We helped mud the wall board to get Andy a good days work behind him. Laura had a great time doing that, she seems to think we will have a blast when we build our house in a few more years..

After we made it back to Cheyenne we stayed there a few days before heading back to Missoula. We decided to leave on Monday morning at 5:00 a.m. so we could find a cache in Idaho to add another state to our finds... So we got up at 4:15 and had a bowl of cereal and said goodbye. It had snowed a little over night so things were nice and cold, but we had no trouble with the roads until we got into the pass between Cheyenne and Laramie - the roads were still ok, but the blowing snow realy made visibility bad. By 6:00 we were through Laramie and well on our way to Missoula - the plan was to be nearly across Wyoming by sun-up at 8:00 - but like I said "our plan WAS"..... According to the GPS we were 35 miles west of Laramie when thud, thud, thud, thud, thud - our right back tire goes FLAT! WHAT THE HECK! Changing a tire at 6:00 a.m. in the dark and out in the middle of nowhere was not what I wanted to be doing!!! I put by coveralls on, whenever I travel long distnace in the winter I take them along - a good lesson dad taught me, and crawled on the ground for awhile. I should also mention that where we pulled over, there was no wind or snow, but 2 miles ahead we discovered the wind was blowing 50+ mph and there was snow everywhere. Plus it was near 40 where we changed the tire, but the snow everywhere else was indicating temps were below 30... Someone was taking care of us, given the situation... We managed to get the tire changed by 6:45 and head back to Laramie, the clostest town. It took about an hour at 50 mph to find a turn around on the Interstate and CRAWL back to Laramie at 50 mph. I initially thought we could patch the tire, but after patching it and inflating, it was clear the tire was ruined... I guess it doesn't take much at 75 mph to ruin a flat tire. So $100 and 3 hours later we were back on the road to Missoula. Our 13 trip turned into 17 hours - just from a ROCK. Yes, that's right, it wasn't a nail in our tire. No no, it was a ROCK - a sharp one though. I feel stupid for saying this, but after taking Geology, I can't indentify the rock at all. I am going to have to consult the use of my notes - but I am not going to do it now. Anyway, here's a picture so you can see for yourself. I was amazed a rock could do this, but I have to add, this rock has got a heck of a point on it.

Other than the tire, everything else went just great and we had a wonderful time seeing everyone... The GPS put us at 3,500+ miles for the trip.. Oh yeah, and my weight - when I checked this morning it was right at 190. Not bad, but not as good as it needs to be. Until again

-=Nolan=-