Reading on Railroads
Not only did we get to bed early last night, but I didn't wake up until nine. Even then, Dad had to wake me up because I was having the best dream . . . I had just finished the first book in the 'Queen's Gambit' series. I don't know if there are actually Queen's Gambit books, but I dreamed there were. Plus, these books were so much better than the mini series . . .anyway, I asked to go to Barnes and Noble to get the rest, and we did. We were shopping for bookmarks and book lights at the very beginning of our shopping experience when Dad woke me up. I never got to find out if the rest of that series was as good as the first book. . .
We got up and moving and out of the room with ease. Mom loves the Holiday Inn breakfasts for their biscuits, so we ate at the hotel. To Mom's dismay, there were no biscuits. Although, there was a large family with no shoes on. The Mom kept rubbing the dust off the bottom of her feet with her hands and then touching things on the buffet. We're lucky we began eating before them. Mom and Dad did, however, get to know a nice employee there with four kids whose eating habits don't line up. I'm sure Mom and Dad have been through that a few times, too.
We were into Montana by early morning, and not soon after the time changed again! Now, we're two hours behind Hopkinton!
Mom wanted to take a few more pictures in the middle of the road today, but when she saw the railroad tracks that followed our stretch of Route 2, she had other plans. Her and Gideon did a photoshoot with his toys on the tracks, and supposedly the pictures came out super good. I have yet to see them, but Mom is great at pictures so I know they're awesome. Plus, just having cute lil Gideon in the photo makes it that much better.
By mid-morning, we stopped at a gas station. It looked pretty nice for Montana on the outside, but as soon as we entered the foyer things took a turn. There was a man and a woman just standing there, the man looking out the window away from the woman, who was staring at him. He was hacking. After a little deliberation between all of us, we determined this was definitely an interrupted drug deal. Me and Mom entered the bathroom and I went into the first smaller stall. Mom didn't go into the other stall immediately, which I thought was weird. As it turns out, there was another woman in that stall. And from what we could tell, she was injecting herself with something. In the trash was even one of those blue elastics you use to find a vein. Crazy. We move on after washing our hands about fifteen thousand times.
The only thing on the list for today was a rock called the 'Sleeping Buffalo'. It's worshipped by the Native Americans of the area and as Dad put it "so us, being Americans, decided to move it to the side of the road so people could look at it". And, apparently, that was the worst idea for this poor site. When we arrived, it was covered in water bottles and a live prairie dog. What a shame. Obviously, we didn't spend much time there.
We just kept driving through the nothingness that is Montana. I read a little, and we passed through some little towns here or there. At around eleven, we were passing through one of those small towns when Mom said (what I thought was sarcastically) "you want McDonalds for lunch?" She was not joking. As Dad confirmed, we wouldn't have any other lunch opportunities unless we wanted to wait an hour for Dairy Queen. We all decided that McDonalds would be fine. Mom wanted to share a Two Big Mac combo with someone, but Dad wanted a quarter pounder, so I tried one. All in all it wasn't too bad, but we didn't get Dad's burger. Poor Dad, luckily Gideon is such a kind heart he shared one of his cheeseburgers with Dad. Good one, Gid.
Most of the afternoon was essentially the same as before, a lot of reading, driving and sleeping. The roads were dead, so Mom decided to take another road picture. I got out with her this time, sat in the middle of a road and read. She said those pictures turned out will too, and I'm sure her artistry was great.
Later in the afternoon, we stopped at a creepy rest area for a bathroom break, the place was shady. and disgusting, but at last we didn't witness any drug deals! On the way out we saw a cool overgrown bridge across the road that was cool, too!
By this point, Gideon was getting slightly restless. He has a collection of stuffed animals and usually he makes them fight, but today things were different. Every moment a pair of stuffties were making out, getting married or breaking up. It was . . . intense, and we were all expected to participate in the storyline.
Twice in the afternoon, we saw what Dad called "Dust Devils” that were essentially little tornadoes picking up about the only thing there is in Montana, dirt. We drove right past one, which scared Mom a little. She even felt the car get pulled towards it briefly.
Soon, we were in the town where our hotel is. It looked really industrial and shady, and there were a lot of casinos and nightclubs. We drove to the outskirts of town and to our hotel, right next to which was the only restaurant we'd seen so far: a Pizza Hut. "I guess we're eating at Pizza Hut," we all joked.
Even though there's technically a casino inside it, it's not all that sketchy. The place is more professional than the last Comfort Inn we were at, which is comforting. All in all, it's not too awful here.
We ended up actually ordering Pizza HUt for dinner. Gideon got some cheesy bread sticks he really loved, and me, Mom and Dad triple teamed a large pepperoni. Mom even got a pretty decent skillet cookie for dessert for us.
We chillaxed and watched TV for a while longer before me and Gideon were tasked to go check out the pool. Which, in our family, means making sure there aren't many people in it because we all avoid social interaction like the plague. Luckily for us, it was empty. We changed into our swimsuits and went on down to the pool. I hadn't realized until Mom pointed it out, but the surface of the water looked 'chunky'. Dad told us it was probably just the chemicals, and considering the rest of our experience, he was probably right. The water was super cold, so it took a while for me and Gideon to adjust. Mom and Dad bailed after a while because they were still cold. Me and Gideon stayed in a while longer.
We got back to the room around nine and got ready for bed, knowing tomorrow would be an exciting but long day.
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