rachel@home

Chasing the Sun

On Wednesday evening, I drove into the sunset in Ohio.

On Thursday evening, I drove into the sunset in Minnesota.

On Friday evening, I drove into the sunset in Wyoming.

On Saturday, I laid in bed and watched tv, and let the sun set unobserved.

On Friday, we were finished seeing Mt. Rushmore at about six in the evening, and because we'd been driving until one or so in the morning for the previous two days, I thought about how far we'd be able to go if we drove that long again and stayed in a motel, instead of camping at Spearfish, SD, like we'd planned. (Yes, I admit that the thought of not having to drag out the still-wet tent was a bit of a motivating factor as well.)

I looked at the map and figured that trying to get to Billings, Montana was reasonable. So we got to Billings about midnight, and tried to find a motel room. The girl at the counter of the motel I stopped at said that all the motel rooms were full, and I'd have to drive 2.5 hours west to B-something I didn't quite catch in order to find a room. She also told me about all the things that were going on in town, that was causing the full hotel rooms, but I was tired and didn't care enough to try to pay attention at all.

I figured I could drive a couple more hours, and so I bought a big cup of tea and drove into the darkness for almost two hours, then I arrived in Bozeman and figured that this was the town motel girl was talking about. So I found a motel and asked if they had any rooms, and motel girl number two said that all the rooms in town were full, and I'd have to go to either Billings or Butte to find a room. She also said Butte was 2 hours away.

I already knew all the motel rooms in Billings were full, and I knew it was only 90 miles to Butte, which is not two hours, unless you're travelling by mule, and then it would be considerably more than two hours, so at that point, I lost all my faith in anything any motel girl might tell me.

And I knew I was way too tired to drive the hour-plus it would take me to get to Butte, and I was pretty sure that she didn't really know if there were any rooms available, even if I was awake enough to make it there. So I drove to the WalMart parking lot across the street, tucked my car in between two motorhomes, and slept until about 6:30 in the morning, when the sun came up, and I started feeling too weird about sleeping in a parking lot to continue to sleep.

We made it to Missoula, Montana, which was our planned stop for Saturday night, by 9am, and were home by 5:30. I only had to stop once for a 1-hour nap at a Montana State Park.

Today I am busy catching up on the news of the last three weeks, by watching all the Daily Show episodes that TiVo taped for me. I did manage to go buy groceries at about 11am this morning, and have sworn that next time I go on a long vacation, I'm going to stock up on food for two days post-vacation. I was ready for dinner at about 9 last night, but not in any mood to actually leave the house, or, really, the comfort of the bed and the tv.

I've forgotten important groceries, but am not sure I'm going to actually leave the house again. It's good to be home.

Posted by Rachel at July 18, 2004 04:06 PM