Thursday, December 24, 2009

trains, planes & automobiles...will we make it home for Christmas

December 23 (con't)
ok...tired of waiting this out we are going to try and go to the next centre Hardin at least it looks big enough to go for a walk or something. Stayed in Hardin for a couple of hours. We hung out at a pizza hut, had some lunch and charged our laptop and kept checking the weather. Spoke to a UPS guy and decided to be brave and try for Billings. We were told there were a couple of big climbs. Ok.....scary....the hills were very big and very, very icy. I don't know what was scarier the up or the down. Bill says definately the down...Bill says his nerves are shot, so we are staying here for the night and want to just get out and go for a walk. We shopped around, called Steph and told her we were not going to make our Christmas Eve target...darn...Jan you would be so proud of me....I am learning to let it all go...Cold night, pulled our our down bags for the night as we didn't drive far enough to charge our batteries much, so we might run out of juice before morning.

December 24
Happy Christmas Eve!!
Hit the road around 7:30am...very cold, but we managed to stay comfortable during the night. We realized that we only have one side working on our brakes on the trailer...yikes. I think that is why we felt like the roads were extra slippery especially the whole down hill slipping feeling. We decided to drive for a bit and look for an auto part dealer. The temperatures this morning are ranging anywhere between -25 and -9 depending on our elevation. It is so windy and there is lots of blowing snow across the roads. The cold is not helping the icy situation;however, the sun is out and once it gets high enough to hit the pavement I think we will be good. We pulled over and Bill found the parts we needed to do the trailer repair. Bill got under the trailer and put a new brake wire in... the 40 mile an hour winds didn't help...I stood outside just for moral support. I am glad he brought his tool box, it sure is coming in handy. Still haven't found a cover that will work for the parts we lost along the way. Now we know how Uncle Lorne feels when things blow off his truck...never to be found again...Back on the road wanting to make it to Bozeman-things got better as the sun is definately out now. We got out and went for a great walk in Bozeman...the mountains were incredible and we can see why Jon and Maria enjoyed living there. We did some Christmas shopping for each other. We bought avalanche beacons, shovel and probe..god forbid we ever have to use that...

We met the owner of the ski shop and he talked up a storm to Bill about skiing etc....told us about some good back country spots.

While we were waiting in line to pay for our purchases we started talking to the man behind us and he was saying "you two look like you are going to try out that great down sleeping bag tonight" and we laughed and said well actually we are as we are sleeping in our trailer because we didn't make it to Calgary for Christmas Eve and he said "why don't I put you up in one of my houses?" "I have a house I rent out that happens to be vacant right now?" I thought this was so generous of him...wow...I guess it taught me Christmas away from home can still be ok. Earlier in the day I was kind of sad about not being with family and here was this stranger offering me his house. Everyone has been so kind...even the border patrol guys who searched our rig for over an hour while we waited inside the immigration office. I don't know if they didn't believe our story about just travelling around for 6 months, or the fact that we mentioned Baja, or maybe it was because Bill had all our amercian money in a ziplock baggie??? They said well your story checks out. (I still think they unwrapped our burritos that were in the freezer wrapped in foil)....anyway.....

I hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas Eve I know we are....We just came back to the trailer from a free swim and hot tub after Bill daring me to go into a few hotels and ask if we could hang out there since we didn't make it home for Christmas Eve and it worked..ok it took me a couple of tries, but it worked....Bill dared me to say to the kid on the way out "that is the biggest bathtub I have ever been in.....Does that count for a bath? because if it doesn't I have only had 1 this week?

Merry Christmas Everyone!
Love
Deb&Bill
xo

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