Montana here we come!

Well, I'm using my dh's government property [laptop] while he's geocaching with Hyrum and Morgen. Walker elected to stay in the hotel room with me and read while I did internet stuff :)

Jared noticed [about half-way to Montana] that we were getting lousy gas mileage. Well, lousy for our Durango, which normally does 15 or so. Anyway, we were getting around 7MPG, and he ended up dropping it off at a repair shop and begging them to look at it while he was working Monday morning. They got it fixed, the part was under warranty [hooray!], so we only paid for labor, and it's doing much better now. While Jared was working, the kids and I had a nice relaxing breakfast, then worked on English and Math [W and M] and phonics [H] until lunch. Since we had no transportation, we figured we could walk around and explore :). After we tracked down a map of downtown Helena, and figured out some of the cool shops and things, the kids decided they wanted to walk to Parrot Confectionery. Confectionery means candy ;), which was the motivating factor IMO. The walk ended up being about 2 miles, and my kids were troopers. Montana stays pretty cool until late afternoon, and there are a lot of big trees in Helena, so we had a nice walk. We saw the State Capitol, but didn't go inside because the kids were focused on that candy LOL. We also walked past the original Governor's Mansion, which is restored to approximately 1910, and decided we'd like to do a tour of it when it was open [not open Mondays, which Walker pointed out to me after we'd sat on its front porch for 10 minutes]. Finally, we managed to get to Parrot, and ended up ordering old-fashioned ice cream sodas. Morgen ordered chocolate [that's my girl!] and the rest of us tried the root beer floats. Yummy, and after that long hot walk, definitely a treat. All that walking wore us out, but we did make it back to the hotel in one piece.

Tuesday we did homework in the morning, met Jared for lunch, and dropped him off so we could drive around. We ended up doing a bit of walking, because it wears out the kids LOl, but we saw the State Capitol and had a great, guided tour. We ran [seriously, because we only had 15 minutes to walk there] to the Governor's Mansion, and got another guided tour of it. My kids really enjoyed all the neat things that were included in the tour; the guide had them do a 'treasure hunt' and look for a pair of tiny black boots, and a black darning egg, both were on display in the house, but not in an obvious place. Walker's sharp eyes noticed them both, and he got a huge kick out of being the first to notice them :)

Wednesday we did homework and laundry, played at a park in the pedestrian mall in downtown Helena [it's right outside the hotel where Jared's conference is, which makes it a great place to wait for him], had lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon [three hours] at the Montana State Historical Museum. And, my kids were fascinated with the displays. In the "Montana's History" display there were some caves: one was a mocked-up wolf den for the kids to crawl into and pretend they were wolf cubs; the other was a cavern with trees and 'stars' in the sky, based on a Native American spirit quest. After Jared finished, we headed out to Mt Helena State Park, and climbed to the top of Mt Helena. We did some geocaching along the trail, so we had our GPS unit with us. A long as it is on, it will keep track of how long you walk, and how long you hold still, and the exact mileage you move. So, we walked exactly 4.6 miles, and it took us 3 hours and 5 minutes. 1 hour and 2 minutes were spent not moving, however LOL. Well, the GPS wasn't moving, which meant Jared and I were sitting still while the kids were bouncing around like bunnies :) They always complain at first, and then they buckle down and hike their little tails off. Morgen especially, since she loves to talk, can be interesting to walk with. She spent the first fifteen minutes sighing hugely, expressing her disappointment that we chose hiking over swimming in the hotel pool. The rest of the hike was her cheerful comments on every single thing that went through her head. I keep reminding myself that I, too, loved to talk as a child, and my mother survived me.

Today was a lazy day: we spent the morning at parks [we walked to them, because they're close by], then drove Jared back to work after lunch, and went back to the museum for another look. Walker's favorite exhibit was a white buffalo- born on a reservation, considered a sacred animal by the Indians, basically they spoiled him rotten and kept him alive for 26 years, then after he died they decided to preserve him by donating his stuffed body to the museum. Pretty cool :) Morgen liked the beadwork on all the Indian artifacts. Hyrum's favorite part was the 3rd floor war room. There's a pocket watch exhibit in the hall, then war artifacts from the Spanish-American War and Civil War up through the current Iraqi war. He liked the weapons- the bayonets and daggers and guns. Did you know that the Special Forces began as a joint army effort between Canada and Montana? Seriously. My favorite part was the art- Charlie Russell [famous and underappreciated Western artist] has a bunch of his art on display there. It was donated by one family, who collected a lot of his paintings, and I loved looking at them. Maybe it's because I was born out west, but his art really speaks to me.

Tomorrow we head down to Lewis and Clark Caverns, then Yellowstone, and Saturday we'll drive through Yellowstone, then head home. Whew!

Oh, and totally random fact about MT: if the US ever passes anything that restricts or bans personal firearms, Montana is allowed to secede- that was part of the deal they made with the US government when they joined the Union. We heard that fact on our tour of the Capitol. Jared's pretty interested in keeping his right to bear arms unrestricted, so when he found out about this condition of Montana's statehood, he was tickled. And I know exactly where we'll be moving if there is ever a successful ban on personal firearms :)

I will post some of my million pictures of this vacation when we get back home ;)