Sleep Inn Billings

The Hampton was nice, new and comfortable. We woke this morning, enjoyed the hotel breakfast. We organized our bags and cleaned out the car; tossed out our cooler, food, drinks and utensils then headed for the airport. Billings is another extremely small airport. It was easy to park the rental car and walk to the gate.

Let the all day journey home begin....

We're delayed to Denver, 20 minutes.

The last flight to Billings was almost
empty so we all took the opportunity to spread out. I love night
flying, watching the stars out the window. I hoped to see the moon
too, but was soon asleep, cocooned in the gently buzzing, dark plane.



The flight only took an hour so I was
soon awake grabbing my bags and making sure I said goodbye to my seat
to make sure that I hadn't left anything ...

We traveled to billings , because we wanted to get new tires on the truck, the little wear indicators were almost smowing so we thought it would be best to be safe  rather than sorry. Because Montana doesnt have any sales tax , its a good state to make big purchases. We researched on the net and it appears that  Costco is ...

... was exhausted from all the events so by the time a man had a siezure on board 3 hours later, it was completely unsuprising and I was completely unfazed!

The only thing scaring me now is that I still have another 4 Greyhound bus journeys to go! Oh take me back to Brazil where they stroke you and feed you Cachaca, not torture you by verballly abusing children!

What could possibly happen next I wonder!.. actually, you know what, no I dont !

Helen, Danny and I decided that we'd covered most of the Black Hills so we packed up our rig and headed out for Billings. We traveled I-90 until we were in Wyoming, near Devils Tower.
Just in case you don't remember, Devil's Tower was the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind and was the first national monument. We spent a short time at the monument listening to a talk about the geological formation of the tower given by a park ranger and ...

... Billings, Montana.

On the way we saw signs advertising the Enchanted Highway, but didn't pay much attention to them since we figured it was another "Visit Rock City"-type of come-on. Then we saw the “Geese in Flight” sculpture. It looked really cool. I got on the internet right away and looked up “Enchanted Highway” and really wish that we would have ...

... leagues.  It turns out Billings is the largest town in Montana so I'd fallen on my feet really.  Adam took us to Top Tech Auto and, would you believe it, at soon as the car was taken off the truck, it started up and ran fine!  It's official, my car would prefer to be towed coast to coast!  Actually it was a good clue for the Top Tech team - apparently the tank is in two lobes with a pump to transfer fuel from one side to the ...

... is doing really good. For those who don¡¦t know: The last reason for delaying our departure was because she didn¡¦t feel well. She was lethargic, slept a lot, and didn¡¦t eat/drink as much as usual. She¡¦s very sensitive about routine and places that she feels comfortable/safe. The vet said that it could well be a depression, her 9 year work routine (she was with me at work since I got her when she was 6 months) is gone and so is all ...

... just had us leaving from Minneapolis (when it was supposed to be Portland, but who's paying attention to details - obviously not the airlines). Anyway, we got that handled and made it the airport on time - after a delicious lunch at the new Billings Staggering Ox. Thanks, Flint for that first class KTVQ reporting that allowed me to know that. And made it to Minneapolis. Off to Europe. Look out Continent!

Well, it started off uneventful. lol. Sunday we went back downtown Vancouver, we started off at the Art Gallery, (we didn't go in to the exhibit, though) and then to check out some more stores (where I got mom that cool tshirt - see pic) . We went over the Lions Gate to the Capilano Area (didn't go to the suspension bridge though), then went back downtown to Gastown district. I think this is the oldest part of the city. We saw the Steam clock, Gassy Jack ...