Oregon Trip Day 1- Home to Miles City, Montana

After a full day of packing and preparing to leave, we hopped in the van at 8:00am on Saturday, July 3 for the first leg of our trip to Oregon. The goal was to make it to Billings, Montana. We left humidity and mosquitoes behind, hoping for better weather ahead.

The day was uneventful and the girls traveled very well. Aria only asked “How much longer?” about half a dozen times. This is progress. Our DVD player decided to put up a fuss, but thankfully our new Mac came in handy as a van theatre system.

We turned off the highway in the evening in search of a hotel and came across a cute little campground. It looked so inviting that we decided to camp instead, which turned out to be a fantastic decision as we all needed the exercise. We swam in the pool, the girls collected a bucket of interesting rocks, and we all enjoyed the warm, mosquito-free evening.  As we were wandering around, we started up a steep hill, wearing only flip flops and Aria in her nightgown. We kept saying that we should really go back and get better shoes, but no one felt like stopping, and sure enough, we made it to the top. There we found a blooming cactus, a red ant hill, some interesting crystals and a fantastic view. After that, we all slept well until a train woke us up early, beckoning us to begin the 2^nd day of our adventure.