July - Visiting Fargo

After leaving Gwen's, Mandy and Willow drove in their packed RAV4, Andrea in her car, across northern California to Nevada. We finally saw some of the beautiful northern California forests, before we got to the desolate desert of Nevada. Next, we drove through Utah. It was pretty cool to see the salt flats, along with some interesting rocks and mountains. We continued through Idaho and into Montana. We spent the night in a mountain reststop just past Butte; we were surprised how cold it got that night. In the morning, we continued through Montana. A semi threw a rock at my windshield, and when we got to Billings, I sideswipped a sharp curb and tore a hole in my back tire. We were lucky to meet an older man who helped us change the tire, something I could've done, but it would've taken a lot longer. Montana had some very beautiful landscapes with rivers, but, like Nevada and Utah, people were few and far between. So, after Montana, we had to drive straight through all of North Dakota, a very desolate flat area. Along the way, Mandy had to pull out the babywipes to clean off all the bugs on the windshield. Before we got to Fargo, we stopped at a reststop and ended up with mosquitos in the car, which Willow didn't really like very much. Finally, late in the evening, we got to Roy and Susan's house in Fargo. We had a great time hanging around the house and playing at the mall play area with Ashley's "kids." We had dinner with the whole family at Olde Chicago and then went to a sports store where Willow got to ride on her first ferris wheel. We were sad to leave our family in North Dakota, but glad to be getting closer to home.