I just have to explain the ghetto-ness of this little park we stayed at. Lets talk restrooms. Man, using those restrooms was seriously an experience I will never forget! I wish I had gotten a picture, because no amount of explaining will do these restrooms justice. But alas, I will try. These particular facilities were what one might describe as pit potties. When you typically think of a pit potty you think big deep hole in the ground with a tall toilet sitting over it. I know I get a little anxiety feeling the breeze on my bottom when I sit on them! But these pit potties definitely weren't deep pits. I would say maybe not even a pit. More like a trough, 3 feet deep maybe? The girls restroom had maybe ten stalls. The stalls had no doors, and the divider of each stall stuck out only maybe 18" Pretty sure I could peek around the divider and say hi to my neighbor if I wanted to, while still sitting down! The toilets themselves were just boxes built out of particle board with a hole cut in the middle and a toilet seat screwed over top the hole. Certainly must have been the architectural masterpiece of one of the locals! The boys side was even better. They had maybe 4 stalls with sit down potties, and then a urinal. This urinal, was the greatest invention ever. Just imagine corrugated steel folded into the shape of a hardshell taco. This steel was tacked to the wall with wire, at a slight downward slope. It ended over a square cut in the floor. It was rather ingenious I thought. Those town folk sure used their resources when it came to building this outhouse. If I wasn't afraid that the pee was going to overflow from the hole in the urinal, I might have actually enjoyed using this bathroom. I still have nightmares about stepping on the particle board floors only to have my foot go straight through and hit the pee beneath me. *Shudder*
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the rest of the town for you too. Maybe two little restaurants, a general store, one gas station with 2 pumps. You get the gist. For how hick-ish this little town was, we actually had quite a fun time for the few days we stayed. I am sure that had we stayed longer the novelty would have worn off. But three days didn't seem so awful.
This story actually starts a few days before the family reunion at our home in good ole Cottonwood Heights, Utah. We had planned with my parents, and brother to sort of caravan to Montana together. We were going to drive through the night and arrive there earlyish in the morning and then sleep. Which would be great for us that had babies that would drive much better through the night. Everything was planned out and looking good until Paul came home from work and I told him my great idea. Well first I asked him how tired he was, and if he thought he could actually lie down and nap before we left at 9 that night. He said he wasn't super tired. So I proposed leaving ASAP and getting as far as we could before we got too tired. Some how I convinced him that this was such a great idea. So we finished loading up the car, and getting everything ready. Paul got home from work early that day, and Jace hadn't yet had an afternoon nap, so I knew that we would be good for a couple hours, and could perhaps pull over and stop for dinner and let him out for a bit.
By the time we actually got into the car and pulled out we were hitting the beginnings of rush hour. I thought we might be okay since we were headed North, but Paul said North past Salt Lake is a beast at rush hour. And he was right. It didn't help that there was construction and several lanes of traffic were closed off either. Just like clock work though, once we started driving, Jace konked out. He slept for a good 2 hours or so. I kept him occupied and busy by feeding him little snacks here and there. While Jace slept Paul and I relived our high school years by jamming out to Backstreet Boys. Seriously, no road trip is complete without the Backstreet Boys. The music just kept getting better from there. We listened to Veggie Tales, Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat, and then a bunch of cd mixes from our teenage years, (now those CD mixes were a blast from the past!). We did pretty great at driving and both of us stayed awake and alert the whole time (which is a big deal for me, who is really good at sleeping in the car). By the way, I had been texting my sister who was driving with the parentals, and she totally copied the music we were listening too first with veggie tales then with Joseph. We had a rockin car.
Anyway, we get past Helena and to a turn off that says to the Gates of the Mountain. My Dad said we were meeting there, but for some reason, I thought that you could get to the Gates of the Mountain from Augusta, so off we drive. We had texted the other car, but got no response. An hour later at about 2 in the morning we pull into Augusta and just park on the side of the road for the night. Jace being the stinker that he is got up around 6, with the sun. Paul and I were exhausted! We pulled Jace out of his carseat and just let him climb over us while we tried to get more sleep. Didn't work out so well. Any who, my dad had called us and told us that, yes we were supposed to take that turnoff if we were going to go with them. Paul was frustrated at me, I was frustrated at myself, and we were both sleep deprived so it wasn't a conversation filled with rainbows and butterflies. I told Paul that it was not worth it to drive all the way back a whole hour just for a tour thing, and then have to drive back an hour for the reunion. But Paul being the awesome husband that he is did it anyway. We drove back to the Gates of the Mountain and met my parents there.
The Gates of the Mountain is a fun tour on a boat that goes in between some limestone cliffs on the Missouri River. It was really neat to hear the tour guide talk to us and tell us all about the wildlife and the history of that specific part of Montana. Our guide looked and sounded a lot like Shawn Spencer's dad off of Psych. I almost asked him for an autograph! Jace had fun on the boat with Gloria is cousin. They waddled around and looked at everything. We saw a few bald eagles, a few deer, and some petroglyphs. We heard a lot of great stories also. So much history in one little spot. Once the tour was finished, we drove a ways to a little park/camp spot and had some lunch. Jace was grumpy and ready for a sleep, (to be honest we all were). So we let me just rest in the car while we ate just outside. We drove the rest of the way to Augusta and my parents checked into their hotel. We had to wait until my Aunt got here before we could set up our tent. Because we didn't really know where we were going anyway. I napped in the car with Jace, Paul went into my parents room with all my sibs and napped, I think, and we just sort of hung out until we got word as to what we were doing and where we were going.
Jace rocking his footie pajamas and sandals. Also showing of his hat putting on skills while we wait for the ferry to be ready.
Jace going on a walk with his awesome Auntie Nena
He found a cool tractor to play with
The cousins going on a walk around the courtyard.
Yep, loves the tractor sprinkler. He knew it had to be some sort of car thing you could ride on. It had wheels on it after all.
Gloria showing us how she really feels about being on the ferry.
Jace showing off his slick sunglasses while eating yummy grapes
These to goofballs just being silly
Mom trying not to freeze while we chug down the river.
I got a smile from him. He just didn't look up at the camera. Thats okay though!
We finally got word of the location and met up with all of the cousins, aunts and uncles. Of all of the groups that were there only 4 or 5 other families set up tents. The rest of them rented a motel room. But the park we were gathered at was close enough that one could walk from the motel to the park so that wasn't bad. The plus side to some people having a motel room was that 1. I could go take a shower before our long hike, and 2. If I really needed to use the bathroom and couldn't get myself to use the above mentioned on, I had a flush toilet that I could fall back on.
The first time we told Jace to smile on command, and this is the face we got.
Face number 2
Face number three. We had to get Jace a little kids camping chair. His cousins had one the last time we went camping with them and he loved their chairs to bits. When I pulled out his very own, he just got so excited. It is just his size!
The last night before we had to pack up and go backpacking, it rained. Not just a light and fluffy rain. It POURED. Sleeping in a tent while its raining is one of the greatest things! But Paul and I were just trying to decided how we were going to get our tent dry before we left it in the car for 7 days. Yeah, it just kept raining. It let up a little in the morning then rained some more. We put our tent in the car wet. We folded it as loosely as we could and tried to keep some windows in the car open so it would dry out. If we were thinking we would have sent the tent home with my brother, to give to Paul's parents, (who were watching Jace for us), so the in-laws could set up the tent and let it dry out. But, you know, we didn't think about that until after we got back from our packing trip and our tent was still soaking. Thankfully when we did set it up at home there was no mold on it. We kept it up for a couple of days just to make sure it was all cleaned and aired out. Anyway, back to the story. My brother Tyson and his family planned to head back to Utah, so they said they would take Jace with them. We loaded their car with Jace and his things. He seemed excited to be riding right next to his cute cousin. We didn't really get to say goodbye to Jace, because we knew if we did he would just cry. So we waved from outside while they left. Once we got all of our things loaded up and ready to go, we made a plan for where to go for our backpacking trip.
Playing in front of the fun tent
The cute cousins showing off their awesome sticks that they found!
My mom did a much better job at getting pictures of the family reunion. I will try and convince her to share some with me so there are more. So Within 3 hours of posting this my mom sent me an email with lots of fun pictures! Yay for Awesome mommys. All the pictures below I must give Photocred to my mom.
Auntie Nena with the two cousins. Pretty sure someone told Jace to smile so he is working his magic right here.
We made our own awesome T-shirts for the reunion. Yes neon green, (its so you can't miss us). My mom started them by puff painting on a few quotes that we normally say, and we all added to each other the first day. It was hard to think of thinks that we say all the time, but it was really quite fun to read what everyone says, and then listen for it in typical conversation.
We stayed at a park. And the only playground equipment that was there was as awesomely made as the outhouses. Okay, maybe a little better. But yeah, two teeter totters. The little kids actually really enjoyed playing on them.
Our shirts. Jace's is bottom left. Mine is right next to his on the bottom. Pauls is third one from the left on top.
We were all sitting in a circle doing something... Playing a game? Or listening to cousins tell stories? Or everyone is just loving on Jace. If you can see, he is actually sitting in the middle of the circle.
A group of us playing a game of bang. We thought it quite fitting for being surrounded by our fun cowboy cousins.
Ahh she did it! my mom got pictures of the outhouses. These are the stalls.
The actual toilet seats. (I think the pit wasn't much deeper than the box that the seat is built on).
The urinal! Its pretty ingenious if you think about it. If I was a guy I would totally use it just for the experience. But that little hole at the bottom, is actually bigger than you think, and the level of the fluid under the ground is quite high. We were pretty sure it was going to overflow on us if we used the outhouses too much.
Grandma chillin with Aunt Leanna, Tasha, and her husband Ryan, and their little boy Landon.
One of our epic volley ball games.
Jace taking a nap during the day in the tent. He took a while to fall asleep, but actually slept like a champ when he finally settled down.
Jace enjoying his cone. Of the two or so restaurants in the town they had a little ice cream shop attached to one of them. Throughout the day, almost everyone in our group went in and got ice cream. My family went at the end of the day. And by then quite a bit of the ice cream was gone. The workers said to some locals that they were running out. We kept them pretty busy. I don't know how much the teenage girls liked it, but I am sure that just from our families business that shop will have a good amount of income for a while.
All of us eating our yummy ice cream cones.
We took some kind of family pictures. Jace, again is "smiling"
The boys of the family
The girls of the family.
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