Monday was…a challenge. From about 9:30 onward, Naomi was in a bad mood; no solution of food, drink, toy or otherwise would fix things. We stopped to do the requisite pic of the family at the geographical center of North America in Rugby, North Dakota. A highlight of the trip, let me tell you.
The temperature soared over the course of the day’s travel, to 39 degrees C as we got to close to Glasgow. The trip continued through the rest of North Dakota and into Montana, with the continuation of bad-mood Naomi’s travails. In hindsight, we think that a combination of not enough to drink, not enough to eat ( not for lack of trying, however) caused a minor case of heatstroke, which manifested itself in a high temperature by the time we got to the campsite in Glasgow.
We found the campground easily enough, and though the owner was a nice fellow, it could only be charitably referred to as rustic, and I would define it as tenement camping, complete with side-by-side, treeless slots, coincidentally just big enough for an RV. Oh, and yesterday’s Ontario RV travelers with the satellite dish showed up shortly after us, but abstained from hooking up the dish this time around.
If you ask Gareth about the trip, and his night in Glasgow, he would likely tell you that he “almost drowned.” While Frances started getting an evening meal together, the slackers in the family swam. Gareth decided to swim from one end of the pool to the other. Unfortunately, when Gareth loses his momentum while swimming, he gets stuck vertical, and…well, exhibits his Frances side, and panics. So, instead of jumping in and “saving” him, I coached him to swim over to me, which he managed to do, and then proceeded to wail for several minutes about how the horrendous danger he had endured. Life’s hard when you’re six.
It was *hot* until the sun was mostly set, and then the wind began shortly before the kids went to bed. Frances and I frantically packed up everything, in case the ominous clouds decided to open up on us in the night, and the tent was whipped around like a flag in the wind, but the rain failed to materialize, and the wind finally died down about 10:30, while I sat in the van drinking beer and reading my Canadian law textbook. Indy, as usual, slept in the van. Again.
This morning, we got up at 6:30, ate, packed, showered, and were on the road by 8:00. Except, when we got in the van, Frances realized that she had forgotten to change the time on her handheld, and that we had actually gotten up at 5:30. Much abuse from the first driver ensued. The upside is, however, that by 10:45 this morning, we’ve traveled almost 300 kilometers. Man, is Montana flat. That’ll change by this afternoon, when we hit the Rockies. Gareth is already excited by the mountains, which we just realized neither child has ever driven through. Good times ahead….
