Best Vacation Ever!!

POZOR: THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST!

We had so much fun this week on our little vacation! We have found our new favorite place to go for fun. We left Wednesday morning and headed north on I-15. Our first stop was Dillon, Montana. We visited the Patagonia outlet and had no luck finding anything to suit our sedentary lifestyle, but lucky for us there was a bookstore right next to the outlet. The girls bought Madlibs and Landon and I each found good books to read on the trip. We hit the road again and got to Butte, Montana around lunchtime.
We stopped at the visitor center, gathered all the brochures we could carry, asked about where to find pork chop sandwiches then went hunting for Pork Chop Johns. We found it in the historic, old part of Butte. I was nervous because there were bars on the windows and in our experience, that's never a good thing. Of course our desire for fried food won out over our desire to protect our children from a potentially dangerous part of town. This little family-owned fast food place turned out to be a great find. We had pork chop sandwiches (pounded, flat pork which was breaded and fried and put on a bun with all the fixings) and french fries with homemade white fry sauce that tasted very oniony. The workers were all really nice to us and recommended that we go check out the World Museum of Mining next. They also recommended that we try "pasties" before we leave Butte. Pasties are like homemade hot pockets with beef and veggies. We never did get a chance to try them, but we will next time we're in Butte. Next, we visited the World Museum of Mining. It was hot and most of the museum was outside, but we still had fun. The museum is basically a mining town out of the late 1800s/early 1900s, which they've rebuilt. You walk along the sidewalk and peek in windows of all the shops and see artifacts from that time period. There was a church, school, saloon, doctor's office, blacksmith shop, etc. We got to explore the old mine stuff (I don't know the terminology) which was left over from the actual mine that was where the museum is built. They have underground mine tours, but we weren't there at the right time for that. It was really educational and interesting to see all that old stuff.

After the mine, we were more than ready to get to Fairmont Hot Springs and get in the water. We drove about 12 miles west on I-90 and checked into our hotel room. We had 24 hour access to the 2 olympic size swimming pools, and 2 hot pools. We also had 4 half-day passes to use the water slide. They also gave us 2 bags of animal food for the petting zoo area, and a bag full of water toys. We spent the rest of the day in the pools swimming and playing in the water. We brought plenty of food from home so we ate sandwiches and fruit in our room for dinner.

The next day we used our waterslide passes all morning and got our fill of going up the stairs to ride the slide down. We swam all morning and ate sandwiches in our room for lunch. After lunch, Landon took the girls to the petting zoo area to feed the animals while I read my book in the hotel room. Then Landon and the girls went swimming, but by that time a storm had rolled in and we had a lightening storm and heavy rain. They ended up swimming in the inside pool while I read my book in the hotel lobby. I made friends with a nice lady from Maryland. She had been playing golf and wanted to come inside to rest. She ended up snoring on the chair across from me while I read. It made me think of Nana.

For dinner, we all got dressed and went to Butte to a pizza place we found in the phone book. It was gourmet pizza, so we had a carribean jerk chicken pizza. It was sweet and spicy, yummy!! We had ordered a small cheese pizza for the girls, which they each had eaten a piece of (and Landon had one too). I picked up the last piece and looked at the bottom, and there was a spot the size of a quarter that was greenish black. MOLD! I showed the manager who just happened to stop by our table to see how our dinner was. I was really glad I didn't have a bite of that pizza. I guess the small pizzas are made with frozen crusts. The pizza we had was hand-tossed and not frozen. It pays to ask for thin crust, I guess. The mold didn't freak us out as much as it would someone else. After all, I drank a glass of bleach water at Macayo's in 1995 and survived.

We spent some quality time at Super Walmart after the pizza experience and bought some school clothes for Emma. We love us some Walmart.

The next day the girls and Landon went swimming for an hour in the morning, while I cleaned up our room and got us ready to go. When they got back from swimming, the girls were so tired! I made them take baths and use a pound of conditioner on their hair from all the swimming. After her bath, Lauren couldn't get warm, which was kind a red flag but I thought she was being dramatic. We checked out and drove east on I-90 heading toward the Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park.

On the way, we saw a billboard for Wheat Montana, a bakery and deli and wheat processing plant about 18 miles past our turn off for the caves. All I needed to see was the word "bakery" and I was OK with a detour to check it out. What a find! It was like the Tillmook cheese factory except it was a grain factory. We shared a carmel roll, a chocolate croissant, ate sandwiches made with the yummy bread they make there, then shared macaroons for dessert. They sell all kinds of oats, grains, wheats, flours, breads, rolls, etc. in their cafe/giftshop.

Next, we hit the road again and headed back to the caves. We got there and Lauren was really sick. She had a fever and had slept off and on in the truck up to this point. She couldn't get warm, even with all the blankets and clothes we piled on her. Landon was convinced she just didn't want to go in the caves because she was scared, so he went ahead and bought us tour tickets for the caves. I knew Lauren was sick and was willing to stay with her in the truck while Emma and Landon did the caves, but since we had the tickets, we convinced Lauren to give it a try. Big mistake. The hike to the beginning of the cave was 3/4 of a mile, 600 feet up and in 90 degree heat. Lauren was panting heavily and whining all the way. I felt so bad for her, but was hoping when we got there she'd be OK. We got to the front of the cave and our tour guide explained that there were bats, pack rats, mice in the cave, it was very dark, very steep and we can't touch anything. Lauren was crying and begging to go back, but we thought we'd go a little farther. We decended 128 steep steps into the cave, and at the bottom, our tour guide said it was the last chance we had to turn around and go back. I raised my hand and said Lauren and I were going back. We climbed back up the steps and down to the truck. Lauren panted all the way back, dry heaved a few times and stopped at every single bench to rest. I even carried her on my back for part of the way. She immediately went to sleep in the truck while we waited for Landon and Emma. Poor little baby. She was a little trooper even though she was sick. Landon and Emma had fun and agreed that it's a good thing Lauren and I went back when we did. They had to scoot on their butts a few times and stoop way over in order to get through certain parts of the cave. I'm glad they had fun.

We got home at about 6:30pm last night. We had so much fun on this trip! It wasn't a lot more expensive than our trips up to Gardiner, Montana to visit Yellowstone. I think we'll be back up to Fairmont this winter when we get tired of the long winter. The hot springs are open year round, so hopefully we can squeeze in a quick trip in February or something.