A Picture's Worth A Thousand...Miles?

Not a chance. Especially when you've only got a camera phone.

Over the past two days, I've traveled over 1,000 miles from eastern Minnesota to northwestern Montana.  On Friday, I stopped for lunch with my mom and step-dad. Never underestimate the awesomeness of homemade food. It was almost enough to convince me to not leave. But I pried myself away from farm life and made my way to my brother and sister-in-law's. Got to see my nephew and put him down for a nap :) He is seriously the cutest little blonde kid EVER. And the chance to catch up with my brother and his wife was greatly appreciated - and much too short.

I should probably interject here that all of this traveling and visiting was done with the accompaniment of a six month old Corgi-mix (Rocky) and four month old barn-turned-house cat (George).  They have been the source of much entertainment. They cuddled, wrestled and slept while I drove and woke them up with random music.

Awesome things about this trip:

*SIGNS - road signs, warning signs, political campaign signs. Of particular note "Rattlesnakes have been observed in the area. Please stay on the sidewalk" At a rest stop, where we discovered that George harbors no affection for trucks.
My favorite sign was actually a series:
"It's self defense"
"Don't need permission"
"To VOTE"
[insert candidate's name/desired office. I was too busy laughing to remember that part. Besides, I voted absentee in Minnesota, and this was in Montana]

*SPEED LIMITS - once I hit the interstate in North Dakota, I only saw speed limits under 70mph for trucks or in towns. It was amazing. I flew.

*SUNRISES/SETS - I have always loved sunsets. And I've grown to appreciate sunrises (hey, on night shift time, they're like sunsets: they mean quality time with your pillow is at hand) This morning, I got to watch the sunrise dawn over Painted Canyon in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It was spectacular.

I tried the self-portrait-with-dog thing, but the sun had both of us squinting. And my glasses have this annoying habit of sliding down my nose. It was not a good picture :-P

The sunset tonight was fan.tas.tic. Holy cow. I'm still trying to come up with an effective analogy and the only thing I can come up with is that sunsets in Montana are like...standing in a giant bundt cake with one slice missing. That one slice is the part of the sky that is not flamboyant with blue-turning-fire-dotted-with-clouds-over-mountains. As the evening matures into night, more and more pieces of the cake get taken away until there's only one glowing parcel left in the west. Tantalizing and vibrant, but not bright enough to actually help you see. It took nearly an hour for it to be truly dark. And once it was.....STARS. If there hadn't been a pickup in front of me (there are mostly pickups on the road out here. And most of them are Dodge or Ford) I could have turned off my headlights and been invisible. I am so excited to see what it actually looks like around the town where I'll be living for the next six months.

I'll have plenty of time to explore, too, since I can't move into my apartment until Monday. Here's to hoping I can actually contact someone with the agency so my housing is paid tomorrow night! Otherwise I'll be cuddling in the car with my critters for warmth.