Day 3 Havre to Pocatello

The Havre morning was a balmy 20C at 8am when we left the hotel for the next leg of the journey. We travelled south west in the slow lane. It seems that with a large abundance of household goods stored in a trailer, our van gets a little upset at the idea of going faster than 100km/h - espescially around hills. If we do exceed that vehicle-induced speed limit, the van seems to gobble gas as if it were food in a vanload of 3 boys on a long trip.

Finally, about 1/3 of the way through the trip while going uphill in Montana ( Montana is almost all uphill...) I passed my first vehicle. I finally felt manly again as I breezed by this little imported sedan shaking up the hill. Until, that is, I looked over to see an absolutley terrified 90+ year old lady with knuckes as white as my hair.

I scared gramma...

The rest of the trip we stayed pretty close to the slow lane being passed by 65 year old ladies driving 35 foot RV's carrying boats AND cars on trailers. Manly no more, we pressed on.

We have brought our boy-cat, Rosie with us to Mexico. All the stuff we got rid of and on the last day found a home for Rosie until the boys found out and became VERY upset... as if to say- you can move me away from friends, you can sell or give away my toys, you can force me to learn a foriegn language, but PLEASE... let us have our cat!

While I'm generally not a softy, it takes alot to get my boys this upset emotionally, so we took the hint and... the cat.

Rosie has settled in nicely to Gypsy-life. He sleeps most of the day in the car. When he wakes up, it enerally is to go test out someone elses lap for a while. Lap to Lap he goes, sleeping the day away. Then one he gets into the hotel room he promptly finds the softest pillow on the softest bed and... sleeps. he will wake up for short periods of time to eat, but not much. At first I thought maybe he was stressed, so wasn't eating much. But, as Shar pointed out, realistically how much food does someone need to muster up enough energy to sleep for 22 hours a day. If he doesn't get up to eat, he can sleep for 23 hours!

I think he is personally in a semi-comatose state and will hopefully come out of it in Mexico.

Tomorrow we try to make it to the northern fringe of the Mojave desert, St. George Utah. It'll be 100F or 38C there tomorrow night as get ready for our final day of driving.

Thanks for praying for us. Often the toughest part of a trip like this one is the relationships as we stress and strain through the close proximity and lack of energy-releasing activities. But God has been gracious and we're all doing good in that area... so far.

The van is running well and the trailer tires are holding up.

Until next time,

Blessings,

Mike and Shar.

Thanks for those who have commented- the more the better- it lets me know it's worth writing this stuff!!
MM