{"id":5810,"date":"2017-07-04T18:48:57","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T18:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaumaison.us\/?p=5810"},"modified":"2017-07-04T18:48:57","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T18:48:57","slug":"run-for-the-border-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/2017\/07\/04\/run-for-the-border-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Run for the Border Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, Jack said “I’ve never been out of the country you know.” \u00a0So, since I’ve been itching for a proper road trip for years, I suggested that we go to Canada. \u00a0I initially had Calgary in mind, but realized that Regina was much closer. \u00a0Since we had no reason other than “Go to Canada” and the legendary Edmonton Mall was really just too far, we decided to head straight north to visit our friends in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n

The first day, I woke up early because I was too excited\/nervous to sleep more. \u00a0Soon the rest of the family followed me and we had some breakfast. \u00a0Meanwhile I was throwing stuff that we had packed the previous night in the car. \u00a0We had a lot of gear because we were planning to camp on 2 of 4 nights.<\/p>\n

We were soon ready and Jack and I piled in to my car and headed north. \u00a0The first leg of the trip was fairly uneventful, and mostly territory and terrain that Jack and I were very familiar with.<\/p>\n

Our first stop was Cheyenne, WY. \u00a0Our primary reason for stopping was that I realized I hadn’t packed any pillows for camping, so we needed to buy some before we left civilization. \u00a0Jack said “This looks just like our target!” \u00a0A Target’s a Target the whole world ’round they say.<\/p>\n

The first fun stop of the trip was in Chugwater, WY. \u00a0Jack really enjoyed the name of the place, but the main reason we stopped there was that I had heard they had an ancient soda fountain. \u00a0It was a pretty cool place in a very sleepy town. \u00a0Jack had a root beer float, and I had a butterscotch ice cream soda. \u00a0Both were pretty good, but nothing special – she just used Kroger sodas and those ubiquitous coffee shop flavor shots. \u00a0I think I had overly high expectations for this one, but I’m still glad we stopped. \u00a0We later found out that we were SUPPOSED to get Chugwater chili there, but we didn’t.<\/p>\n

Yum!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

ChugSODA amirate?<\/p><\/div>\n

Filled up on soda and powered by burps, we hit the road, bound for Douglas. \u00a0I was very interested in checking out the road conditions on this leg in anticipation of our trip to Wyoming in August for the eclipse. \u00a0The road was in truly excellent shape, except for a small bit of construction that I’m sure will be resolved by then. \u00a0We saw our first large herd of cattle on this leg and Jack was enamored with the many cute calfs. \u00a0We also saw a road mirage for the first time and I showed Jack the big “puddle” up ahead. \u00a0He was shocked when it disappeared!<\/p>\n

We came in to Douglas and immediately went to McDonalds, as Jack was seriously jonesing for a new minions happy meal toy. \u00a0We played in the small outdoor play area there and Jack made friends with a very Wyoming sort of boy.<\/p>\n

After lunch, we went across town to the Railroad Interpretive Center, primarily to take a picture of us with the big Jacaklope.<\/p>\n

Not REAL says Jack<\/p><\/div>\n

We also took a quick look at the trains and we were about to hit the road, when a friendly lady came out of the visitors center and asked if we wanted to go in the trains. \u00a0I thought Jack would decline, but he said yes. \u00a0We got to go in a dining car and a sleeper car. \u00a0I’d never seen a sleeper car before! \u00a0However, this one was a little ratty – clear that it’s been sitting around for MANY years.<\/p>\n

King of the rails<\/p><\/div>\n

After we visited the trains, the nice lady invited us into the museum to see their 60 year old model train. \u00a0It was not that amazing, but Jack was impressed that it started to spew “smoke” from the engine. \u00a0We saw the eclipse glasses and mentioned the eclipse, much to our host’s dismay. \u00a0She is terrified of the expected 40,000 person rush into Douglas and the 120,000 people in Casper. \u00a0She was also sad she had to work that day, even though it’s usually her day off. \u00a0I told her I’d bring her something nice if I make it back to the railroad museum that day. \u00a0I really do feel bad for the normal citizens of those towns, hopefully all the nerds will be nice and respectful.<\/p>\n

After Douglas, we headed out onto the lonely highways of Coverse county. \u00a0Lots of giant oil trucks, but not much traffic overall. \u00a0Jack had an urgent need to stop in the middle of Thunder Basin Grasslands, but we managed to make it to the strange little town of Wright. \u00a0It seemed like a nice subdivision area of Denver, but spread out more. \u00a0It even had a little subdivision style sign on the entrance to town. \u00a0This is how I feel a proper oil town boom community should look (I’ll refer back to this in part 2). \u00a0The local Sinclair station had the usual dinosaur, but since this was Wyoming, the dinosaur had a saddle.<\/p>\n

Ride ’em dinoboy!<\/p><\/div>\n

After that we continued into Gillette (“Energy capital of the world”), where I was excited to see the legendary Campbell County Rock Pile. \u00a0I mostly was amused that it was a thing, but it turned out that their museum was actually pretty neat. \u00a0Jack really enjoyed learning about all the old rancher tools, seeing some very nice taxidermies heads and visiting his first one rooms school house.<\/p>\n

We saw a moose(head)!<\/p><\/div>\n

Can you name these?<\/p><\/div>\n

We headed out into another lonely stretch of road after Gillette on our way to Montana. \u00a0We passed through a few rain storms on this leg and had some lovely smells of wet sagebrush (yeah, I know I hated it as a kid, but it smells great now). \u00a0I also thought this was one of the prettiest sections of the journey. \u00a020 miles shy of Broadus, MT – we saw a truck towing a few ton bales blow a tire. \u00a0I was worried about him, since it was the middle of nowhere, so I slowed down and asked if he needed a ride into town or anything. \u00a0He said no, but thanked us. \u00a0We headed on to Broadus for dinner. \u00a0I had heard that a place called the “Cashaway Cafe” that had homemade bacon, so I thought Jack really needed to try that out. \u00a0It was a very ragged little place, but the bacon and other meat was nothing short of incredible. \u00a0I was very glad we made the stop. \u00a0Jack even told me “You have to try this bacon dad!” \u00a0He doesn’t do that with food – this was his first foody moment \ud83d\ude42 We also talked with some truckers headed south who said we had a “clear run” into Miles City.<\/p>\n

Bacon Ecstacy<\/p><\/div>\n

Our final leg of the trip was an easy one, but Jack was concerned about weather. \u00a0He was brave enough to agree to go through with the camping plan and so we found a very lovely campsite at a fishing access area on the Togue river. \u00a0 We ended our first day with a little bit of walking around the area and by watching the first half of Back to the Future in the tent.<\/p>\n

I do love this tent, thanks Dad<\/p><\/div>\n

A great end to a great first day!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, Jack said “I’ve never been out of the country you know.” \u00a0So, since I’ve been itching for a proper road trip for years, I suggested that we go to Canada. \u00a0I initially had Calgary in mind, but realized that Regina was much closer. \u00a0Since we had no reason other than “Go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5813,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5810\/revisions\/5813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eaumaison.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}