In Which I Finally Stop Procrastinating...

Sorry, so sorry, for the long delay. I've got quite a bit to tell all y'all, too...*long sigh* Here goes.

When last we left myself, I had just arrived in Denver. Spent some time there with family, which was great! I haven't seen many of them for quite some time. Then we left (on the bus...the bus again) for Ohio to see more family. Well, actually the family responsible for the entire trip. See, as a graduation present*, my grandparents paid for Mom and me to go to Cedar Point, which is a theme park in...Cleveland...Northern Ohio. They also paid for our bus ticket, which was very nice. Cedar Point was fun; I didn't go on many roller coasters [surprise, surprise] but it was big enough that there was still lots to do.

I should interject here that my mother and father (who both grew up in Ohio) remember Cedar Point as being far bigger than it actually is. Part of this is from them going when they were little, and everything seeming huge, and then they grew up and moved to lovely Montana where everything [meaning: actual, real, mountains] is bigger, but the towns and buildings and other such things are smaller, so Cedar Point probably did seem very big in their memory. "Silverwood [a smaller theme park sort of close to our house] could fit in the parking lot", I've been told.

It couldn't. Unless, as Mom thinks, the Cedar Point powers-that-be have expanded the park since she went and they encroached upon the parking lot. From my perspective, it's almost the same size. Sort of. Okay, not really, but it wasn't that big from the Ferris Wheel.

[I'll explain why I don't have any pictures later] **

Anyway, after Cedar Point we spent some more time with family. and since they have cable we sort of got introduced to The Mentalist. I dearly love The Mentalist. He's like the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes and everyone from Criminal Minds and he has a contagious smile. (Which also means he has heartrenching sorrow, like the Doctor, but that isn't important right now)

And you know how they have cable? Well, about a day before we left, I discovered they had BBC America. *facepalm* I want a word to describe the emotion you feel when you're flipping through the channels and suddenly you see Merlin and you look to the left of the show name and see BBCA. What you feel is joy that you've found the channel, horror that you never thought to look, excitement because it's Merlin (he also has a contagious smile, but thankfully that show doesn't quite delve into angst like our dear Doctor), and a sense of disappointment because you realize that you're leaving in two days and it's a weekend and they probably won't be showing reruns of Doctor Who.
What you say is sort of nonverbal, this huge intake of breath immediately followed by a smile and then this little "oh...." and a sinking into the couch.
I'd like to have a name for that emotion.

Anyway, that was a bit off-topic. We left Monday morning, got to eat Denny's with my grandparents before they dropped us off at the bus station, and then sort of sat in the bus station not really crying but not smiling and just then remembering to take pictures and laughing at ourselves because the pictures were going to turn out to be sad. Then the bus came (I think it may have been late, but I'm not sure. We were probably early) and we got on and settled in, having learned where to sit and how to sit to maximize comfort.

Let's see. Here it gets a bit confusing and the middle of the US looks the same and I wasn't quite sure where we were and I was sleeping through most of it. I think in...Indianapolis our bus was late, and in Chicago we had definitely missed our bus in Minneapolis, so we got our tickets switched around in Chicago, and then we arrived in Minneapolis but our bus was late again, so we missed the other bus. They wanted us to (a) reroute through Kansas, which would take a whole other day of on-the-bus misery, or (b) wait in Minneapolis for 12 hours, which is about what the Kansas route would take. We opted for b, and stayed in the bus station pretty much all day.

I was able to sleep for a couple hours, and then we watched the Mentalist all day (Mom and I had bought it before we left...:) ), then we had supper, then we left. I had wanted to be awake the second we crossed into Montana, my dear beloved state, but I fell asleep. I was sort of half awake when the driver announced, "Now stopping in Glendive, Montana, Glendive, Montana." I shot up and looked around. Not my part of the state, no decent mountains or trees, but it was still Montana. I whispered "Yes!" and punched the air. Mom smiled.

I hadn't ever thought of it before, but I'm sure Daniel and his friends missed their home. I could imagine them pointing out the strange new plants in Babylon, how different the humidity was, how they missed that particular hill that used to be on the horizon. I suppose that makes the fact that they still had a good attitude that much more amazing.

Anyway, we traveled on through the day and into the night, and once we passed a construction site, whereupon I spotted the TARDIS. :) That's what I thought, and I was proud of myself for immediately assuming that nice blue rectangle sitting in the middle of the road for no reason was a time machine. I'd like a name for that emotion, too. "It's the TARDIS! Oh, no, it's a--I can't believe I mistook the TARDIS for one of those. I probably just insulted Idris....well, at least I was loyal to my favorite TV show and thought of it first."

Anyway. One thing about Eastern Montana: it has beautiful thunderstorms. Here in the western part, you can see only the lightning right above you, because the trees and the mountains block out the rest of the storm. In the eastern part, you can see for miles [across the flat rocky terrain] and the sky is constantly lit with lightning. The thunder never seems to stop, and you can see the horizontal lightning strikes. Cloud-to-cloud, Dad calls it. It's beautiful.

I still love my mountains though. In Billings, you can just barely, just barely, see the beginnings of the Rocky Mountains. I remembered from when I went with Dad to Ohio and back. I missed the Rockies then too. It got me thinking about David saying in that one Psalm, "I lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth."
I wonder what sort of poems David would have written if he lived here. :)

Anyway, we passed over the Continental Divide, through Bozeman and Butte (and that's pronounced with a long u, to you non-Montanian people) to Missoula, where we stayed the seven hour layover or so with a friend, and then back to Kalispell, where Dad met us.

Then we went shopping and I bought myself the lovely new laptop I'm typing on right now. Entirely coincedentally, it's the same as Hannah's. :) I bought a few other goodies for family and friends, then we came back home and we didn't hit any deer! Didn't even see any, which was sort of odd. I don't think it's hunting season...I guess God kept them off the road.

I remember back in 2003 we went to Ohio, our whole family, and we took the motorhome. I was...younger than I am now [not in the mood for math]...and fell asleep on the way back. I only woke up because we stopped (right outside our house), and it was night. I looked out the window and saw my dear pines and ponderosas and larches and asked Dad, "are we home?" He said yes, how did I know, and I replied, "because of the trees." Looking back on it, I don't think I knew I missed them until I saw them again.

It was like that with the trees around kalispell. They just aren't quite the same, and the distribution is off, and I'd never noticed them like that before. Oh, I left out one part. ;p Mom and Dad had to answer the call of nature, and they pulled off Highway 2, flashing the headlights on a road sign I recognized. 6 miles from home. *insert mental ecstatic cheering and wooting and laughing, but physical fatigue and a vague smile and a simple sitting up straight in the seat* We had to run a couple errands, mainly checking to see if Dad's van had been fixed yet--long story--, and then we pulled in, and *cough the trees were normal again and the horizon had a decent mountain range in it cough* FINALLY I was HOME!

My siblings--wait, let me tell you first that I love making posters for various occasions. Birthdays, holidays, etc.--my siblings had made a huge poster that said Welcome Home Mom and Liz. It made me very happy.

So that was...Wednesday...no, Thursday, because we missed Rebekah's camp skit. Right. So the next Monday, Hannah and I went to camp! I just got back *clears throat* last Saturday. And we had to install stuff on the new laptop, and I was still tired from the bus and camp tires you out quite a bit too and I had to clean my room and I was trying to figure out how to do the new Google email thingie cause I got a new email which I still have to give to people and I was trying to make it work on this blog but I couldn't and ended up just signing in with my old one and those are my excuses for not posting sooner.

It's the bus' fault, basically.
=D

So next time I post I'll tell you guys about what happened at camp, and what I learned, and how different it was since it was my last time, etc. But for now I'm tired and I'm going to bed.
Good night.

* Also for a graduation present, my dad's cousin (not sure what that makes her...) sent me a luggage set which was FANTASTIC and a great idea and blue and etc. Redundancy, ah well. I'm tired.
** Sorry, I never really explained that. The pictures are all on the other laptop that I used to have because I haven't switched them over yet.
I think that's it.