Travels

The above are earlier pictures that have needed to be posted. Tom and Bear like to play when Tom gets home from work.

Now onto Bear and my travels... A month or so ago my best friend, Jo, and I decided we needed to get together and make Christmas cookies. Well I picked this last weekend. Bear and I flew to ID and my folks came and got us. We got to drive to their house in blowing snow. A cold windy start and an indication of what was to come. We visited with the grandparents for a day or so, then went to Jo's house to bake cookies. Bear got to watch Christmas cartoons while I baked. The old good ones like "Rudolph" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Mom and I drove back to their house that night in a pretty good snow storm. Not too bad, but it wasn't a fast drive.

Then came the crazy trip home to MT. Tom and I decided last minute to send me out of Jackson instead of Idaho Falls, a good thing too as the flight out of Idaho Falls had cancelled. There were also more seats available and an earlier flight. That way I might have a shot of making it from SLC to Missoula (everything was full or overbooked). Well we made it to Jackson okay in spite of the pass being pretty hairy driving. Bear and I got on the flight okay, but then we proceeded to sit on the airplane for 2 and a half hours while we waited for the runway to be cleared and the plane to be de-iced. It was snowing like crazy. Bear is such a great traveller that he took all this in stride. He ate, napped, and played. Not a bit of fussing. Well, a tiny bit that only I noticed. As we sat and waited for the runway to be cleared, the cabin door had iced up. The crew was determined though. We had the announcement of "We will be getting this door closed." They did, and we made it into the air, and a very short flight later, we were in SLC.

There our saga continued. The weather all over the country had gotten bad. Several Denver flights had been re-routed to SLC. This is in addition to the traffic of the holidays. The E concourse was crazy! There were flights being delayed and cancelled all over. Bear and I tried to make it on 3 different flights that late morning and early afternoon. Not a single open seat to MT. That is to any city in MT, not just Missoula. We killed several hours in the airport. Bear made friends at the airport with a couple of kids who were about 10-12 years old and were also non-revving to MT. He had a great time people watching and playing with little dogs that were stuck at the airport too. Finally at about 3 p.m. there was a flight to Kalispell and one to Missoula. They were leaving about 10 minutes apart and we were listed on both. All of a sudden we were paged for the Kalispell flight. We had a seat! We ran for the plane without a moment's notice and Bear's friends made it on too. What fun. Everyone was excited to make it on a flight.

We let Tom know that we needed picked up in Kalispell which is about a two and a half hour drive from Missoula where Tom was. He drove to come get us in a snow storm. We landed and got to hang out in the airport for an hour or so while we waited for Tom to make his way through snow and traffic to get there. Finally we were reunited with Tom and Buddy! (Tom had stopped at the house to pick up the dog.)

We went to dinner and debated spending the night in Kalispell since it was a good 80 mile drive home. We decided to drive, for Bear and I were ready to sleep in our own beds. We had okay roads as the storm had subsided. As we neared St. Iggy, we could see someone had their hazards on. We slowed and realized the guy's truck had broken down. We stopped and helped of course (we are in Montana after all). He used Tom's phone to call his uncle that lived up the road, and we waited with him until his uncle got there. He also had his wife and new baby in the truck. Now you have to understand we live on an indian reservation, so yes they were Native American. Kinda the stereotypical kind to boot. Long hair, missing teeth, tattoos, and camo clothes. Really nice though. The sad part of living on the res is that there are people who make Tom and I look wealthy even when we are broke. At any rate his uncle and cousin showed up, and we finally finished our drive home. We pulled in at about 10 pm, a relief since Bear and I had gotten up at 4 am so we could get to the airport by 6 am. Needless to say we all slept in this morning. Bear joined Tom and I in bed at about 6 am, and we didn't actually get up until almost 11 am. I love Christmas vacation!

Here's Bear enjoying Grammy and Grandpa's Tree and living room.

Bear hamming it up with Grammy. She's just out of the frame.

The train in the snow on the way to the airport at the beginning of our trip. We were almost to Evaro and the tracks are right next to the road. This is about 4:30 a.m. since we had to be there for Tom's shift that starts at 5 a.m.

Merry Christmas to all!!