Another amazing day!  It seems like the days I travel are always wonderful.  I just wish I could gawk more but must keep my mind on my driving and my hands on the wheel.

Actually had to wake up by an alarm clock this morning because I got to bed too late.  Needed an early start so we could clean up the house Brian let us stay in and get an early start.  Ericka and David were leaving early too.  Brian told us we didn’t have to clean but we didn’t want his wife to clean up a whole house after we used it 8 days.  We all worked hard but I think David S. worked the hardest.  He is a handy guy to have around.  Not only did he empty all the trashes everyday but he puttered around the house with his box of tools and just fixed anything that wasn’t quite right.  Wouldn’t you just love to have someone come in and notice all those little discrepancies in your house and just fix them?  A little hinge needing tightening or a lock that just didn’t quite connect right, screens that needed repairing and hung, drawers that were hard to open and close and I’m sure a host of other little time consuming tasks.  Thanks David for making my life easier this past week.  If you ever come to our house be sure and bring your tool belt!

Needless to say I already miss Ericka and Lilly.  Ericka has grown into a beautiful, caring lady.  It was so good to reconnect with her after all these years.  We have never lived in close proximity with each other so were never that up close and personal.  It was so good to be on a peer relationship.  She’s all grown (going into middle age) and I’m NOT OLD YET!  Hmmm…

We parted and my journey began again.  I meet more people at potty stops (which happen quite frequently).  Well I needed to get gas before leaving town so I stopped at the last gas station before nothing.  As I drove up I saw a young man in front of the gas station building sitting on the ground with a back pack.  He was quite grungy looking and had a sign propped up that said “Going East”.  It was daylight.  A lot of people around and I felt quite safe.  I pumped my gas and then walked over to him with two bottles of water.  I told him I noticed he was getting low on his gallon of water and thought he might need some.  He was genuinely grateful.  He was well spoken and polite.  I asked him where he was going and he said he has been traveling around for a few years and had just been deported from Canada because he had run out of money.  So here he was looking for a ride to get to New York so he could stay with a friend for a while.  We talked for a few moments and he told me a little more about himself.  I asked what wisdom had he learned from being out on the road.  He immediately replied with an answer that I was expecting.  Even though He had not yet received a ride He was very positive.  His name is Justin.  I then asked him if I could pray for him.  He said absolutely, he would like that.

Justin’s wisdom: “That there are a lot of nice people out there.” 

I guess that was more in answer to my question about what he had learned out there on his travels, than it has to do with wisdom but in a way it is a wise assessment.  It also showed me a little more about his attitude and outlook on life.   I went into the building to use the facility and when I came out I knew I was supposed to give him my food.  I had made some food to take along with me.  I went to my bag and picked out some of the food for him.  I brought it back to him and he was so amazed and so pleased. And so now I have someone else to pray for.   I wish I knew the rest of his story!

I was traveling I- 90.  I think I was doing it mostly because it made other people more comfortable knowing I was travelling well known and busy highways.  I think some people travel the straighter, wider way because they want to arrive sooner and not spend so much time on the road.   I am not usually in a hurry to get anywhere quickly.  Well, I traveled I-90 until I didn’t any more.  There was a small back, winding highway that looked much more intriguing so I turned my car that way.  The only regret I have is that I didn’t stop to take pictures from the beginning of being on that back road.  There are so many pictures now that will only live in my head.  There were several very beautiful old barns and interesting things for me to photograph.  Often time there is not a safe turn off and I don’t want to do anything that would cause an accident.  Along this small back highway there were large pull off areas called cell phone turnoff.  I think it was the place where phones would get reception.  No hand held devices here in Montana when you are driving.  Those pull off areas work real well as places to take photos.  So I did.  Just on my phone because I didn’t want to mess with the camera.  I’ll probably be sorry later.  But I guess I was using the pull off for the right purpose, using my cell phone (to take pictures).

I had an amazing trek across the back roads.  The mountains were winding and high with beautiful trees and then beautiful meadows.  I have uploaded some pictures of what I was today.  One panoramic view that took by breath away was when I came around a very winding part of the road when the entire visual I had was a lake.  It was Flat Head Lake.  I was so amazed at how big it was.  And what I saw was not the half of it.  As I drove and drove and drove the lake just seemed to be growing with me.  It was huge.  Here is a little excerpt from a web site:

“Flathead Lake (Salish: člq̓etkʷ ^[3]) is the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River in the contiguous United States,^[4][5] taking Red Lake (Minnesota) and Lake of the Woods to be north of the Mississippi River, rather than west of the river. With a surface area of between 191.5 sq mi (496 km²)^[1] and 197 sq mi (510 km²), Flathead Lake is slightly larger than Lake Tahoe.^[2] The lake is a remnant of the ancient, massive glacial dammed lake, Lake Missoula of the era of the last interglacial.^[6]Flathead Lake is 27.3 mi (43.9 km) long and up to 15.5 mi (24.9 km) wide. Flathead Lake has a maximum depth of 370.7 ft (113.0 m),^[1] and an average of 164.7 ft (50.2 m). This makes Flathead Lake deeper than the average depths of the Yellow Sea or the Persian Gulf. Polson Bay, at the lake’s outlet was raised 10 ft (3.0 m) by Kerr Dam.^[7] It is one of the cleanest in the populated world for its size and type.^[8]:

I thought you might be interested in reading a bit of the Flathead statistics.  It took a lot of driving time to get to the end of the lake.  I like it when I get behind a real slow moving vehicle going up the mountain  and can look at the sights all the more.  And if I’m not the lead car no one gets perturbed at that “old lady driver”!

I arrived at the Airbnb about 5:00 (My watch said 4:00) and was too early to get in because no one was home.  I drove north for a short while but seemed to be getting to a point where I just needed to work out.  I just “happened” to see a large building named “The Summit” and it looked like the people coming out weren’t office workers but work out workers.  I asked one man and he said it was a gym.  I went in and told the man behind the desk that I was desperate for a work out and I asked how much it cost.  He asked if I had ever been there before.  I said no and he then informed me that tonight was “on the house”.  I jumped at it.  I went out to the car and pulled out my black workout pants which I can still fit into.  I changed and worked out for a long time and it felt so good.  and…it was free!  How great is that?  Everything thing they had in the gym was state of the art equipment.  A portion of the gym was reserved for cardio workouts by prescriptions.  So…I got one good work today and it showed me that I really could still do it after not going for the past two or three weeks.  The only reason I haven’t gone is because I did not want to take away time from my day because everything seemed to be  planned for me and there just wasn’t a gap of time long enough to go exercise.  But it beckons me now.  Every extra pound wants to be free and fly away from my body.  I must help it again and just let it happen naturally by eating smaller portions, healthy choices, more often and doing my exercise faithfully 5 days a week.

After working out I came back and found my host to be very pleasant.  He gets up very early so he went to be ver early.  It is now just you and me and the typewriter!!  I mean “the keyboard”.

Talked briefly with my host before He went to bed.  He is a single man of about 45 to 50 and his accent sounds like he is from Australia.

If this blog doesn’t make sense it is because I am very sleepy.  ‘

Goodnight.