We had such a good time with Becca's and Daniel's families. It was tough to leave, and know that we will miss all their birthday's, holidays, and Sunday dinner get togethers. I miss being able to drive down to Rexburg for a weekend. I wouldn't want to live there - although Daniel is determined to convince me next visit that Idaho mountains are better than Montana mountains.
We packed the van, gave out a last round of hugs, and started driving.
10 hours later, we pulled into Makoshika State Park, on the far eastern side of Montana. Mattias had wanted to spend more time exploring the badland area, so this seemed the best place.
The boys set up their tent, and took Sylvia to explore on a trail close by our site.
The badlands are beautiful at sunset.
The kids came back with their hands loaded with treasures. Asher had discovered prickly pears. I told him you could eat them, so he worked on shaving the spikes off. It took a while, and his hands became full of needles. After a small freak-out, I drove him down the road a mile, where there was a water pump to wash his hands under. He has now sworn off prickly pear experiments.
Sylvia came back with some yucca leaves. She said they were like swords and cut your legs as you walked down the trails. She spent the rest of her time trying to mow the grass in the campsite with them.
We got to bed at a decent time, only to be roused around 11pm by some fishy looking transients, stumbling into our campsite. They started loudly setting up their tent, only 5 ft away from mine - and in our site. I went out to tell them my kids would be up early eating breakfast right by their tent, so if they wanted to sleep in, they should re-consider their location. They said they would be leaving around 4... but they moved their tent to an empty site across the road anyways.
They were rough guys, and I was worried that they were on the run from the law, and I had just seen their faces and knew about their getaway location. It was with this worry on my mind, that I then heard a group of motorcycles roar into camp and about 50 feet away at the outhouse. Then there were gunshots. I lay frozen, glad that none of my kids were over there. They must have been shooting onto the bluffs behind us. One of them yelled to shoot at the outhouse, so they started that. After a while they roared on up the road, and back again... it was a noisy hour. None of us got much sleep - but I prayed a lot, and wondered if I should start carrying a pistol like Brad had when we were hiking.
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