Amy's America

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Day 38 was all about covering ground – getting across Montana, to be specific. It is one long state. More than 500 miles. I will never again complain about Pennsylvania when driving to Gram’s in West Virginia. I used to think that was the longest state. Ha!

Montana is a beautiful state, with so much changing scenery and way more mountains than I’d imagined – I thought it would be all flat for some reason.  I wanted to stop to take pictures all the time, but knew it would take forever if I did.  I’d intended to stop in Bozeman and Missoula at the recommendation of Jeff and Lisa, and I did but only very briefly for gas and food as it was raining. They did look like nice places to visit, places with real character and history – more places to go back to.

It was actually the perfect day for just driving: mainly drizzling, so just enough rain that you don’t want to be outside, but not downpours that make driving dangerous. For the first time I put the heated seat on (it’s cold!), listened to a book on my ipod (Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner – it’s really good so far, I’m about halfway through), and just drove.

I did have an ultimate destination (Couer D’Alene, ID), unlike most nights when I’ve just driven until I’ve found somewhere to stop. I took several friends’ advice and tried Priceline.com. This is the second time and it really does work! Both times it’s beat both the coupon book rates and the AAA price. I’ll definitely try it again, although there are some cons to it, too, like not being able to just stop and stay somewhere when you’re tired or see somewhere cute or being sure that the place will have free parking and free internet access. But it’s nice having a definitive address to give Aidan and having a firm destination in mind to count down to. Less than 500 miles, less than 6 hours, less than 400 miles, less than 5 hours, less than…