Palm Sunday in Billings

We parked at the Billings, MT, Walmart last night, a regular stopover for us on these trips. We can both shop and overnight park.

We attended Grace Baptist Church, Billings, in the morning and stayed for their potluck dinner afterwards. Great food and fellowship.

Heather teaches her Zoom Good News Club on Sunday afternoons. The pastor arranged for her to use a private room in the Church to have the benefit of good wifi. 

We stayed for their evening service. The teaching in both services was focused on the sacrifice the Lord Jesus was about to make on the cross to pay the price for our sin.

GBC is a friendly, missions-oriented Church and Pastor John McKinney is a very good Bible teacher/preacher.

We are parked here for the night.

Days 4 and 5 in Montana

It's Saturday evening as I write this. We are parked for the night in Billings, MT. 

Yesterday and today have had us mostly traveling through Montana. We love shopping in this no sales tax State. Heather shops for Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts.

Last night we did a jigsaw puzzle.

This evening we played Skip-Bo.

Tomorrow morning we will attend a local church here in Billings.

Day 3 of our journey

We are near Wolf Creek, MT, staying on a cattle ranch until tomorrow. We just finished a guided tour of the "maternity ward" where momma cows are waiting to deliver. It takes a lot of human intervention due to the very cold weather here in calving season.

We also toured a neighboring barn where the owner stores lots of old equipment. It is very old and very large inside.

Our host drove us by some painted rocks on the road (more like a path) to where his wife was working with the cows. It's about a 20 minute ride over some pretty rough terrain.

 

We have been enjoying the fellowship with friends and the beauty of God's creation, but we leave here Friday morning and continue our journey East.

Day 2...A Travel Day

We left our friend's place in Ephrata, WA this morning, but last night we enjoyed a great meal and a hymnbook sing with them. Such great fellowship with old friends!

The roads through Idaho and Montana had light traffic and the weather was perfect for driving.

We turned off I-90 at Rt. 200 and headed over Roger's Pass.

We arrived this evening at the ranch where our friends live in Wolf Creek, Montana. They live on a huge cattle ranch and are winding up "calving season". Tomorrow we hope to visit the "calving cabin" where the wife and her mother spent several months this spring. Pregnant cows sometimes need help in birthing.

The Lodge at the 2-bar-W ranch

Day 1 of our 2025 Spring trip

Traveled to Ephrata, WA, to visit with dear friends who we've known since the mid-1990's. They moved here several years ago. We enjoyed a great supper meal and ended the evening with a hymnbook sing. Tonight we are under a clear sky.

 It rained much of the way here today and we even had snow on Snoqualmie Pass.

On Wednesday, we traveled through ID into MT. Lots of snow drifts and snow by the road, but the road was clear. We have never seen so many trucks with 3 trailers. Also, just a lot of trucks overall. One time we were the only car on the road surrounded by trucks. Generally, there's not much traffic - often we're the only ones visible on the road.

To SDC and back

On the 27^th we left SD and headed to MO, to Silver Dollar City, to see their fantastic Christmas program. The roads were clear and dry – a gift from our Father! Ellie was to come with us, but her flight was delayed and we couldn’t wait. SDC closes right after the Christmas season.

Christmas at SDC was all it was proclaimed to be – we enjoyed several musical productions, as well as being amazed at all the lights. We stayed in the former “Deer Run” hotel – great room and service, and used the shuttle bus for transportation back and forth.

The trip back to Rapid City was uneventful. Josh had returned from his trip, so we had some time together before we left. Crystal’s flight was delayed, thanks to bad weather, so we had a little more time with her. (We flew Ellie to Rapid City and Alan flew Crystal.)

Winter Trip 2024 - Boxing Day review

This post will mainly be a review of our trip up to this point. We left home on December 20 heading to Rapid City, SD, for the Christmas holiday. We were surprised that I-90 was bare and and mostly dry all the way.

Avoiding night driving, we spent one night in Bozeman, MT.

The next day we stopped in Sturgis, SD, to briefly visit with son, Josh, and his family before they headed out on a drive to the East coast.

Arrived in Rapid City at our usual destination hotel. It has a pool slide our grand kids enjoy.

Went on a mountain trail hike with son Alan, and two of his boys. We found some very interesting swings and rope structures.

 

Opened gifts on Christmas morning with Alan's family.

The Sunday before Christmas we attended the church that provided a family to pick Zoey and Wyatt up for AWANA. That is a marvelous gift to us! Then, we returned for the Christmas Eve service. We did miss any pageants that happened in WA or SD.