Room 107

On this luckiest day of the year, allegedly, I had a nice long drive through the state of Washington, on into Idaho for a couple of hours and then into Montana. I really don't like driving through mountains. It occurred to me around mile marker 5 that I was in a state whose name means 'mountain' in Spanish. The dismay set in. We drove and drove and drove. I'm not kidding either. This, I knew, was going to be the longest leg of the trip and it definitely felt like it! Going through Washington took six hours. Idaho took only a couple but Mountain took another six and we only stopped in Billings.

In Billings, I had the second worse driving experience of my life. Picture it: rain, a semi-truck in front of you and random lightning strikes on a pitch black highway (excepting the lighting strikes of course). Oh and I forgot to mention that the highway had become one of those both directions of traffic sharing two lanes deal. Also, and most ridiculously, I had not printed or even written down the directions to our hotel so we were just looking at signs for the Ramada. Luckily it was Billings' first exit and we entered into the most flooded and crowded hotel parking lot ever.

Apparently there was a motorcycle convention in town. In the parking lot were parked motorcycle trailers or just one motorcycle per space. Come on people!!

The room was such a let down from yesterday. The tub was stained and three feet long, the queen bed felt far too small for me and JC to share and the mugginess was stifling. Still, it was all we had, literally, as the town was sold out of rooms due to the aforementioned conference. C'est la vie.