Utah, Idaho, Montana
Our road trip began this morning at ten minutes to ten when we pulled onto northbound I-15 at Bountiful. We had planned to leave at eight, but Pete and Anna called from Salt Lake to say they were running at least an hour behind. After they picked me up, and said our goodbyes, we had to stop at Dick's Market to buy some Imodium. I had had a nasty case of diarrhea during the night, and continuing that on a long car ride was not a happy prospect.
Peter drove the entire day. An hour and a half into the trip, we stopped in Malad to visit Rachael and the girls for a few moments and take a potty break. Robert, the small town doctor, was actually home from work because he too was having diarrhea out both ends. Doctors are not supposed to get sick.
We headed back to the freeway, driving on the road north of Malad that has the boot fence, and continued north on I-15 through the Marsh Valley (where we turn off every summer to go to Lava Hot Springs), past Pocatello, Blackfoot, Idaho Falls, into a part of Idaho I am not at all familiar with. I'd been this way only once before, years ago, when as a college student after my mission a group of us drove all the way up to Lethbridge, Alberta, over a long weekend. Oh, the crazy things college kids do.
We stopped in Spencer, Idaho, a tiny little down that bills itself as the Opal Capital of the World, to use the restrooms in the shabby little store and eat our lunch in the car. A brisk, cold wind was blowing from the north or northwest. My diarrhea had not recurred on the trip, but to play it safe I was limiting myself to applesauce, bananas, and water.
We crossed into Montana and continued north on I-15 until it intersected with I-90 just west of Butte. What we saw of western Montana, north along I-15 from the 6,800-plus-foot-high Monida Pass at the Montana-Idaho border to near Butte, and then east along I-90 from Butte to Billings, was a very scenic drive.
It was overcast much of the day and actually rained off and on. Forty-some miles west of Billings, our destination for the day, we saw a double rainbow and took that as a good omen for our trip.
We reached Billings about seven-thirty this evening and checked into our room at the Country Inn & Suites. After unloading the car, we fixed supper in our room, some kind of pasta. I was finally ready to eat real food and had the salad I passed on in Spencer when Pete and Anna ate theirs. I also had a little of the pasta.
Then we watched game 5 of the Jazz-Lakers playoff series being played in Los Angeles. The Lakers won, something like 111 to 106, so the series is now three to two as it shifts back to Salt Lake City on Friday night.
I called Mom on my cell just after we entered Montana this afternoon. And again this evening from our motel room in Billings, but she did not answer, so I left a simple voice message.
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