design finch

You may have noticed that the ol’ bloggy has been quiet lately and that’s because we’ve been a little preoccupied with work, traveling, and moving. That’s right, we moved…..to MONTANA! Not permanently, we’re just living here for six weeks this summer. Jason was offered an amazing internship opportunity with a law firm in Billings and, as crazy as the idea seemed at first, we decided to go for it! I mean, how often in your life are you able to just pick up and move someplace you’ve never been before?

I wish I could say that we simply threw our stuff in the car and drove to Montana, but it wasn’t quite that easy. The day before we left, after we had already packed all our stuff in our 4-Runner, it started acting funny so we made a last minute decision to take my little Mazda instead. At first, things were going fine…..

We piled the dogs in the backseat and headed west. However, about 7 hours into the 19-hour drive, my car decided to break down in the middle of Kansas. It literally stalled on the highway and refused to drive one inch farther. So, there we were, stranded on the side of a desolate highway in the middle of Kansas with two confused dogs. Did I mention it was 112° outside?

Seriously.

Once the tow truck finally arrived an hour later, he towed us to a repair shop in the booming metropolis of Colby, Kansas. The mechanic did his thing and, several hours later, we continued on.

Then, only 30 miles down the road, the car did the exact same thing. Sputtered. Stalled. Died. Somehow we were able to limp into another repair shop in Goodland, Kansas. Of course, they were about to close and wouldn’t be able to look at the car until the next day, so we had no choice but to spend the night at a motel in Goodland. (If you ever find yourself in the vicinity, let me assure you that there is nothing “good” in Goodland. Keep driving, my friend.) The next morning, it became increasingly clear that this mechanic was not qualified to repair our car and it was in our best interest to get the heck out of Kansas as quickly as possible. So we had our car towed again, this time to Denver.

If you’ve never ridden in a tow truck for several hours with three adults and two 50+ pound dogs, then your life is not complete. To top things off, this tow truck driver’s name was Lloyd (and, for some reason, that fact seemed incredibly hilarious to me at the time).

If you’re still playing along, you will notice three different tow trucks in the photos above. That is because the Mazda dealership in Denver who apparently “fixed” our car turned out to be a big fat liar and our car had to be towed a THIRD time to a different dealership.

At this point, we finally got smart and rented a car. I promise the story gets better from here.

We spent some quality time in Fort Collins, Colorado, with our dear friends Christian and Max, and finally got to meet baby Clara. Then, we traveled up the mountain to Estes Park where we had a belated 7th anniversary celebration at the historic Stanley Hotel. After the drama of getting to Colorado, all we wanted to do at this point was eat, read, relax, and look at the mountains…..so that is exactly what we did.

Finally, we hit the road yet again and continued our trek to Montana. (Spoiler alert: we made it this time!) Stay tuned for more Groves family adventures in Montana, the “Treasure State”.