On the Road Friday

Big Sky Country

Montana, United States of America

On the road to Great Falls, Montana 2009. We were heading out to visit our friend Bobby Jean and delivering her final items she left in Wisconsin. We pulled a little uhaul trailer behind us. This was our first trip West. Our boys Sam and Atticus were 9 and 7. Yay! We made it to Montana....how much farther...well Montana is a big state.

Big Sky and Trains! We do not have trains like this where we live. The boys loved seeing them and the fact that they were traveling just as fast as we were, was simply amazing.

We do not have these where we live either. Pronghorn - they are  beautiful animals. To learn more about them check out the following site: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/antelope/

Big Sky! Take a peek, not too many people out and about.

More Big Sky!

Beautiful Montana

Okay, what happened? Settle in for the story. We stopped in Lewistown, Montana to fill up for gas. http://www.lewistownchamber.com/site/  I was opening the back door when I heard a sizzle. I saw that our truck tire was slowly going down-down and flat. Jeremy came out of the gas station smiling. I smile back. As he gets closer I move from the blocked view of the tire...his face lost that smile. Jeremy decided to pull out over to a side street and see what he could do. First we unhooked the uhaul. Then he got to work. He got to the spare tire, which is under our truck. He could not move any of the bolts. It was stuck! The salt that is put down on the roads during the Wisconsin winters did a number to the spare tire stored under the truck. As you can see, we are also parked in the sun. There are not a lot of trees in Montana, so shade was hard to come by for this job.  We pondered on what to do next. We could hear a dog barking across the road, the fella came out to see what his dog was barking at. He found this family of four from Wisconsin. He asked Jeremy what was going on. Jeremy told him. He said, come on drive into my garage, I will give you a hand. Into a cool garage we went. He grabbed a blow torch to get the spare tire off! In about 45 minutes all was good again. We offered him some money. He turned the offer down and simply told us to enjoy our trip to Great Falls.

A few miles from Lewistown, we hit this nice surprise. Road construction. Road construction out west is also a bit different then in Wisconsin! Of course, the thought of  ... What if the tire would have went flat here, in the middle of this road construction! It is amazing that Carla heard the sizzle, in amongst the visiting with the boys and commotion of a gas station! The man coming to see what his dog was barking about! All we could say....

Praise God

That is what Jeremy and I both said. We talked about all that happened with our boys. How God provided for us and He protected us. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

We went on to Great Falls. Having a wonderful time!

Of course I kicked myself for not getting the fellas name or address. We wanted to thank him.

I decided to send a Letter to the Editor to the Lewistown Newspaper. We prayed that he would see my letter.

Lewistown

News – Argus

Dear Letter to the Editor,

We would like to express our thank you to a Lewistown citizen. On August 2^nd we had a flat tire as we pulled into Lewistown. As we tried to get our spare tire free from under our truck...we noticed the Wisconsin salt rusted the tire tightly under the truck. We were not able to get the tire free.

Thank you to the Lewistown man who saw us struggling out his window. He allowed us to work in his cool garage and helped us free the spare tire with a blow torch. He would not accept any money in return for his help. He insisted to get on with our journey to Great Falls and enjoy the rest of our vacation.

This was our first time traveling to Montana. We were blessed with Montana kindness.

We Thank You!

Sincerely,

Carla TePaske

Cameron Wisconsin