I think everyone is very ready to be home now. We’re driving from Billings to Winnipeg, a 12 hour drive, if you don’t stop for anything. Well, we’re stopping for a few things, rest stops, gas, lunch and any Starbucks we come across.
One of the may joys of traveling in a group is making decisions. This is something that is never talked about in advance it seems, but sort of happens on the fly. Everyone want’s to be so agreeable and get along with everyone and accommodate everyone that sometimes getting the information you need to make a decision is hard to come by. In Billings, it was somehow a fore gone collusion that we’d eat at the Outback. This was great, immediate consensus and the food is good with lots of choices.
More challenging decisions happen on the way home when everyone is tired, tired of being in the car and not looking forward to more hours in the car until we’re home. Also, cruising by Interstate exit trying to assess the likelihood of finding an acceptable restaurant’s is fun. By the time anyone says anything the exit has flown by. Finally, an exit is taken and the choices are listed out and are greeted by silence. What is the driver to do? You don’t want to arbitrarily make a choice but nobody want’s to offend anybody, so not much gets said. Perhaps in this situation the choice comes down to the lowest common denominator. A known restaurant’s with a wide variety of stuff on the menu, and it’s Perkins or Denny’s. Yummy.
I’ve got the laptop plugged into an inverter in the back seat and I’ve totaled up our trip cost and prepared my list for Canada Customs. Even with the van repair we’re well under the $750 limit for the week. I wonder when there will be coast to coast high speed wireless Internet access available? I read in Wired once about an organization who arranged Internet access for a very large portion of Idaho. In one case a farmer uses this access from his tractor to send real-time potato reports to McDonalds. Hook me up baby!
