Videoland

above: Kaden and Molly lost in “videoland”

One of the things we are looking forward to on our trip is visiting with friends and family we don’t often get to see. One of the Hippygeek’s buddies, Chad, from college, lives in Whitefish Montana just south of Glacier National Park. Since we were on our way to Glacier, it gave us a great opportunity to visit him.

Chad and his wife Rhonda have four children which was a welcome sight for the Dudes. Even though we know that they love and adore us, we got dropped like a pair of old shoes when they saw there were kids to play with. The weather was cold and rainy which forced the kids to play indoors. That meant video games and another reason for the Dudes to ditch their parents. Our poor deprived children have been without electronics for so long that during the two day visit, they would periodically surface for food then just as quickly as they appeared, they would be gone again until the next mealtime. Needless to say, the kids had a great time.

right: The gang is more interested in videogames than having their pictures taken

We slept in the RV and the morning after we arrived, the first words out of the Lil’ Dude’s mouth were not; good morning, I love you or even where’s breakfast but, “when can we go back to videoland!” I guess I know where his priorities are.

It was also nice for us to have some adult time and to be toasty and warm inside of a permanent structure, our first such experience since leaving home.

We dragged the kids away from videoland one afternoon (mostly to prevent Wii overuse injuries) to go to the local indoor swimming facility which was really quite nice. It had a warm pool, a lap pool, a kids pool complete with water slide, hot tub and sauna. It was nice to get some swimming time in because every pool at every campground that we have stayed at would induce hypothermia within just a few minutes.

Chad and Rhonda were also nice enough to oblige our request for a pizza and movie night while we were there. It is a Friday night ritual for us at home that we have not been able to do since starting our trip. That combined with the video game fix made the Dude’s pretty happy which in turn made them also a little sad to leave.

It was still cold, grey and rainy when we left. Our next stop would be Glacier National Park. The Hippygeek, with his thin southern blood, was not too enthusiastic about heading into the mountains and even suggested the possibility of skipping Glacier! After I pulled my jaw up from the floor(who would even consider such a thing!), I convinced him that we should give it a try anyway.

below: the road to Glacier

We really enjoyed our visit with Chad and Rhonda and their family and our decision to go to Glacier will prove to be the right one.

“I was a very happy child, so to speak. But, since we didn’t have video games or television, and very little radio, in terms of a form of entertainment, I used to read a lot and I would draw a lot, and those two things used to occupy my time.” Mako