Drove to Big Timber, Montana today

Sunset tonight at Big Timber, Montana

Free Wi-Fi at our campground. How cool is that.

We drove from Great Falls, Montana to Big Timber today. The temperature reached 105! Then we had thunder and lightening and a short rain shower in the evening. Awesome. We don't see this in California.

Paid $2.35 a gallon for fuel (diesel) at Flying J's. Ate breakfast at Elmer's, one of our most favorite restaurants. We used to go the one in Palm Springs.

There are Lewis and Clark interpretive signs all along the highway. I picked up a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition and am reading it aloud while we drive and at bedtime. The chapters are super short and to the point to keep everyone's attention.

I finished reading the book of Esther for family bedtime story last night. The most remarkable thing about the Book of Esther is that God's name is never, not even once, mentioned in this book. The lesson I learned is that despite that fact that God's name is never spoken Esther's story demonstrates how He is always present. His hand is guiding events and shaping lives all the time and even among non-believers He still does his work. I read it from my little boy's Adventure Bible. The text is sooo easy to understand and he learns the stories so well. He memorized "if I perish, I perish" from chapter four which shows Esther's (who was probably only around 14 year of age at the time!) extreme courage in the face of a possible death sentence from King Xerxes of Persia. Now even my husband knows all about Esther!

This month I was totally immersed in books about Alaska and so I picked up several when we were in Juneau such as The Blue Bear (handsigned by the author Lynn Schooler) which was quite good but not the best of the bunch that I read, and Working on the Edge by Spike Walker which took me the longest time to read but was full of scary and heartbreaking true stories about men who catch crab.

On a whim I picked up a quirky little book called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time which was a fast, easy read and I liked it. It sort of has no ending really but it was worth reading. It's has a unique perspective, that of seeing the world through the eyes of an autistic person. I was surprised to find Amazon has some 900 reviews on it. I had no idea.

The best of the bunch in my opinion were three stories by Jack London (all in one paperback) The Call of the Wild, White Fang, And To Build a Fire. I hated to put it down. I highly recommend these stories.

I received three mosquito bites today, one on my right arm, one on my back, and one on my left arm. The most I've gotten in one day is nine. I'm just glad they're not biting me through my jeans. That's what they did in Alaska. The mosquitoes are large, quite large, in Alaska. Methinks that living in Southern California all my life I am spoiled what with having no mosquitoes to contend with. I don't know how people can survive with mosquitoes. I don't like being bitten. It freaks me out.

Most notable, with the hot weather today I was able to air dry my hair outside. My hair thanks me, I know.