In March, Lacey asked me to go along with her on another road trip. I was really excited; since our first one was so much fun, I'd been hoping that we'd get to do a trip like that again.

This time, the plan was for me to fly out to Montana and for her to meet me there, and we would head East.

The flights were pretty easy. I was smart enough to buy a carry-on size suitcase so that I didn't have to pay the stupid $25 baggage fee. However, I was NOT smart enough to pack light. I don't know why I always feel the need to take everything I might possibly want with me. My bag was pretty heavy and the overhead bins are pretty high for a person my height. I did manage to get it in by myself on the first flight, but, my kind fellow passengers helped me get it down from that flight & put it in & back down again on my 2nd flight.

I had my beloved window seat from MI to MN, and there was even an empty space between me & the other person in my row. It was a very quiet flight -- not much talking at all. And we actually arrived in MN a few minutes early. 

The MN airport (the new part, anyhow) is lovely. There was a cafe that had i-PAD-like things where you can enter your flight info & it lets you know the status of the flight & then goes to a menu. I didn't eat there, but it looked neat. After walking out of that area, you walk into a lovely marketplace that has all kinds of things like a salad bar, frozen yogurt bar, produce stand & some other restaurants. I wasn't hungry, though, so I didn't partake.

The Billings airport, however, looks like something out of a sitcom. The whole thing might be as big as a couple of the moving sidewalk areas in Detroit. Maybe. It's tiny. I was sitting in the one cafeteria place (didn't smell so good) overlooking the security area-- where they had 9 TSA agents for 1 passenger. This is apparently not a popular airport. Kind of like the old "Wings" show, except that larger airlines fly here.

That flight was on time as well, and I arrived in Billings at 12:30. But unfortunately, the radiator in Lacey's car cracked, so she took it to a shop before 9 this morning & they said they'd have it done around 5, but it's a 2 hour drive from where she was to the airport, so she suggested I get a shuttle to a hotel & she'd meet me here. 

I was a little out of sorts due to lack of sleep, so I didn't explore the options; I just took the first website that Lacey gave me. I called them, (yay! my phone worked out of state! But I'm not looking forward to the bill for that) and they said that they had a room & could have the  shuttle there within 15 minutes of when I made the reservation. As I slowed down and thought about it, I decided that that plan was actually better than the original one of her picking me up at the airport & driving 4 hours to the first planned stop because, as it turned out, I was really tired.

Lacey finally made it there around 8. I hadn't eaten much (just a pb&j sandwich, and late in the day, the cookies & pretzels from the airplane), so I really wanted to eat when she got there. We asked the desk people about restaurants, and headed where they said. Well, EVERYTHING was closed. Many things closed by 8, but some -- including the Wendy's -- closed at 4. We walked around a lot but couldn't find a single place open. When we got back to the hotel, the desk people asked us if we enjoyed dinner. We told them that nothing was open and they were very surprised. Then, someone else there told us about a Denny's, a bit further down and to the left of where we were. Thankfully, they were, indeed, open -- and there were also a few fast food places there as well. The food wasn't great, but it was there, and it was cheap -- $6 for BOTH of us!  

We walked back to the hotel and went back to our room, exhausted but excited. We kept talking about how we needed to go to sleep so we could get a VERY early start. But, of course, we ended up talking until sleep overtook us. Well, it overtook Lacey first. Took a while to visit me.