Too much country - Day Five- September 24th, 2010

The longest days of our journey were about to begin. Getting from Edmonton to Great Falls, MT was the plan. All 804.6 miles could be done in about 9 hours. But we are way too hard core to stop at just 9 hours! We had to push it and go all the way from Edmonton to Billings, MT (1,155 miles- nearly 13 hours). Leaving Edmonton early in the morning was a little tougher on day five, but still another day up at 5!
The drive to the boarder took a lot longer than I was expecting. The sun was out in full force by the time we reached the boarder. Dennis handed over our passports to the United States Border Patrol and we answered a few questions and were officially back in the U.S.A.! It was so nice! I turned my phone on and started instantly receiving all of my Happy Birthday text messages and voicemails! It was so great to hear from everyone. After entering the US there was no speed limit sign posted (that we saw) so we put the peddle to the metal and cruised! More corn, more fields, more wind turbines, more fences and more CORN! That was all that we saw for the next 9 hours until we dropped down into the gross town of Billings, MT. I have been to some nice beaches, some great mountains, and some places that some people will never even dream of. No I haven’t been to many real “ghettos”, nor do I ever want to go to a real ghetto. Downtown Billings, Montana is my idea of a ghetto. Lots of one way roads, random people walking around, and worst of all not sober people running around. It all began with us not having a hotel room. I was on my phone trying to get a reservation. Which ended up poorly because the lady was making the reservation for the wrong day. So we left the hotel trailer in tow trying to get some gas. After finding a gas station we pull off the road by about 5 inches. There was a massive truck with random words and pictures painted all over it. Well, after waiting for 5 minutes for the truck to move we realized NO ONE was in it! Dennis was getting aggravated and I was getting checked out by all the drug dealers, addicts and homeless people. Dennis hopped out of the car to look for the owner of the car. After a while he found the owner walking around asking people for money so he could put some gas in his car. He collected 5 dollars, went inside to prepay, pumped his gas and finally was on his way. At this point Dennis was irate!! Yelling and hitting the steering wheel. He was not a happy camper. Minutes later we were off to find a new hotel with a vacant room. We found a super 8 with a pool and a room just for us. We settled into the room and began our search for FOOD!
Just a block away was a nice steak house. We plopped in our seats, placed our order, and watched all of the passer-bys. There was a tall skinny man that fell into a wall, I am guessing he was drunk. There was the hefty woman who allowed her belly to hang over her pants and out of her shirt. Most of the people just walked by on their phones but occasionally one stood out like a sore thumb. Our filet mignon was delicious, and we left the restaurant with full tummies and smiles on our faces.
Another day done, off to Denver tomorrow!