Day 8
It was a bittersweet goodbye! We definitely ended the trip on a high point. I loved Lake Louise. It felt like a bit of luxury dropped in a mountain wilderness. And the relative slow pace of winter’s low season kept it from feeling crowded.
We slept in, gorged ourself on the delicious breakfast buffet, and then packed up. 
We pointed the Chevy south and drove for the border. I was much more relaxed this time about my expired passport. Surely they would be waiting with bells on to welcome me back to my homeland? The boys anxiously awaited a shopping spree at the Duty Free after I shot down the purchase of a 6” Canadian flag pillow from a gas station. We gave them all the Canadian coins amassed on the trip, which added up to a decent sum considering the prominent use of Loonies and Twoonies ($1 & $2 coins). The 15 minutes in the duty free was excruciating! Kenny was sullen about dropping and losing some of his money in the car. Jacob had awakened from sleeping through our picnic lunch in the car and was hangry. We made some executive decisions and walked out with an array of postcards, two maple leaf pens, a magnet, two keychains, a maple fidget spinner and a big bag of Darin’s favorite Canadian caramels. Everyone seemed satisfied and we’d spent most of our Canadian coins:-)
The border crossing was uneventful. The grouchy border agent was more concerned about where we had purchased our car (we still had temp plates) than anything else. He didn’t say a word about my expired passport. We drove away wondering if the border agents are trained to be unfriendly??
We were happy to be back in the States and driving at high speeds. We made great time to Great Falls and decided to have an early dinner since there weren’t any towns until Billings, our stop for the night. It was prom night, so we squeezed into a bar booth since there was a 40-minute wait at 4:45! The meal was fine, but service was slow and John’s meal turned into drama—they brought him a grilled cheese when he had ordered a burger. We sent it back and waited for the burger. He ate half, the restaurant comp’d it, and we made a mad dash for the car.
An hour into the 3.5 hour drive from Great Falls to Billings, John started complaining his stomach hurt. Not much later he was writhing and crying. Darin pressed the accelerator down a little harder and I started gathering supplies for battle—we had 1.5 hours to go and a new car to protect. The poor guy went through two ziplock bags and still managed to miss one time. It was all contained on him and his car seat, so he sat for the last 30 minutes with his hands extended in the air, not wanting to touch anything. On the very dim bright side, it turned out the burger at dinner must have been the culprit. After emptying his stomach, John was just fine. I wished we would have made him eat the grilled cheese!
We were so thankful to pull into the hotel at 9pm. I was on cleanup duty and made laps between the hotel laundry and the room prepping beds and pjs for the night. Darin took the boys for a swim. Considering we spent the day sitting in the car, it sure felt good to fall into bed!
Day 9
The next morning was a quick breakfast-swim-get on the road routine. I was a little on the pushy side, anxious to get home and tackle the task of painting the school rock for the J’s Birthday. (What was I thinking adding this stress to my life? But the thought of their excitement returning to school after a Spring Break birthday drive me to make irrational choices🤪).
This was a great road trip. 46 driving hours over nearly 3000 miles. It’s good to be home:-)
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