After only a handful of hours of sleep we got up and got out of the hotel as quickly as possible. We had a makeshift breakfast out of the food we still had left and what we can actually do in a limited hotel room. After feeding the kids quickly we were on the road around 7am and headed for Bozeman (roughly 3 hours away). We made it to Butte, MT and the kids were already telling us how “starving” they are so we stopped at a cafe. Since we had made good time we ate a little slower as we were ~1 hour from Bozeman and had plenty of time.
As we were preparing to leave we got a notification that the flight was delayed several hours, ugh! So, now Jaclyn and the kids would get into Boston after midnight. I quickly searched for other flight options and saw that a JetBlue flight that leaves earlier had actually come down in price. So, we made the quick decision to cancel our Delta flight and switch to JetBlue. Since it was earlier it meant we had to get to Bozeman ASAP. Jaclyn was literally cancelling and booking the flights as I drove to Bozeman. I’ve never booked a flight literally like 2 hours before takeoff lol.
We got to Bozeman without any issues and Jaclyn had checked-in and luckily they were all seated together on the plane despite the last minute booking and us being too cheap to upgrade to choose our seats 🙂
We said our goodbyes and our amazing road-trip, capped off with a whirlwind last 12 hours, came to a sudden end. I wasn’t prepared for it at all and as I drove away the silence in the car made me realize that it was over, which definitely made me sad. However, I did take that time to drive for an hour or two in silence and just enjoy the mountains of Montana.
Jaclyn texted me that they had quickly made it through security and had plenty of time to board the flight. Later in the day, as I crossed the Montana border into North Dakota I got a text from Jaclyn that said they were back in Boston. It literally took me longer to drive from Bozeman, MT to the border then it took them to fly back to Boston. I did have one stop in there at an amazing brewery named By All Means that served a phenomenal steak frites. I don’t know whether it was the weeks of hiking/kid food or if the food was really that good but it seriously hit the spot!
Jaclyn told me that the kids behaved well on the plane ride home as they were distracted by games, coloring and shows on the iPad. Once they got off the plane, Al picked them up to bring them back to our house. Thanks again to Al for truly making these trips possible and helping us out so much!
Al had to pick them up with my car because of car seats and luckily this time Beckett didn’t start crying when he saw that it was Al driving my car instead of me. Last road trip, Beckett was confused and cried pretty much the entire way home from Logan.
Around 8:15pm I started getting notifications of “activity in the garage” and so I opened the app to see our home security cameras. I secretly watched for a minute or two as the kids popped out of the car and were excited to be back at their home!
I finished my driving in Bismarck, ND and pretty much just checked into the hotel and went to sleep.
-Jay
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