Dillon, 40 Miles of Gravel, Fine Dining and A Little Boy

We had quite the day yesterday! Nathaniel and I took off for Dillon yesterday morning. I'd never taken the south road west toward Dillon, but having heard it wasn't too bad of a road, I turned my wheels right at the junction and tried it. Forty miles of gravel road! We saw many birds, the little village of Lakeview, two real cowboys, herds of cattle, and water-lots of it!


We got into Dillon around 12:30 and stopped at the nearest Dairy Queen for, of course, burger and fries. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a little one accompanying me. "Ok, you take the tray, I'll open the door." I open the door, we go out, tray is suddenly perpendicular, chocolate shake is streaking the doorjam and sidewalk, ketchup is adorning little one's shirt, water and burgers begin to wiggle loose from the wedged place between tray, arm and little tummy. "Tip the tray up," is my altogether calm command. Well, that is hard to hear when in the apex of such an emotional moment. The tray did come up after a while and we began lunch. Do you know how many of those wimpy little napkins it takes to clean up anything?! Lots! FYI, I was wearing a white shirt and nothing got on it! Anyway, I could hear my mom as he stood outside the car and said, "Don't touch anything, don't move until I wash you off!" Out the handy wetones came and within minutes a smiling clean little face appeared from under the ketchup and burger crumbs. The last casualty from that stop was my keychain. I'd saved his chocolate shake for later, but as the cap was gone, my keychain took a bath in it while I was searching for the wetwipes. "This is not dignified," I thought as I popped it into my mouth (what else could I do) to clean it off. You moms will say, "Why even relate this? This is as common as breathing!" But, you see, I'm not one yet, and it's quite novel.

The day turned out very well. We found the DMV; I got my Montana driver's license! We shopped and had fun, went to Roxie's Nursery...again, got an americano at Serendipity Gifts and Coffee (a must return for pizza sometime!), and found a garden stand in Sheridan out of someone's beautiful yard. We ate at the adorable, elegant Old Hotel in Twin Bridges. Nathaniel was sporting a new Patagonia tee-shirt (remember the ketchup) so we were definitely dressed for the occasion! We had minted asparagus soup and Misoyaki Atlantic Salmon Filet with Tsunemono Pickles. He was a delightful little dinner companion! I've never had so much fun eating bread and butter before the meal came, nor playing I-Spy with stuff on the table, or trying not to slurp soup. It was a delightful meal!



We left there and headed home, but as I needed to sort out receipts, we stopped at a playground and Nathaniel bounded around for a while. I hadn't been on a teeter-totter for a long time. Not anymore! With that, our last stop was the candy store in Virginia City...a kid in a candy store is fun. Nathaniel read to me from the backseat much of the way home. We listened to Your Story Hour, we listened to the radio. Good thing he didn't control the radio or we would've done each one 30 times. Kids don't have very lengthy attention spans. After hitting the gravel road at about 9:15, Nathaniel became rather infatuated with the idea of sticking his head out the sunroof. I don't know how many bug funerals he caused. Their sacrifice was a worthy one. He was shrieking with delight.


The day was a fun one! Fun in a different way than being totally independent, but definitely worth it! Sticky little hands, a grinning face, jubilant play, giggles at dinner, reading 101 Dalmations and figuring out words like "Colonel" and "Pongo", laughing at the song "Favorite Things", getting out to watch a frog hop down the road...a just right, full, fun, tiring day.