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                                                                                                                                                        Missouri River, Great Falls                                                                                              

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Great Falls, Montana
Nearly every Friday, we run errands and go grocery shopping.  One Friday morning, we woke up feeling as though it was like any other day of shopping.  And it was, up to that evening.  As "M", was preparing the Friday meal, she overheard Mom and Dad talking about suitcases.  Then, they mysteriously went to the minivan to get the winter sleds. They put the sleds into the garage. "M" spoke of what she had heard about vacation to "E". That night, we began packing for the trip. The next morning, we woke up, got dressed., and headed for Great Falls, Montana.  Our travels took us over the Continental Divide.  We traveled south to Great Falls with the Plains to our east and the Rocky Mountain front to our west.  To our dismay, a museum in Choteau was not open that day because of a lack of customers. We went on driving all the way through the rolling plains of northern Montana.  Dad announced the good news, that Great Falls was near!  Our family entered the ugly city of Great Falls.  Our vacation continued as we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.  "M" made her time miserable with the kiddie quiz about Lewis and Clark. To earn a patch, children search for answers, in the museum, to questions about The Corps of Discovery.  "M's" favorite part was seeing how far she could pull a huge canoe uphill like the Corps of Discovery did.  Her record was 4 miles per day. "E" could only go 3 miles a day. Dad went as far as the scale could go - at 13 miles per day!  Mom said that she was 6 or 7 miles per day. After we toured the Lewis and Clark Interpretive center, everyone took a walk.  This was the very same location where Lewis and Clark had to portage.  It was desert-like and pretty hot at 70 degrees.  After the walk, and back in the van, Dad picked out a motel. Near the motel, there were some men showing off their race cars.  In our motel room, mom ordered pizza. While the pizza was being delivered, everyone went down to bring up our luggage to our third floor room. We donned our swimsuits and ate pizza.  It was late when we went swimming in the indoor pool. "E" liked the Jacuzzi better than the pool.  The next day we all went to the Charlie Russell museum. This day happened to be the free day for every museum in the city.  Some of "M's" favorite paintings were not by Charlie Russell.  They were portraits of his parents.  She liked them because they were very real looking.  "E", who likes to draw, liked his early drawings.  After the museum, we began a boring ride home.