We’ve said for a number of years that we would go down to the Montana Lineman Rodeo, but every year we’ve ended up with other commitments. Well, this year, we put it on the calendar first and booked everything else around it!
We left on Thursday afternoon and got to Great Falls. We had booked ahead at the KOA and found that it was on the other end of town, but it was still worth the drive. The campsite is beautiful. Unfortunately, as we were pulling in to our campsite, one side had a large rock with the site number on it and the other was a tree… we were paying attention to the large rock and the tree won. It ripped the rubber roof on the trailer. To say that Lennard was upset would be an understatement. We managed to find a RV dealership and bought a patch for it so that it would be protected for the weekend at least.
The rest of the evening went well. We went over to Golden Corral for dinner and met some ‘interesting’ people. One lady was intrigued with Emma – and the whole restaurant knew it. I don’t think anyone ever taught her to talk quietly. She was sure that Emma was six and that she was SO tall for her age… we weren’t sad to see her leave so that we could actually eat our meal!
When we got back to the campsite, the kids were excited to find that it had a large water/spray park. We got into our swim suits and went to try it out. I found it extremely cold, but Emma got right in to it, found some friends to follow around and had a blast. Ben stood and shivered half the time, but eventually played on a borrowed floatie. It got a little crazy after a while with older kids racing around, so we called it quits and went back to the trailer. The kids were very upset about leaving, so we put on a movie and popped some popcorn and that made everything better!
The next day we drove to Butte. We got there in the early afternoon, got set up and then headed out to do some grocery shopping. We got a few things that we were needing and by then the kids were getting anxious to go play. We put their swimsuits on again and headed to a spray park. I thought that they would have a lot of fun, but we had to convince them to get in the water. Emma eventually did, but Ben never really did much than wander around the edges. The water was extremely cold though, so I don’t blame them. We were only there for about ten minutes before they both wanted to leave. We got them dried off and headed over to the playground instead. They both enjoyed the playground way more than the spray park.
We had a very relaxing evening and watched another movie together. Such a nice option! Especially when it is so hot outside and we could turn on the air conditioner and be comfortable!
Saturday morning we got up early, got breakfast and then headed out to where the Lineman Rodeo was being held. We got there just as the competitions were starting. We couldn’t find any kind of program to know what was going on, so we just wandered. Lennard and the kids got to go for a ride in a bucket truck, which they thought was great. The rest of the time the kids weren’t overly impressed. Ben wanted to be carried and didn’t like the scrub grass on his legs. Emma was bored and played in the dirt. It was interesting to watch, but definitely not up to kid standards.
Thankfully, they eventually had some demonstrations about electricity for the kids to show them what would happen if they touched a wire (hot dog), ran over a wire with their bike or a car, etc. It was good for the kids to see how dangerous it is. Then they blew up a big bouncy castle and the kids loved that. Unfortunately, there was a huge lineup and it took a while to get in. Once they were in it was great, but when the turn ended it wasn’t a good moment.
There was a Backhoe Rodeo on the one side of the grounds that anyone could sign up for, so Lennard decided to give it a try. It was crazy some of the things they had them doing – playing pool and soccer, doing puzzles, and pouring sand into cups, etc. It was fun to watch. Lennard enjoyed himself too!
We decided to call it a day around noon and headed back to the trailer to get packed up. We stopped at Wendy’s and had lunch so that we wouldn’t have to clean up that later too. We were on the road by 1:15, but the road home seemed never ending. The kids were so loud and silly that it was a bit overwhelming at times. We were glad when they fell asleep, but it didn’t last nearly long enough. We had to stop a couple times to fuel up as we were fighting a head wind most of the time. We had an early dinner in Great Falls, but we really should have just kept driving. The kids hardly ate a thing and the food wasn’t wonderful.
We were very glad to get home and get the kids in bed… although it took us a while to get them calmed down. Being trapped in a truck for six hours will do that to you! Wish we could have stayed a bit longer, so that the drive back was broken up a bit, but we both had to be back for Sunday.
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