Ashley Family Bonding Trip: Day 6 – Heading Home

Thursday, May 29^th

Previous Posts:  Day1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

We woke up our last morning at the Lodge and did a final sweep around the perimeter, hopefully ensuring we didn’t forget anything and restoring it to the pristine condition in which we originally discovered it.*

Bye, Lodge!  We'll miss you!

We ended up on the road around 8:30ish, which was enough time to take another trash run to the Padlock Ranch office and purchase some official memorabilia for Aunt Linda and Uncle Gene.  While we were at the office, we saw a side effect of the storm the night before; apparently, parts of the surrounding area recorded wind gusts up to 80mph.  A tree crashed down, taking out one of the pickup trucks parked in the area.  Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the truck was down for the count.

Without further ado, we headed back to the Billings area, stopping by the airport to check Uncle Gene and Aunt Linda’s bags and print their boarding passes.  We next paused at Randy’s house to drop one of the previously borrowed coolers and a bag from Dad and Risa.**  While there, we also claimed some of the Brown clan:  Risa’s ex-husband Richard and his wife Debbie, who stayed overnight at Randy’s after flying into town the day before.  We all headed to a local restaurant called The Vig for lunch.***

After lunch, we headed back to our original van acquisition location of Rent-A-Wreck to drop off Richard and Debbie, who were picking up their own min-van.  Next, it was back to the airport to send Uncle Gene and Aunt Linda off with hugs and fond memories.  After the airport, we found time to head by the liquor store to help Dad and Risa pick up provisions for the Brown crew.  While at the liquor store, I needed to use the facilities and had this exchange with the store clerk:

Me: Do you have a restroom I may use?

Clerk:  Sure thing!  Head to that doorway, walk through the casino, then the restrooms are on the right.

Me: [blink] Okay, thank you.

Since we had some time to kill before our flight, we headed to the Montana Brewing Company for more beer tasting, where Richard and Debbie joined us after picking up their van.  Overall, the brews were tasty, and the ambiance was relaxing.****

As you can see, we didn’t really care for the huckleberry brew.

Since we finished at the brewery with a few hours still left, we headed back to Costco to buy more supplies; hey, we were old pros at this by now! 

A much smaller haul this time.

Famished after shopping once more, we grabbed a light dinner at a local nouveau pizza shop, including some Uberbrew beers, another of Billing’s newer microbreweries.  Verdict:  All was good!  Dad and I also found that bear we’d been hunting so diligently for the past week:

ROAR!

Finally, we were within a reasonable time period, so we bid Dad and Risa adieu and checked our bags at the United counter.  Billings is a pretty small airport, so we saw pretty much everything in our 30 minute spin through the terminal, including this:

For when you need to finish studying before a flight?

We flew through Denver again on our way to Phoenix; all went well and we arrived home without any mishaps.  Overall, we had a wonderful time on our trip and can’t wait to visit again!

Later!

Amy

* We also changed the “Ashley” sign on the Rag van to “Brown,” so it now read, “Brown Family Vacation 2014.”  Hope you guys enjoyed it!

** They consolidated a bit more in an attempt to not take up as much room in the van on the way back to the Lodge when they had 15 additional people with them.  15 MORE PEOPLE!  Holy crap.

*** Pretty good, overall.  Had a curry chicken salad sandwich and an amber by the Bozone Brewing Company.  Both were solid.

**** It probably helped that it was 2pm on a Thursday.