Day of Travel from Idaho to Montana

Spent the day yesterday with Carol shopping in Idaho Falls once again.  We had a blast looking for cute doggy beds and darling doggy shirts and sweaters for Carol's new little dog, Brutus.  Then we also checked out a sewing machine store to look at embroidery/sewing machines.  Carol is really thinking about getting one after seeing how much fun it is to do machine embroidery.  I brought my machine with me and embroidered a couple of vests for her.  I warned her that it is very addicting.  Phil may never see her again if she gets one of the machines.  At least that is pretty much what Mike has experienced since he bought me mine.  Wait a minute!  Maybe that was his intent.  I think a serious interrogation is needing to take place very soon!
Today we left Carol and Phil's in Teton, ID and headed for Pam and Rick Perry's in Billings, MT.
We left Teton this morning at about 9:00 a.m.  It was raining, cloudy and gloomy.  Guess you could say the day fit my mood with having to leave my BFF's.  Goodness knows when I will have the opportunity to spend time with Carol any time soon. 
We took a route through West Yellowstone, north to Bozeman.  OMG, talk about beautiful territory!  The streams and rivers were all so full and running so hard, it was actually kind of frightening to realize that a person couldn't have any chance of survival if they fell into any of these swollen rivers or streams.  We stopped along side of a gorgeous stream to have lunch.  Scenery like that is priceless.  As we traveled north we actually climbed above the snow line.  Here it is the middle of June and there is still quite a bit of snow in the Yellowstone forest. 
Once we turned east after going through Bozeman, we continued to experience intermittent rain storms.  One rain storm a few miles east of Billings was unbelievable!  It was raining humongous drops of rain and then the wind whipped up and was blowing the rain sideways into us.  It actually became difficult to see the road through the rain for a few minutes.  To say it was a bit scary would be putting it lightly!
Mike kind of miscalculated the distance between Teton and Billings.  As a result we got to Pam and Rick's a day before anticipated.  We called them to ask if they were ready for us to come a little bit early.  Rick said, sure no problem.  Then he asked how far away we were.  Mike kind of giggled and said, about 18 miles.  Wow!  So we are here with our other good friends Pam and Rick.
Pam and Rick bought a their house here in Billings about 3 or 4 months ago.  Man is this place nice!  And talk about a change from their house in Forest Falls, CA!  I honestly think that you could fit their entire Forest Falls cabin in part of the first floor of their new home!  After a complete tour of their house and property, we headed out for a wonderful dinner at the Texas Roadhouse.  Absolutely love this restaurant!  Fantastic steaks!  We always make sure we go to the Texas Roadhouse when we go to Bismarck, ND.  So this trip we get to go to it here in Billings as well.  Awesome!  At least that is what my taste buds and tummy say.  The scale will see it entirely differently in the morning.  UGH!
After dinner Pam and Rick took us for a drive and showed us Pam's office and college campus where she is Director.  I was totally impressed.  She has done an absolutely fantastic job with this place thus far and explained her future plans.  Wow!  Then they took us for a drive onto the Rim here in Billings.  The city is beautiful at night with all of the lights. 

Getting to bed and looking forward to an awesome day with friends tomorrow.