Monday, March 12, 2012

Tournament And Ride

What a busy weekend it was for us. Friday night we had the black belt test, no students of ours this year. The test starts at 6:00 pm and since we don't get done early, we just spend the night. Makes it easier than getting home late and turn around and come back to Billings the next morning. I took the afternoon off and got us packed up with all of our stuff. I even had time to wash my car, at least I got the first layer of dirt off.

We got to Billings in plenty of time to check in and unload the truck. Then we made our way to Park's. First we stopped at McDonald's and got a quick snack as it would be late before we would be able to eat. Luck was on our side, we found a parking space in Park's lot, usually we end up parking across the street.

The test went off without a hitch and we were done by 8:30 pm. It was a small test this year. We changed real quick then off to eat supper. Over the summer we found the Burger Grill. It is inside a casino, but they serve the best burgers and they are only $3.50. After supper we played the machines for about 15 minutes. Didn't take long before we were broke. This year Montana started the line games for gambling, but they are just not as fun as Nevada.

Saturday morning was the tournament. We had 11 students compete, only 3 had tournament experience. With 11 students, they competed in 25 events and the Hardin school came home with 25 medals. We are all very proud of them. One of our little guys got a gold medal in sparring, he was happy that he won but then he was sad because he had to fight his friend. I told him that as long as the boys remained friends then it's ok. Now the students just have to remember to bring their medals to class on Tuesday so that I can take the group photo for the paper. The tournament was done by 5:00 and we didn't get out of the school until 5:30 with helping clean up and loading. Park's fed us at Golden Corral and Gary is pleased that he can get the senior discount there. We got home around 8:00.

Sunday we went on a motorcycle ride with our friends to Red Lodge. The weather is getting nice and we are going to take every chance we get to ride. For us it was just under 300 miles. We went to Red Lodge for lunch and back. We don't take the most direct route either.

We met all of our friends at the gas station then headed out at 10:00 am. We took what I call the River Road which comes out on the other side of Laurel. At Joliet we took the highway to Columbus then through Roscoe and into Red Lodge. We ate lunch at Bogarts. Turns out our waitress was the daughter to one of our friends, so it was nice to meet her. Gary and I shared a small pizza. Our other choice was Mexican food and we have eating quite a bit of that. Besides, the pizza was just enough for us.

Last year the state started working on the highway between Bridger and Belfry to take out that one bad curve. We were wondering if the road was done and no one knew for sure. Only one way to find out and that is to go on it.

We gassed up in Red Lodge, took the Bear Creek cut across into Belfry then made our way to Bridger. The road is not done. There is a two mile stretch of hard, rough gravel. In fact it is in the same condition as when I went over it in October. Probably going to be that way this summer too.

We got home around 4:00 pm. Mom had come to Hardin for a very quick trip. She went through Powell so didn't know about the Bridger-Belfry highway. I told her, so when she left this morning back to Meeteetse she said she would go through Powell. Anyway, Mom took us out for supper at the Chinese restaurant in town. This was Jennifer's late birthday dinner from her. It was very nice.

A very busy weekend and I had to come to work to rest. Our original plan for Sunday was to start working on cleaning out the porch.

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