Arrived in Montana...despite Coyotes in the "Garden of Eden"

After 24 hours in the car, we've arrived in Montana! The trip was long, but we pulled into Forsyth late Tuesday night.

The trip was rather eventful, especially our experience in Kansas. After spending the first day in the car, we found ourselves just outside of Salina as the sun was going down. We looked at the map and discovered a small state park near Wilson Lake aptly known by the locals as "the garden of eden." That should have been our first clue something was wrong...

Now I must admit that the lake itself was beautiful at sunset. It was a nice sight breaking up the monotony of flat land we had seen the whole day. At eight o'clock, we found the park office, but no rangers to get a campsite. We noticed a self pay area, so we agreed that would suffice to get us a spot.

After filling out the necessary forms and paying for our site, the trouble began. As I turned to walk toward the car, a scorpion ran in front of me. I must admit, never seeing one of these in the wild kinda creeped me out, but I took it in stride and we continued to our campsite.

As we pulled into the camp area, we noticed one thing. IT WAS DESOLATE. There was not a soul in sight. We found a spot and started pitching our tent with the help of our car's headlights. After much stumbling around in the dark, we finally accomplished the task. We figured it was time to check out the rest area just up the hill from our sight...bad event #2 was on its way.

Here's a picture of the restroom.
Yes, I know it looks fine on the outside, but inside it is one massive spider lair!!! Each stall had cobwebs on the frame and spiders the size of 50 cent pieces scurrying about on them. Creepy, you bet!

After calming Jennifer down about the spiders and scorpion, we finally got back to our tent. Just as we were laying down to sleep, the third bad thing happened. HOOOOWWWWLLLL!!! Coyotes were close. It sounded like they were only a few hundred yards off! After calming Jennifer down again and making sure that I had my tent stake mallet close to me just in case, we finally got to sleep. The night was long and we were frequently awaken to the sounds of coyotes and the wind howling over the plains.

In the morning, we got our last surprise of the camping trip, huge splashes coming from the lake. I thought to myself, "Oh great, what's next? We survived the coyotes, do we have some bears or something now?" No, it turned out just to be the fish jumping in the early morn. Needless to say though, with our nerves on edge, we packed up camp and got out of the "Garden of Eden" as soon as possible!

Besides deciding we were never camping in Kansas again, we also determined that driving in Wyoming feels like you are driving off the edge of the world. Let me illustrate the barrenness:

We did see some pretty things though too along the way. Here's a few pictures:

Here's a sunrise in Kansas.
Here's a storm just outside of Sheridan, Wyoming.

Jennifer and I will be in Forsyth for the next few weeks telling people about our ministry and gaining prayer and financial support for it. It has already gone well the first couple of days! We are excited for what God has in store for us here!!!