West Coast -- Trip home

Saturday morning we set out from the cabin right on time around 9am. The girls had a hard time saying goodbye to Nana and Bob, but were also feeling homesick, so they were happy about going home. The drive from West Glacier to Missoula was absolutely gorgeous. We drove along the east side of Flathead Lake and all the horse pastures and cherry orchards there were just so beautiful, not to mention the lake itself. I have to say that I'm lock-stock and barrel sold on Montana--totally love that country! We arrived in Missoula with enough time to stop and grab lunch at an Italian place near the airport. The little airport was so tiny that Evelyn commented that it didn't even look like an airport at all. She had a point--those small-town airports have a casual, homey feel that is really quite different from the big city airports we're used to. Jonathan had gotten a First Class upgrade for the flight home and graciously offered the seat to me, which I gratefully accepted. I promptly fell dead asleep and when he came to check on me mid-flight I was apparently completely zonked. I must have slept pretty much the whole way because I don't really remember anything about the flight--I woke up when we started our descent into Chicago. On the second (shorter) leg of the trip I sat with the girls in coach. Everything went smoothly and all our luggage arrived at the carousel before we even made it down to baggage claim. On our way to grab a taxi we ran into some friends from First U who had also been out on the West Coast and had gone to Crater Lake, Ashland, and some other places we had also visited. It was fun to briefly compare notes with them. We got a cab to our house and the girls fell asleep on the drive into Pittsburgh. When we arrived, Evelyn had been fast asleep but she pulled her head up, saw the house and immediately said, as perky as could be: "I'm not homesick anymore! I just got to be the luckiest girl in the world because I'm HOME!!"