Hello from the NORTH country.

We drove (meaning I drove) through the night to arrive at my brother-in-law and sis-in-law's home early this afternoon. I'd have to say the most interesting part of the drive involved a very steep gravel road, a bull, and a me driving...yes, we got a bit lost. We were heading up our normal route, when we saw signs that told us that a bridge was closed and we should take an alternate route. Ok, no problem...go east for a bit, and then head back north. Except that the road we had to take east didn't go east, it went SOUTHeast and we started loosing miles. We decided to take a not so major road north figuring it would intersect with a more major road quickly....wrong. It went from a not so major road to a gravel road, to a field road very quickly. We knew we were in for it when we crossed a cattle guard, but the road was too narrow to turn around, too steep and curvy to back down (not to mention the steep drop off on one side, yes, I was driving and I was getting very worried). When I came around a curve and saw a bull standing in the middle of our "PATH" I just stopped and looked at hubby...."Now what?" I was DONE driving! Hubby refused to get out and trade me places with a bull standing about 20 feet away staring us down. So, I put the van in reverse and backed up a ways so that we were on the other side of the curve and the bull could no longer see us. We quickly did a driver swap and Hubby backed to where there was a "Y" in the road and he could turn around. We ended up loosing probably close to an hour from the time of the detour until we were back to where we were supposed to be, but it was beautiful country...as long as I was not driving! :o) I drove from about 10:45 last night until the bull incident at around 6:00 this morning. About 5 minutes after Hubby started driving and was back on a major road, I was ASLEEP not to waken for nearly 2 hours. We stopped for breakfast and then got back in the car for the last leg of the trip and I again fell asleep quickly.

We are here. We are safe, and no bull horns impaled the van! The kids had a fabulous time playing with their cousins all afternoon/evening. Plans are being made for some fun times this week. I am about ready to fall over here while I'm trying to type, so good night all from the North Country!