Vacation 2016 day 6

Edited to add: This is part of a series. The Vacation 2016 story begins here.

There wasn't a printout for today, as we had arrived at a destination. 

The reason for driving around Yellowstone and into Montana was that my favorite cousin and best friend for life lives there. (To be fair, I have a couple of "favorite" cousins.) She's 20 days older than me, in spite of it being her mother who is my first cousin, and about a foot shorter; blond, pretty, and sweet. But we do have a few things amazingly in common. Both married an older man (mine by 10 years; hers by 20), both have 9 children, both homeschooled and homeschooling, committed to modesty, live rurally. And so on. I have seen her twice since she got married 22 years ago, and we have written to each other only a few more times than that. 

After 5 minutes in her home, we were all "at home" and perfectly comfortable and friendly. Not just she and I, but all the children as well. She had a baby 1 week prior to our arrival, and so was off her feet. We stayed inside and visited while the men went outside and looked after the children and visited. Our hearts are knit! I don't know what else to say.

William drives. Smoke in the mountains.

The girls played games and talked and made lunch; the boys worked leather, walked on stilts, threw hatchets, and drove the lawnmower. The little ones played trucks and chased goats. After lunch a neighbor came over with horses! The children took turns riding, and were just thrilled. Bob got plans for a composting toilet. I learned about moving water and weed-free hay.

After dinner we sang a couple of songs together, but not too much as we were horse from talking all day (and the smoke from the wildfires). We said our goodbyes about 8:30, and went back to our hotel.