There are a few things in life the Good Lord must have intended me to see

and this is one of them. How else could I explain my flat tire 13 miles outside of Harlowton, Montana? Sure enough, the gauge reading tire pressure began winking at me and I watched as 40 psi went to 30, to 20 to 10 until I finally found a place to pull over on the two lane road. Now, I had contemplated what I would do with a car emergency, as a single mom with my five children, out in the middle of no where, and I was comforted in knowing that Mrs. Greyhound was my escort. How lucky for us that the car rental company neglected to include a drivers manual with the tire iron. But the Good Lord was at work, and somehow we figured out how to lower the doughnut from it's nest in the undercarriage, jacked up the car with the help of Urp and Chopper, and reloaded. That manual would have come in handy as we reconfigured the interior of the car trying to lift out the spare, only to discover a wee small hole in the bumper that the tire iron slipped through, to turn a bolt to lower the spare. (I know, I'm amazing)

Back to Harlowton, back to the "Testy Festy". Two nice young men fix our tire, we lunch and reload and head back out of town, at peace with the universe for having experienced the TF.

However, I am not at peace with the world of never ending beans. About 200 miles out of Billings I met with a local as I surveyed the filling station map.

"Where ya headed?"

Roundup.

"Take the interstate to 12 and turn off. The first town you meet up you gotta stop for some beans"

Beans?

"Yup. 100 year old pot. They never cleaned it out. Just add new beans everyday. Best beans anywhere."

Now for some odd reason, 100 year old beans appealed to me. You can't beat a good pot of beans. If nothing else, I needed a picture of the magic pot. But bean town never materialized. There was an exit on 12, I kept looking for a town. No town, just a barn. Cue the Twilight Zone music. Is it possible only those with the raw faith to heed a stranger's summon, who will actually take the exit, get to experience the magic beans. Damn.

On the plus side, most people never got to leave those TZ towns, and we had a dude ranch to find.

We landed safely in Coeur D Alene around 6:00 local time, a little crusty, a lot dusty and in great delight at our home for the next several days.

DiLicious has her Sherpa Shack prepped and ready to party. The athletes are wrapping up their preparations. There is a blogger swim at 9 this morning. Then off to the amusement park with The Tribe, Big J and company, and the Greyhounds. Then tomorrow it's the big dance. Sherpa Di and I are taking over the microphone from the boys, so be ready to banter when we shove the mic in your face.

More from the party so big only the West could host it, later.