We finally got out of town Friday about noon; I was able to leave work early because of the high winds in the valley. We were making great progress, and the roads were great – mostly clear and not much traffic. As we approached Baker City it started to snow, it was light snow I did not pay much attention. As soon as we got into Baker they had signs up that said “Freeway closed.”

We pulled of, and to be honest I was so angry – I mean incredibly angry, it was already 2pm and we still had a good 6 hrs to go if the roads we good. I think the kids could sense I was not very happy, because they sat in the back of the truck silent. I did not know what to do. We drove around Baker City for a few minutes, looking at stuff but in my own mind I was just stewing over how much this sucked, and how angry I was, and how inconvenient this was.

As we drove down a road somewhere we came to a stoplight, just up the road was a bowling alley. So I drove up, pulled in, and started to get out. Brenna asked, “What are we doing?”

“Going Bowling,” I told her.

Brenna having fun bowling

“Bowling? ———- Yeah!” all three kids were very excited.

They had a mph reading on the screen, great motivation for Broc

We had a great time, the bowling alley was very nice, clean, not smoky, and the little screen that kept score was very entertaining. We had a great time. We got refreshed, took a needed rest, and the rest of the trip flew by.

Breyson actually bowling a strike, without touching the bumpers

It was such an awesome blessing to spend a little more time together the 5 of us. We laughed, played, made silly faces, Breyson fell down a bunch. It was great. Somewhere in the middle of this I realized how much of a blessing this little detour was.