Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Day 7 SD - Hardin, MT

Lois, SD is beautiful! I always pictured it as desolate. I'm not sure why.

We got widely split up yesterday. The GPS sent Krista, Stacia and I on a back hwy. The scenery was gorgeous. We got stopped at construction for about 20 minutes but the rest of it was fine. I began to worry as Wyoming never showed up....but eventually a sign saying, "Welcome to Montana" appeared and the mileage to Billings. I knew I was on the right track. ::snort:: We arrived in Hardin an hour before the trailer.

When we arrived at KOA the owner recognized me. Mom, Sandra and her husband are the owners. It's funny as she is about the only one here who told me they could recognize me. ::snort:: We had a quick catch up talk.

Coming to Hardin is like coming home to me. I spent summers visiting my Grams here. Eighteen years ago, Mike took his first paid ministry position here as an assistant pastor. When we moved here we had four children and they were ages 6, 4, 2 and 6 months. We have fond memories of our time here. Uncle Bill would come over every a.m. and bring a thermos of coffee (for himself - we don't drink) and the Billings paper. We'd walk over to Grams' house every afternoon. The kids could walk to the corner store by themselves for penny candy. The pool, church, groceries were all a quick walk away. We had wonderful "back fence" friends, who we still hear from. Phil, the young man we've been praying for, is from here.

When we arrived early we ran up to the cemetery real quick. We had dinner when all arrived. Then we went out to meet about 20 folks who wanted to see us. What fun to catch up on old times. Time really does move on.....but Hardin seems stable. We left Hardin 13 years ago. Since then the four children we had when we arrived, have become adults and moved out. The toddle we had when we left is now 15 and the baby I was pregnant with is 12.

Here is the first home we owned. It was smallish for 7 of us....but holds many, many fond memories for us. We were all surprised that it is still the blue....the color we painted it so many years ago. It was SUPPOSED to be country blue....but ah well....this color has held up.....even after it faded for a decade. ::snort:: Psst...the sat dish wasn't there when we lived in the house. LOL

Photobucket

We had a wonderful time visiting last night.... Does Hardin, MT sound familiar to you? Maybe you read recently that it is a small, dusty, desperate town , with the "redneck posse" willing to take in the Guantanamo Bay detainees. Yep, THAT Hardin....I'm here to tell you that the 3,000 folks who live here are some of the friendliest you'll ever meet and that I've lived in MUCH "dustier" spots than Hardin.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

~ Coram Deo ~
Living all of life before the face of God...

5 comments:

Wild Homeschool Family said...

Fun memories. Cool that you got to see your old house.

Cynthia said...

I'm glad Hardin feels like "coming home" to you!

Anonymous said...

Home sweet home!! Glad you got to be there and so many folks wanted to visit with you.

Your homw looka ao nice. That must of made you all feel so good!!

Loved the time we had when we lived in Hardin with your family.

I'm missing my class' 50th reunion. Sorta by choice though.

love/prayers Mom T

Lois said...

Ahhhh, I'm homesick, both for SD and MT.

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Lois - I'm homesick for them too....why did I think this area was barren when I lived here? I've since lived in worse....and why didn't I fully appreciate a town where everyone knows your name and starts up the band when you drive into town?????