Extreme Road Trip 2005!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I'm on the road with my lovely girlfriend Erin. We're snowbound at her aunt and uncle's giant house near Billings, Montana, enroute from Wisconsin to Oregon, where we'll visit family and friends before heading down to California for the spring. This part of the country is so cold (Erin tells me to add "beautiful," and it is) that I think I'll appreciate the warm Cali sun that much more.
We've had a good drive along the way and managed to stay unfrozen, although I did sort of get the car stuck in the snow at one point. Fortunately there was a police officer there to help us. Unfortunately he was also writing me a speeding ticket at the time.
But I wasn't driving dangerously, I swear. We were just going down a hill and I didn't realize how much speed we'd gained!
Other adventures:
*Visiting Erin's grandparents for breakfast and being greeted by fresh french toast and their dog. We ate the french toast, but we did not eat their dog. In fact, their dog wanted very badly to eat our french toast.
*Driving around Minneapolis with a car full of kids from Erin's school (North Central University) and having to convince them not to take us to Canada.
*Getting locked out of the room I was supposed to be staying in at NCU in Minneapolis when it was snowing and freezing outside and ultimately sleeping in the room of a complete stranger.
*Staying with Erin's cousins Bruce and Fernanda where we were treated to homemade dinner, then all fell asleep while watching Troy, and woke up to homemade breakfast! (Erin told all her relatives that I love french toast, so we have had it three time already since leaving her house!)
*Stopping at a tiny Mom + Pop diner in Buffalo, ND and listening to the locals invite our waitress (the only employee in the whole place) to visit a pig farm with them. And man, the sandwiches there were great!
*Making a detour through Beach, North Dakota where there was no water or sand in sight. There wasn't much in sight at all, in fact. Just a really, really fancy new visitor's center pointing us to . . . well, a quilting shop downtown, mostly.
*Stopping for pictures in the snow covered Painted Valley, where we saw real buffalo, and at times because of snow blowing all over the highway, not much else.

We are safe, we are sound, we are quite happy. Spent a good part of today cooped up indoors playing and Uno version of Rummy ("All the fun or Rummy, with the magic of Uno!" proclaimed the box"), watching Singing in the Rain and drinking Chai. Also, the cat here keeps trying to slash my foot open. But I have faith we will make it out of this alive.
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THE EXTREME ROAD TRIP WILL CONTINUE!!!