the anti-utah tour part 4, no its not the end either

So I hope to wrap up the trip and I might actually accomplish the abbreviating today, considering I want to read a little and watch a movie. I still haven’t completed “And Then We Heard the Thunder”, which is good but I just can’t seem to wrap it up. Well the Anti-Utah mini-series left us arriving in Montana to visit my mother and I will pick things up from there. We crashed “big time” that night and got up the next morning to go visit my grandmother on my dad’s side. She lives outside of Great Falls, in a nearly forgotten little town called Augusta. Augusta lies on the eastern front of the Bob Marshall wilderness and is a gorgeous area and I’m semi-planning to backpack there this coming summer. Anyway we spent the afternoon with her, where she always makes a point to tell Eve all the most ridiculous and embarrassing stories from the summers of my youth. You know parents and grandparents are great for these things. After spending lunch with my glorious grandmother we dashed the hour back into Great Falls for a much needed oil change, and some work on the windshield in hopes of stopping a new Montana gravel crack from spreading. It didn’t work. After the errands were complete we picked up my mother and headed down the road to good ol’ Forsyth; home of the Dogies, epic nothingness, and my youth.

The trip down was a sprint in which I got flashed by the highway patrol twice (their lights not their breasts) but was never pulled over. I guess it was something to be thankful for, considering Thanksgiving was the next day. The trip was mostly in the dark so not a lot to see except for the deer that we were actively trying to avoid and the headlights of oncoming traffic. Forsyth sits in a river valley behind a large overpass that hides the town if you are arriving from the west. Its always odd to take that off-ramp and over look that little rural town. You know how things are in small towns, everyone tells you that nothing has changed but the truth is it does. From the new name on grocery store, the now closed pizza place, and the missing trees in the park. Most things in general don’t change, but things do change, you just have to be gone long enough for them to be noticeable I guess. First thing on the agenda in Forsyth was to say hello to my dad, but that wouldn’t be happening till morning. He had to get up before the ass-crack of dawn to work, him and Lt. Dan from Portland. So we crashed in what was supposedly the nicest hotel room in Forsyth. In fact it probably was, but to be honest it was a pretty regular hotel room, it just happen to be gargantuan and had a jacuzzi tub. Regardless it was new and comfortable so I can’t complain, because I could have been at the Howdy Hotel, which is probably the filming location for Saw IV.

The next day brought us Thanksgiving and my mom’s amazing fruit salad. I think she stole the recipe from my grandmother. Either way I could eat my weight in it and never be totally fruit salad satisfied. Mom did the early morning cooking thing again, like every other year, someday I’m going to convince her to pick up one of those whole chickens from the grocery store deli or KFC and call it good. I mean really after all these years could we really complain if she didn't cook for one damn holiday. Someday we will have corn dogs and ICEE’s for Thanksgiving and it will be grand. I know know what you're thing, if I don’t like it, I should cook. Really unless you want turkey burgers, spaghetti, or breakfast in some capacity I don’t really cook. I will defend myself in that I’m a good kitchen helper…. I think…. well maybe… ok maybe not, but I try……. sometimes. After packing up the turkey-day meal we drove out to the hunting camp to share with the hunters, imagine that huh? Now talk about an excruciating drive, home cooked Thanksgiving dinner in the back seat tempting you for a 30-minute drive. I would have given anything to just tear off one of those drumsticks and eat it like a caveman on the trip.

Man all this food talk is making me hungry, and I’m not abbreviating again, damn it. Oh well I guess this was never destined to be abbreviated. I’ll try to abbreviate the portion were I dance in CO, that is definitely worth abbreviating.

I digress, we arrived at the hunting camp where I saw my dad for the briefest of moments before he tore ass off after some trespassers. This is basically a family pastime and can be very exciting, especially back in the day when I was a lot younger. I felt like a cop in the movies chasing down the bad guys. We finally got around to eating, I had a bit of turkey, mashed potatos and a mountain of fruit salad, mmmmMMMM good. Unfortunately the satillete didn't get the football game and we watched an Adam Sandler-a-thon instead. That night we hung out and chatted with my folks and a few of their friends before retiring for the evening.

The next day it was off to the races through Wyoming, where we drove as fast as possible, in hopes that no Wyomingians detected us liberals in their state. I think we can leave off here, now that I have managed to stretch this out into a short novel. Oh well, it gives me something to write about other than running (the training log is on the right now) and general debauchery. Well thanks for reading….