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….

anti-utah tour part 3, the saga continutes

I’ll start this off by saying that all my pictures are now up and if you haven’t seen enough of Eve and I’s road trip you can check it out. Really if the pictures are that intriguing you should get out on the road yourself and expend a couple rolls of film. I’m sure it’s much more satisfying than looking at our pictures but I do like to share.

So the third and hopefully final part of the Anti-Utah Tour (saga) is upon us but something tells me that we will see a number four, due to my inability to abbreviate. Thankfully T is more than happy to remind me of ineptness.

I left off with us saying our good-byes in Oregon and heading east towards the Big Sky state. The trip out of town proved to be a little more than I bargained for. First off we needed gas, no big deal right? Well in Oregon getting gas in the early morning is a big deal because their damn gas stations are closed. Its one of those “you’re too ignorant to pump your own gas” states or maybe its a “this is the only way to battle our growing unemployment problem” state. Regardless we had to search around for a gas station that was actually open. Once we found one that was open, the only person this gas establishment could find to work the crack-of-dawn shift was a sketchy looking Vietnam Vet that nearly tackled my skinny ass as I meandered over to the pump to insert my credit card. I had no intention of pumping, I knew better than to pump, but apparently the state of Oregon also believes that credit card transactions with a gas pump are too dangerous for persons wielding a 2 ton killing machine at 90 miles per hour down five lanes of traffic, at night, in the rain. Yes pumping gas is too dangerous for drivers in Oregon. Anyway after I let Lieutenant Dan man-handle my credit card, pump my gas, and call me Charlie under his breath for not tipping, we got on the road. This portion of the trip was definitely the most challenging weather wise. Unfortunately for Eve there was standing water on the road and more pouring down in buckets. As trucks passed she was literally blinded for a moment or two and the small lakes on the left side of the road were inviting Booger in for a tasty bite of the cement divider. Eve navigated the road for a couple hours quite impressively and I say navigate because I’m pretty sure over half of the time she was hydroplaning instead of driving. We really didn’t expect any of the bad driving weather till the mountains but this was the worst portion of the whole trip.

We drove east on I-84 past some gorgeous hills and waterfalls, but it was mostly pretty foggy. I’m sure it would have been glorious views if we could have seen more than 100 yards. Either way the roadside scenery was pretty nice while I stayed awake. As we approached the turn to go north towards Kennewick we passed a poplar tree farm that was very eerie, especially in the early AM with the sun coming up, barely glowing through the fog of all these trees in perfect rows. I’m pretty sure one of these new wave horror films will be using it as a back drop in the near future.

Imagine that abbreviating isn’t working

So we continued on through Kennewick, up to Spokane, into Idaho across the continental divide, and into Montana. At this point we expected lots of snow and bad driving condition but were surprised by the lack of snow and clear roads. I’m sure once that storm we just drove through hit the mountains, it would have been a different story but for the time being we were able haul ass. We passed through Idaho without much fanfare, lots of Idaho, Udaho jokes were had and we entered what I consider my home state in good time, in the rain. As a youth I really took the “wide open spaces” of Montana for granted and told myself the city was for me and I would never want to live there again. Well like most I was ignorant in my youth (still am, young and ignorant that is), not only should I have enjoyed more of what Montana had to offer I don’t think it would be far fetched to think I could end up there some day. We drove top speeds across the Clark Fork river 8,000 times and into Missoula. From there we took a good old Montana two lane into Great Falls were we shared my mother's great home cooking with my aunt and uncle. While my uncle and I argued politics and social issues with made up on-the-spot facts and figures just for the sake of argument After the argument subsided we crashed. 12 hours of driving will take it out of you, ya know?

Wow I suck at abbreviating, its official

I will end this segment here, I hope you stick around to hear the about the life in the VIP and the one thing you need to know in order to not look ridiculous while dancing. Even if you’re white, yes even works if you’re Montana white, so I’m told. Thanks for reading……