The Loneliest Roadtrip, Day 2

Day 2: Montana, Idaho

Gee Montana! I like you. I like your “Indian Casinos” and your teepees outside your hotels. I like the insane amount of dream catchers in your gas stations, too… heck, I like all of your chintzy appropriations of Native American culture. I like cruising down mountain highways in neutral. Eco-friendly! As I see it, the only thing this state needs is wild horses. Where are the wild horses? I was told there were going to be wild horses!

Stopped in Deer Lodge, which reminded me of all the adorable things I love about my touristy hometown. I want to stay in Deer Lodge!

“A Meter is a yard thats giving 110%” – You couldn’t get any more adorable if you tried. Bonus points for taking the English language into your own hands, folks. Main Street begins with a charming little preservation/recreation of some of the original buildings of Deer Lodge’s downtown. This one is my favorite:

Is that a prostitute? A prostitute who works right over the undertaker? A curious, family-friendly portrayal of life in the Old West. You can always tell your kids that the horrifyingly faced undertaker (too bad you can’t see it in the picture) just managed to snag himself a beautiful, permanently scantily clad wife. And they just happen to live next to the jail and the graveyard! How… sweet?

The reason I stopped in Deer Lodge wasn’t the quaint re-creation of their apparently Deadwood-esque past (I haven’t seen Deadwood, but I’d imagine it involves prostitutes living above undertakers, right?), but their old prison museum (they’re also home to the Montana State Prison…) and, most importantly, the town’s prisoner craft shop. I’d read about the prisoner crafts awhile back, and they did not disappoint: latch-hooked stuffed animals, embossed leather, beadwork, paintings… and most were beautifully executed. Apparently they get a stipend for supplies, they set the price of their products, and the earnings go back into the program as well as into a savings for the prisoner. Best part is that a prisoner runs the shop. He was very sweet, but I had to run when I discovered this fact since I have no tact and feared the string of questions that were sneaking out my mouth (“Ohmygoshwhat’dyoudohowlongryouinferdotheytrustyounottarunawaydoyoutrustyerselfnottarunawayohmygosh?”).

Apparently Deer Lodge also has a history of UFO sightings. Deer Lodge, we shall meet again.

Hit my first 1,000 miles! Taking pictures while driving at 70MPH is likely frowned upon.

Idaho: short and sweet. Pulled into Coeur d’Alene, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.

Not quite in Big Sky Country anymore, and I failed to take a picture of the big sky in Montana so I could caption a picture with something like “Hey, the sky really IS bigger here!” I think it’s fair to say that the sky is mighty big in Idaho, too, however… Let’s call this one, “Very Nearly Big Sky Country, But Not Quite Because That’s Montana And They’ve Probably Trademarked It” Country.

Car camping alone is a-ok, ladieeees. I set up camp faster than the grumpy family of four in the next site over, made myself some grilled sleaze with avocado, and laughed out loud while reading David Sedaris.

Laughing aloud in one’s tent scares the boogie men away. The sweet older campground proprietors called me a brave young lady. I guess so! I’ll take it!

 

Better Late Than Never: The Loneliest Roadtrip, Day 1

I haven’t been the most timely gathering this post (see also: entire blog, messy house, time clock at work for further enforcement of my specialization in lateness and laziness), but I think it’s important to record regardless. In August, I took what I call the Loneliest Roadtrip: just me (for the most part… I cheated a bit) in my Beetle, driving across 9 states in 9 days. For some time, I’ve had a dream of shooting 8mm film in every state and compiling it into an old-fashioned travelogue, and this was a trial-run for what I hope to be a singular months-long van adventure. It turned out to be somewhat a bust since my camera was on the fritz about 50% of the time, but I did enjoy getting out and exploring the good ol’ U.S. of A. while spending some quality time with myself. I also got to try out my Diana camera (yip yip!) and catch a few of my fella’s shows while his band was on tour – not a shabby use of time and gas money, if you ask me. Anyway, here are some musings and photographic evidence from the road.

Day 1: Colorado, Wyoming, Montana

Left Denver at 1:00 PM (gulp, late). Pokiness facilitated by locking myself out of my apartment building while loading up the Beetle. After a middling attempt at climbing through my too-high window (at which point BeaCat escaped, urgh), Smokes-a-lot lady let me back into the building, and she did so without getting off her celly or putting down her cig, even in the lobby. My type of gal. Gave the kitties kisses and hit the dusty road. Before I could even escape the city, this greeted me:

It’s really unfortunate that I couldn’t get a picture of the side, which proclaimed “Abortion doesn’t make you unpregnant, it makes you have a DEAD BABY.” America the Beautiful.

Drove through Wyoming on the quick, and somehow managed to miss Little America. How does one miss Little America? Signs bloody everywhere. Saw signs for the Oregon Trail Ruts, and whipped off the road with nary a second thought. My parents took my best friend and I to the historical site (and many others) in 5th grade during our obsessive, long skirt-wearing, Oregon Trail game-playing period, and that remains one of my favorite vacations to this day. It’s still impressive that so many people took this trip in janky wagons that ruts were cut into the rock.

(Note bullet holes – this seems to be a common issue with historical stops across America. Did I mention how much I love our country? No seriously, I do. Charming.)

Look, I’m stuck in a rut! Yuk, yuk, yuck. I thought it would be a good idea to take cheesy self-portraits at my favorite stops, but this was the only one I managed… because cheesy self-portraits make one feel cheesier than any person should. However! this is a pretty good example of how deep those puppies are.

It had already been sprinkling off and on, but as I walked from the ruts back to my car, light rain quickly turned into raucous thunder and lightning, and there was imminent threat of a torrential downpour. Made it to register cliff as it struck, and managed to hop out and admire for a hot second. Love that it’s basically glorified graffiti.

Seconds after I pulled in, the wind picked up and was blowing my umbrella inside out, and I was forced back to the road. Made it to Montana courtesy chocolate-covered espresso beans and Amanda Blank.

Drove through the scariest heat lightning storm, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the most frightening experiences I’ve ever encountered. The lightning would strike, then travel across the ground, then rapidly strike again somewhere nearby. Camping plans foiled. Reminded myself car is grounded. Did not help. Had to stop for gas, at which point I chatted with some bikers who had also been shaken by the storm. One tried to use the Porta Potty, but there was something alive inside. Started to get a massive dehydration headache, which was likely aided by subsiding strictly on cheddar goldfish crackers and the aforementioned caffeine beans. Vowed to make it to the next town, and called my Mom to say my last good-byes, just in case. That fine woman paid for a hotel room. I lived to see another day. Never thought I’d be so happy to be watching an infomercial for Bump It in the Super 8 of Billings, Montana.

Don’t lie, you want a Bump It too.

 

Let’s talk about Wal-Mart.

As we all know, Wal-Mart is useful if, say, one wishes to buy a cheap cooler which one uses to house pig intestines for a film because the retail giant will take said cooler back as a return after you’re all through with it. However, Wal-Mart is not useful for about a million other reasons, the less obvious being that they will make your cakes unintentionally hilarious, or that they will karmically ruin your shoes with green Tabasco sauce just for shopping there.

My point is, watch this scary interactive map of the store’s disease-like growth since inception, then continue to shop only at thrift stores and/or dumpsters:
Watching the Growth of Wal-Mart Across America

The last place in the continental U.S. to get a Wal-Mart was Montana. Montana is my new favorite state. I like its chutzpah.