Journeying

We are staying in the nicest Best Western I've ever seen. 3 pillows!

This is an important point, because we're paying $150 for this room, more than double what we've been paying to stay in Super 8s and Travelodges. Why? Because this was the only hotel room available in the city of Billings (and only because someone canceled at the last minute), which tonight just finished hosting Montana's annual state fair. The fact that we missed the state fair by about 40 minutes after learning about it would normally make me bitter, because I want to see a state fair on this trip, but the fact that this cancellation saved us from having to drive another couple hours into Wyoming to get a room kinda makes up for missing the fair.

I think Montana just didn't want us to leave. Which is fine, because Joiner and I love Montana. The "Range Cattle" signs, the fearless hoary marmots and the breathtaking mountains of Glacier National Park, the huckleberry products (especially pie), the endless golden rangelands dotted with free-ranging black cattle and the occasional grain elevator or silo -- Montana is the bomb, folks, and we should all live there. Less than a million people do!

Of course, there are the winters.

Okay. This entry makes no sense, and I understand that, but I am dead tired. Turns out that driving is exhausting, and we have been doing a ton of it (to be expected on a cross-country trip, yah, I know). Yesterday was a pretty light day -- we left Buttle in the morning, swung by Missoula to pick up a U. Montana t-shirt (I don't know, it just became a thing, to get a U. Montana at Missoula shirt), drove toward some of the fires infesting the region, and did a nice 5-mile hike through old growth cedars, ending up at Avalanche Lake:

Pretty nice, eh? It was a smoky, hazy day, a day where people were being advised to stay indoors, but as we got inside the park, the smoke didn't seem so bad. And even with the haze, Avalanche Lake was magnificent. Beyond words. Soaring mountains carved out by glaciers, waterfalls thousands of feet in height, absolute quiet except for the chittering of chipmunks and hikers.

We got back from the hike about an hour before sundown, without a place to stay, but because of the smoke, it wasn't too hard to find a motel in a nearby town of Hungry Horse. Of course, the proprietress gave off a sort of Norma Bates-ish air (white hair, pinkish eyes, laconic), but we fortunately didn't get offed in the shower.

We hoofed it to Columbia Falls, the next town over, for dinner last night at one of, like, two places open after 9 pm. Oh my goodness. I have a couple "themes" for this trip, one being "Real America." And this place was so real America: uniformed waitresses with names like Patty, pie in the display case, guys in work boots and grimy jeans, middle aged men with plaid shirts, thick unhip glasses and pot bellies, a young girl trying to become a professional cheerleader. It was awesome, and I am still sulking about the fact that they had nothing with their logo printed on it that I could have, to remember them by.

Oh my. So many more diners, pies, "Prison Area: Hitchhiking Prohibited" signs, and photos to share. But since I really, really have to go to bed, here's the truncated version so far:

1. Lost $20 in Reno.
2. Went to the Moon (Craters of the Moon National Park) in Idaho. Had strawberry rhubarb pie at Idaho Joe's.
3. Saw marmots, glaciers, and free range steak in Montana. Had huckleberry pie at Bojangles Cafe in Polson and razzleberry pie at Park Cafe in West Glacier.

Tomorrow, the Black Hills, Rushmore, and the Badlands. I hope.