2004-06-17 - 9:50 p.m.

Trip to Montana, June 10-15

Jesus God, I am jet lagged. This morning when P woke me up at 6am Montana Time, I was startled out of a very sound sleep and have felt all day like I was taken apart and put back together crooked. So don't expect me to be coherent.

So, for starters:

MONTANA
IS
SOOOOOOO GORGEOUS!!!

You all should know by now that I'm not really an outdoorsy person. I'm a city mouse. I get excited about buildings, flowers in planters, and perhaps the occasional tree-lined street. Before I left, after perusing the "Things to Do in Montana" sites, I was thinking, "All people seem to do in Montana is hike. What's with all the hiking? We're talking bugs and no bathrooms."

Yet from the time we were landing in the plane there was a constant "Oooooo, look! It's so gorgeous! Look! Look!" coming from me. The mountains are beautiful. I completely understand why Kit is so excited about them. I was impressed with Colorado, but there's something about Montana that's different. Maybe the sky, or because it's much less populated and feels that much more wild and natural? You've seen Kit's pictures from the M, and that was spectacular in itself, but it gets even better.

I now know "what's with all the hiking". When you venture outside the valley to where the bigger snow-covered mountains are, where civilization is miles and miles away, the view is just breathtaking. We went with my parents and cousins on a hike up to Holland Falls, taking a trail that winds around Holland Lake. It frustrates me how those photographs in the links, which might elicit an "ooo, pretty", don't even begin to convey just how incredibly overwhelmingly gorgeous it was. Just 360 degrees of stunning natural beauty.

I was expecting Missoula to be something like a western version of the small towns in Pennsylvania or Virginia. Very quiet, lots of hunting, fishing, and recreation-related businesses, and every clothing store like LL Bean. It has all those things, but there's a lot more to it than that. It's a small city, with lots of yuppie establishments, plenty of upscale restaurants with great food, upscale shops, as well as lots of granola-type places to keep hippies happy as well. There are a fair number of houses decorated with peace signs tie-dye and other hippie-type stuff (look at me stereotype) -- as I said to , "It must pain you to live here." I think it's safe to say that there's something for everyone in Missoula, even for city mice like me and Poindexter (OR FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE STRIP CLUBS, whoever they might be).

It's got a very walkable grid and tons of interesting old buildings downtown, mostly from the late 1800s through the 1920s, I think, which are among my very favorite periods. They also have some buildings along the train tracks that look like what you'd imagine "Old West" buildings to look like. Lots of building eye candy for me. The residential neighborhoods are full of cute little houses, including lots of Craftsman homes like John and Kit's house.

The wildlife around there is a bit daunting, though. There's a bear or two in the airport and Kit was attacked by a gigantic trout when we were out walking last Friday.

Although some of it is not so scary, but rather downright cute, even if it looks like kin to the little bastards digging up my plants in the backyard:

After a long trip back (delayed by t-storms), I am happy to be home, to my little city crowded with skinny row houses, but I do miss the mountains. It was amazing to be able to look at those every day. And my mother said this morning that she missed the weather. It's pretty sticky and gross here right now, compared to the delightfully fresh, dry air of Montana.

More travel tidbits:

- At the airport in Philadelphia, Poindexter and I both observed strange activities (fortunately not THAT activity) in the restrooms. There was a woman flossing in the women's room, which I found baffling -- most dentists say you just need to floss once a day, so why not wait until she got to her destination before flossing? Poindexter's experience was far worse: He saw a man in blue Speedos in the restroom, changing clothes, out in the open. Couldn't even be bothered to get himself a stall. He was bent over, in the blue Speedos, rifling madly through his bag looking for something. How traumatic for Poindexter.

- On our first leg, to Minneapolis, the only two seats available together were in the last row of a DC-9. Last rows are bad enough since you can't recline when the asshole in front of you fully reclines HIS seat, but it was worse this time because there was no window and we were sitting right next to the engine. I'm slightly claustrophobic and hate vibration (yes, including THAT kind of vibration) so it was not a happy flight. I managed to sleep through 45 minutes of it. Then I kept looking at Poindexter and saying "This is HAR-i-ble." On the positive side, when we got normal seats on the leg to Missoula, it felt like first class in comparison. We had SUNLIGHT! But I refuse to recline my seat these days because I hate it so much when the person in front of me does it. I am a tiny person, and yet I feel cramped on airplanes, so I can't imagine how everyone else feels. Ugh.

- One of my favorite things about Montana in June is that it stays light until almost 10pm. Apparently right around the equinox it's light until 11. I had enormous fun deciding what time it felt like by the angle of the sun and then looking at my watch and finding out it was about 2 hours later. Coming back from dinner one night, with Kit and John in the back seat, it seemed to me to be around 7 or 7:30, but the clock said otherwise, so:

Evelynne [to Poindexter]: What time do you think it is?
Kit and John, simultaneously [helpfully reading the clock on the dashboard]: Nine-oh-eight.
Evelynne: [laughs]
Poindexter: That is NOT how you play the GAME!

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