Get ready folks, this is a long post with no pics!!! Well, no updates yesterday because there wasn't a whole lot that was news-worthy. We started the day in Billings Montana and drove to Great Falls. We literally drove around 20 or 30 miles without seeing a single soul. I should also add that this was on wide open land. I mean, for as far as you can see in any direction there were no houses, no cars, no nothing! It was really desolate and depressing. On the plus side, I could imagine John Wayne or a bunch of cowboys charging acrossed the land. The moto of Big Sky Country is very well deserved. It seems that the earth is lowo n the horizon and sky is all you see. Like I said yesterday, compared to the hills and mountains of Wyoming and South Dakota I was really let down.
Montana did give me my first glimpse of no-kidding mountains. We had been driving for quite a while with nothing particular scenic to see when we started driving through these small hills that looked similar to mesas. When we came around from behind one, way off to the west we could see the dark silhouete of a mountain and its snow-capped peaks.
That night we stayed at a nice hotel in Great Falls, Montana. When we left the next morning we could see a long chain of gorgeous snow covered mountains way off to the west that I assume were part of Glacier National Park. They looked spectactular even fronm 70 or so miles away. I should point out that we obviously didn't go to Yellowstone. Earlier this week SweetPea and I were trying to find hotels in Yellowstone and noticed 2 things: hotels there were running close to $200 and higher for nowhere near the park, and second, you can't just show up to Yellowstone without a plan. We weighed our options and decided we'd wait and do Yellowstone on a real, planned-out vacation. Besides, we both want to spend several days at Deadwood in the near future.
When we were in Billings we had breakfast at Denny's. Again, everyone spoke with thick accents that we found interesting (keep in mind I'm not knocking anyone's accent, while taking my own into account!). Anyway, SweetPea said that our waitress resembled actress Nicole Sullivan (she plays Holly the dogwalker on King of Queens). After getting another glimpse of our waitress I had to agree that she did look like Ms. Sullivan's twin, only with dark brown hair. Anyway, everytime she came to the table SweetPea and I thought she really did look like the actress. Once she handed us our bill and it had her name on it, Holly, we were really cracking up since that is the character's name. So, when she came back to the table, I apologized if I was being too forward or making her uncomfortable, but had she seen the show, King of Queens? We said she looked like the dog walker. She started laughing and said she hears that all the time. When we saw her name was the same as the character's we thought it was spooky and had to say something. One of those, 'I guess you had to be there' kind of stories I guess. So yeah, that's my big story for the day....we met a celebrity that wasn't a celebrity at all. Reminds me of the time I met John Travolta in Seattle's SEATAC airport. Ask me about that one sometime...
Anyway, Great Falls was to be our last night in the continental US for some as-yet-undetermined amount of time. The next morning (Sunday) we hit the road early. This was even more desolate than the first day of driving across Montana. Naturally, I didn't gas up before leaving town and after 75 miles we hadn't seen a single town and the tank was down to just over 1/4. We took the first exit indicating gas only to find that it was a small farming town with one gas station that is closed on Sundays, and doesn't offer credit card pay at the pump. So, we were back to the interstate after wasting precious gas we couldn't afford. Fortunately, the GPS indicated a gas station about 10 miles down the road and I was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief once the tank was full.
Something else interesting all across Montana and Wyoming were the pronghorn antelope. They are roughly deer-sized light-tan animals. I'm used to seeing deer that run on sight in Ohio. However, these animals are all over the place here. And they just stand there. We saw them out foraging in fields and even just sleeping. Since there are pretty much no trees, it wasn't uncommon to see a dozen or so just out sleeping 500 yards from the road. Sometimes there was one, other times there were dozens. I can't even count how many we've seen.
Also today, while driving I saw something shoot acrossed the road that resembled a squirrel. I realized it was a prairie dog. We subsequently saw dozens and dozens of them (probably another dozen dead ones too,...). They seem to be pretty stupid as they will dart out in front of vehicles, some of them would just stand there in place in the middle of the road, even with vehicles straddling them at 90 miles an hour!
I've always heard that Candians are friendly people. My first experience wit ha representative of the Canadian border was not a pleasant one. The female customs agent flat out yelled at me and the wife when we handed her our military IDs and travel orders. Apparently, the paperwork my unit sent me with was incorrect, and just by dumbluck I had the necessary stuff. (For me they required my sealed/stamped birth certificate) Anyway, it sucked and she was incredibly rude. I pride myself on addressing others, especially government works in a very professional manner (the same way I expect to be treated). When I was in a car accident years ago the state trooper had such an attitude with me, and then again today. Anyway, I'm just venting and the wife and I had a laugh because there are clearly jerks in all walks of life.
So, once in Canada we discovered how difficult it is to monitor your speed using the tiny little kmh they put on the speedometer! We were crawling at 100 kmh while everyone else flew past us. The funy thing was that all the way to Calgary (where we are spending the night) the cars were all American. In fact, with the exception of license plates you really can't tell you are in a foreign country. Apparently, driving like a bat out of hell while talking on the cell phone isn't exclusive to Americans. Who knew!?
It's funny, I feel like I stand out so badly here. As long as I keep my mouth shut I'm fine. But, the instant I open my mouth I'm clearly a yankee. The look on people's faces when they realize a yankee is here is pretty priceless. There are a LOT of Asian people here so SweetPea said she doesn't feel too out of place.
Anyway, tomorow morning we are heading out to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. So far Canda looks exactly like Montana: flat, big sky, lots of fields with nothing in them. Nothing...zilch...notta...zero... Hopefully, tomorrow we'll start to see some of the natural beauty here. We've noticed that it doesn't get dark until LATE here. In Montana it didn't get dark until 10pm. And it was daylight by around 5ish. Well, I've rambled on for a long time.
I can't think of a good sign-off saying, so...
This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off. (Yeah, I am weird...)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
They mostly come at night. Mostly.
ReplyDelete