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June 27, 1997
Stopped in Loomis for Cokes at 7:50. Drank them. Life on the road really keeps you jumping. Got gas in Winnemucca, an aromatic town in central Nevada. Switched driving there, too. Sign in Nevada: "Tunnel may be icy when flashing". June 28, 1997 After 20 hours of driving, we arrived in Douglas, Wyoming, the Jackalope Capital of the World. Even less spectacular than I expected. Their big jackalope statue outside of town was knocked over by a motorist, and there was no big central jackalope supply store, as I had hoped. The jackalope we had planned to get Al was $120 and the taxidermy shop that makes them was closed, so we're going to try to get him some inflatable weasels instead. We were able to get some jackalope paraphernalia, though, and wandered around the area semi-lucidly for most of the afternoon. A little later in the day, when we were driving around looking for a motel, I saw a pterodactyl in the road. It was sitting in the middle, facing us, kind of hunched down with its wings spread across the road. I was pretty sure there wasn't really a pterodactyl there, but I asked Alcalde, just to be sure: "Do you see a giant pterodactyl sitting in the road?" "Um.....no....." "Neither do I." Alcalde saw an Indian on horseback on a distant ridge, but this being Montana, he may not have been hallucinating. We finally went to bed at 7:30. We'd been up for 38 hours. June 29, 1997 Left Douglas about 7:00, or 7:30, or something. Got into Casper about a half hour later. The cashier at the Arby's in Douglas had told me that "everything's in Casper." Compared to Douglas, it may seem that way, but it's not exactly jumping on a Sunday morning. Wyoming's pretty desolate. It's not hard to see why less than half a million people live there. Cody's a nice Western town, though, with a very impressive historical center. We spent a couple hours there touristing and ate at a Taco John's that had a fairly peculiar obese cashier. When we left Douglas, Alcalde deliberately got us lost so he'd have an excuse to use his GPS, but I figured out where we were before he could lock in the satellites. Had dinner at the Montana Brewing Company in Billings. Bought a sweatshirt while Alcalde lusted pathetically after the busty waitress. Spent the night at the first KOA in North America (established 1962), with a screaming peacock, several million middle-aged people on Gold Wings, and trillions of mosquitoes. June 30, 1997 Left Billings after a KOA pancake breakfast and decided to head for Bozeman by way of the Beartooth Highway and Yellowstone. Stopped near the summit to take stupid pictures in the snow. We also tried to run up the mountain, which, at nearly 11,000 feet, was somewhat unwise. This was at about 10:00 local time, the exact moment that China was taking over Hong Kong. Continued amongst spectacular scenery to Cooke City, Montana, where we had lunch at the Beartooth Cafe. We each had a glass of Moose Drool. Continued into Bozeman, then south about 28 miles to Spire Rock campground in the Gallatin National Forest. A most impressive canyon, with hardly anyone else there. It rained and thundered most vigorously that night, but conveniently did so only after we were in the tent and before we got up in the morning. July 1, 1997 Awakened by crows. Worse than cats. I had Lucky Charms and tea for breakfast, and we ambled through Bozeman for a couple hours, waiting for the Computer Museum to open. The museum was well worth the $3.00. It's amazing how much obsolete machinery we were both familiar with and had used. Since it was Taco Tuesday, we ate at Taco John's, then took off for Helena. Wandered all over hell and gone looking for a campground. Finally found one near some dam. Spent the rest of the afternoon rambling around Helena. It's a nice town, with some spectacular mansions in otherwise ordinary residential areas. Ate at the Sleeping Giant Brewery, gambled away $2.15 between us at a poker machine casino, then went back to the brewery to buy shirts. Alcalde ate one of the hops pellets that were in a glass at the entrance, and I stupidly followed suit. Tasted that for the rest of the evening. July 2, 1997 Got up to a misty lake with fish jumping picturesquely every few minutes, as long as I wasn't pointing a camera at them. Alcalde washed his hair in raw sewage, and we packed up and went into town for breakfast at JB's. Sub-mediocre. We spent about an hour at the Montana Historical Society museum, then left for Kalispell. Stopped for gas at Swan Lake and had lunch at the Alpine Chalet. Alcalde had an underdone chicken sandwich. Decided to go to Bigfork instead of Kalispell because there seemed to be more convenient campgrounds available. Shower and laundry at a local laundromat. Drove to Kalispell to see Men In Black but decided we didn't have time before the campground closed and couldn't find a theater anyway. Alcalde built a fire and insisted on calling himself "Mr. Tinder", but he only got it going after I showed him how to use newspapers to get the wood to light. July 3, 1997 Got up at the crack of 8:00 and had my usual camp breakfast of Lucky Charms and tea. Took a few Ogopogo pictures down by the lake, then left. Arrived at the National Bison Range and viewed some Bison, then stopped at a burger joint and ate some. We also got Al some Jackalope seeds. Heading south, we happened across the Arlee pow-wow on the Flathead (Salish-Kootenai) reservation. There was no admission fee, but Alcalde had to surrender his beer, managing to drop one in the process. Got some pictures of the intertribal dancing. Missoula was a surreal experience. We bought a bunch of fireworks at a roadside stand, then went in search of The Rhino, which Jacque had recommended to us. After failing with phone books and newspapers, we stopped in a liquor store and got directions to The Iron Horse from a rather intense lady who was missing a tooth. When we got there we found that they didn't serve food. After a confusing conversation with a ditzy waitress, we ordered a beer, then went to the Rhinoceros, where things got even stranger. The Rhinoceros is a dive whose one saving grace is that it has 50 beers on tap. We each had one. We were immediately joined by an aromatic and odd-looking individual who kept muttering to himself and grabbing his crotch. As a memento of this occasion, we bought t-shirts, and while doing so I was accosted by a drunken Indian who was smoking a cigarette and an upside-down pipe. He called me "Shotgun" and told me that cigarettes make you run faster. We went to Applebee's for an actual meal, then to Fort Missoula and Big Sky High School to see if we could set off some fireworks. But that wasn't until the following night, so we found a theater and saw Men In Black, completely forgetting why we'd decided not to see it the previous night. On the way back to the campground at about 11:30, Alcalde remembered that the campground closed at 10:00. So we parked out front and carried our stuff in. July 4, 1997 Since the gate didn't open until 8:00, we carried everything back to the truck. We were just leaving when a ranger told us we had to move the truck. It was a no camping area, which she interpreted as no parking. Ate at the Missoula Pie Company and rambled down 93 toward Idaho. Stopped in Salmon for lunch. They were having a 4th-of-July booths-in-the-street celebration. Spent an hour at Craters Of The Moon National Monument running around in the lava and going into caves. Saw splatter cones, too. Got into Twin Falls about 7:20. Twin Falls is the Anti-Missoula; everyone was very friendly and normal. The extremely perky and talkative girl at the motel guided us, with excessive precision, to Mugger's Brewpub, where we happened upon Andrew "Jr. Boy" Jones and his blues band. We bought CDs. Then we went back to a dirt lot near the motel and set off fireworks. We ran out just as the city's fireworks show started. Lighting fireworks is technically illegal within the Twin Falls city limits, but the law seems to be universally and cheerfully ignored. July 5, 1997 Drove home in one swell foop. Stopped to take pictures of some of the orange barrels that infest Nevada. Gambled my usual quarter in a truck stop slot machine. Ate lunch in Winnemucca. And that's that. |
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eft Walnut Creek at 6:11 PM
after eating at the Baja Grill. Alcalde became abnormally excited about
some roadkill on the 680, and I have to admit it was a pretty nice one.
