Leaving Glacier we stopped in an adorable town, Augusta, for brunch. We chose Chubby’s Diner and we were totally taken with the signage, which, among many others, included the following admonitions: “Tabs are due the 1^st of every month – not when you feel like paying” and “due to the number of weirdos not paying for their food we will no longer serve outside. You can still order, prepay and eat outside if you desire.” Oh, Montanans.

I should also share the story of a little gem of a man we met in Glacier. While using the nockies (also known as binoculars, to y’all non hip campers) at dusk to hunt for bears we met a man from Choteau who came up to Glacier every fall with his wife. (Choteau is a small, relatively middle-of-nowhere town on the drive into Glacier). His accent and outfit alone were charming enough, but I most intrigued when overhearing his conversation with another camper a while later. He and another man started talking all things animals and anti-government when the second gentleman began to talk about a book he’d read. He started, “Have you ever heard of the book –?” and before even getting to the title our man from Choteau cut him off with a deadpan response of “Oh, I don’t read.” And that was that. Ha! I had never heard such an unbridled conviction admonishing literacy. I will forever associate Choteau with the man who doesn’t read and ain’t ashamed. Oh, Choteau.

Anyhow, we spent our last few days in Montana in the college town of Bozeman. We have little to share with you about the draw of this town as we sought it out primarily as a shelter from the storm, a wifi hotspot to catch up on the blogs (which, as you can see, we shamefully slacked on afterwards. Sorry readers!! Catching up soon!!!!), and a place that might have a nice dinner for Alan’s 36^th birthday. (36! Can you believe it!? Time flies). Our first semi-disappointing AirBnB experience was had in Bozeman, but only in that we tried to find a place to stay the day before we arrived which was never confirmed and so we had to opt for a cheap hotel last minute. No big loss, as for less than $100 we had two(!) large beds and a pleasant enough room to blog, free wifi all day and waffles in the mornings.

Our first night in Bozeman we checked out Montana Ale Works for some good brews and some snacks, and it’s a solid option if you’re itching for a beer and some barfood. The next night, Alan’s birthday, we went to Plonk, which came highly recommended by friends we met on the road. It was a lovely dinner, though writing this now over a month later I remember little about the food itself, other than us asking the waitress her thoughts on certain dishes vs. others, to which she replied that the pork belly appetizer was delicious but “not that big” and “light.” Friends, it was six inches thick of pig fat. Lordy. Montanans do “light” meat like meat eating champions! After dinner, though Alan tried to go home, all tired and full of pig fat, knowing him well enough I convinced him to check out nearby Copper Whiskey Bar for a drink, and then rushed us out just in time to get some birthday desserts before the local co-op closed. We went for a walk around town while we enjoyed the treats and I sang him happy birthday using a lighter as his “candle” to blow out. Rounding the corner on our walk home, we came across the cutest rock star in history… a thirteen year old guitar player/singer and his dad! Oh. My. Goodness. We stood and watched, all smiles, as this little kiddo serenaded us with a cover of Guns N Roses’ “Sweet Child of Mine.” I requested Freebird in encore, but it was not yet in his repertoire, so we heard Sweet Home Alabama before I decided this was definitely where I wanted to spend the $5 I found on the street in Portland and had been carrying in my pocket for the “right occasion” ever since. I wish I got his name. He’s going to be the next Mick Jagger. You rock, little man, you rock. Having had a few cocktails at our dinner I left little Jagger with the $5 bill in his guitar case and flashed him the rock/devil’s horn signal and a hearty, “ROCK ON!” Go on, judge me. I was bewitched by his pre-teen rockstarness.

::world’s littlest rockstar::

::getting our birthday treats::

::keep on rockin in the free world::

I leave you with a couple other interesting things to note.

• Somewhere on the road in Montana we saw a billboard for the Testical Festival (testyfesty.com). Woah. So, that’s a thing apparently. I’ll let you check out the website for yourself if you’re so inclined. (Yes, the website is really testyfesty.com)
• Reading Update. I figured I’d share some of the more interesting reads I’m enjoying on this trip, and while in Montana I finished Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs. Beautiful book. I’ve read a number of her novels now and I’m so totally enamored with her. Her work is chock full of delicious sentences. Every sentence is pure delight and mastery of the English language. To the point that Alan disenjoys my company while I read her work because I want to stop at every page to share with him a sentence, or a beautiful metaphor she’s used, or the entire chapter. Oops.

Getting out of Big Sky was tough, not going to lie. We partied a little hardy at the wedding I guess. There was definitely talk of finding a motel to crash at rather than face the 6 hour drive and ensuing tent set-up in weather that threatened wetness. But somehow, miraculously, we made it. And so glad we did. But here’s a tip: NEVER, and I mean NEVER eat at a Taco John’s, even if it’s the only place that appears to sell food in a random Montana town when you are 5 ½ hours into a drive to middle of nowhere, hungover, starving, and about to set up camp in a raining, thunderstorming glacial lake area. I took a couple of bites of my quesadilla and threw that thing in the bear proof trash can where it belonged. Have you ever seen that Jim Gaffigan skit about hot pockets? Where he says the instructions should read, “open container, insert directly into toilet”? Yeah, I’m pretty sure the wrappers on the tacos at Taco John say that explicitly. [To be fair, Alan ate his and his digestive tract did not appear to implode. But really, why run the risk for a high calorie cheese whiz infused heart attack of a meal?]. I had never seen a Taco John’s before, but it’s apparently a big chain out in these parts. Every time we drove by one afterwards I held my fingers up in a big X and averted my gaze. Aside from the Taco John’s though, the drive heading into Glacier is quite beautiful, with the Rockies painting the horizon.

Oh, also, because I forgot to mention it in my Big Sky post, here’s another free tip: use Doritos as a fire starter! It totally works. I personally believe Nacho Cheese work better than Cool Ranch, but in a pinch it’ll do. (And Alan thinks I’m wasting my time on Pinterest! Pshhh, I learn cool camping tricks that impress all the men struggling to light a Duraflame-less fire).

OK, OK, back to Glacier. It’s a glacial wonderland! We arrived too late to snag a campsite at Many Glacier (known as the day-hiker’s mecca of Glacier), but fortuitously settled instead with Two Medicine. The campsite we chose was not incredibly private, but the view was superb. We had a direct view of Rising Wolf Mountain and a little creek in which we watched beavers swim each night. And, we woke one morning to a pair of long-horned sheep hanging out just a few yards away at the water’s edge. Lovely spot, indeed.

Our first morning we had had plans to hike near our campsite, up a steep trail with supposedly stellar views at the top. Instead, due to a forecast calling for rain and thunderstorms we opted to head up to Many Glacier for a 10ish mile hike with more tree cover and slightly less risk of death by electrocution. Don’t worry, the death by bear factor was in full force, so we still got our danger fix in. Which brings me to the bears. We spent a lot of time in bear country on this trip, and I’ll just go ahead and give you the spoiler alert even though I’ve not posted yet about Wyoming… we only saw one bear. Kind of a bummer, considering the stories we’d heard about other hikers’ bear encounters, BUT I think we were lucky because the bear sighting we had was a great one. We spent hours with our eyes peeled, staring out of car windows and through binoculars trying to sight a grizzly or black bear, to absolutely no avail. But driving from Two Medicine up to Many Glacier – while we were OUTSIDE of the national park – an incredible thing happened. A bear literally crossed our path. It jumped out of the trees on the right and scampered across the road to the left. I may or may not have screamed some expletives as Alan slammed on the brakes and my mind wrapped itself around the fact we nearly ran over a bear. He was quick, and I was in awe, so the picture proof of this is less than incredible, but if you look closely through the bug smeared windshield photo you can see a little black blur that is a black bear crossing the road. It was pretty neat.

::always be prepared::

::see that little black spot?? that’s a bear!::

Seeing a bear before our first proper hike in bear country of course instilled in me a consequent childlike excitement for bear sightings to come, as well as a healthy does of absolute fear. Thanks to the multitude of bear awareness signs and pamphlets, I’d by now deduced that the worst way to greet a grizzly is by surprise, and so when the national park service recommended I make noise while hiking to avoid death by surprised grizzly thrashing, you can bet I made noise. It’s not always easy to yell out when you’re hiking up hill, plus Alan and I now spend 24-7 together and occasionally, just occasionally, run out of interesting to things to talk about, so we got a little creative. Sure, we used some classics, like “Bear Aware!” and “Hey bear!” These were often interspersed with a simple, “Human!” or “Noises! Loud Noises!” My personal favorite was calling out, “I am a human, do not be alarmed!” This is especially fun when you round a corner into other hikers. (Who, by the way, were not very bear aware!! Nobody else made noise for safety, at least within our earshot. I’d much rather run the risk of being slightly annoying to fellow hikers or mildly embarrassed than to try and play dead while an 800 pound beast with four inch claws bats at me like an antenna topper.) My human chants ignited Alan’s creative side and he re-mixed his own version of the Killers’ Are We Human, singing every so often, “Are we human, or are we bear-ser?” We of course also carried our bear spray with us EVERYWHERE. But thankfully, our bear awareness was rewarded and we were not forced to employ the oversized pepper spray. Nor were we regaled with the opportunity to snap shots of a grizzly and her cubs, but such is mother nature and the way of those ever so private bears.

We had a few other cool wildlife sightings. On the way up our Many Glacier hike we saw the cutest little creatures in the path and then, up close, swinging around and playfully jumping between the trees. We weren’t sure what these little guys were, but they sure moved like monkeys. Upon showing our photo to a park ranger later in the day we discovered they were Pine Martens, a type of weasel that is rarely sighted and even more rarely photographed. We also saw plenty of pika (which, for the avoidance of doubt, are neither paper nor chalk eaters. Those are people with Pica. Pika do, however, make really funky noises, hence dubbed ‘whistling hares’ (so says Wikipedia)), a few mountain goats in the far distance, and these strange fat little birds that did not appear to fly.

::long horned sheep, at our campsite!::

::pine martens::

::pika::

The scenery impressed even more than the wildlife. The pictures do not do it justice (and are rather disappointing given the poor lighting we had. Rain, rain go away), but after hiking about 5 miles into the mountains, you arrive at a hidden glacial lake that is a perfect turquoise and full of floating icebergs. All this is perched in a little pocket of the continental divide. Not bad.

Feeling unmotivated to head back and cook in the rain, we opted for dinner at a little restaurant in the Many Glacier village area. It was nothing fancy, but the menu did offer huckleberry ice tea and huckleberry lemonade which sounded quite nice (as well as huckleberry ice cream, of course. We quickly learned that this is a Montana/Wyoming staple). The drive back afforded some lovely views as the sun set. Much like India, you must use caution to avoid hitting the cows in the roads.

On our second full day in Glacier we again hoped to check out the scenic hike but learned that the forecast for the following day promised rain, thunderstorms and hail. This sounded less than ideal for our anticipated cruise down the scenic and legendary Going to the Sun road, a long windy path through the park which we’d planned to drive before camping a night over by Flathead Lake and Whitefish. For those of you who have not had much camping experience I’ll go ahead and let you know that camping in the rain is nowhere near as cool as camping in no rain. I’ve illustrated this with a little venn diagram for your learning pleasure.

So we altered our plans again, deciding to check out all of these spots on a day that offered sunny skies and no large objects thrust from the heavens, and skip a night camping at Whitefish to head out to drier land the next day. While bummed to miss out on a full day at the lake, we couldn’t have picked better weather for Going to the Sun Road. We cruised along with Sven’s top down, enjoying the spectacular views and ever on the hunt for more wildlife.

Flathead Lake was nice, though we were unable to find a tour company that was both open, available and offered at a time that worked for us, so we missed out on the opportunity to see those spectacularly clear waters from a vantage point where it allegedly looks shallow even at depths of several hundred feet. We stopped briefly in Whitefish, but mostly to use wifi in order to find some shelter to get us through the upcoming storm. On the way out we saw a lovely beach with a view of the ski mountain where people were paddleboarding and swimming. Not a bad spot. We could imagine worse things than a cabin in Whitefish.

We’ve been opining much on this trip about how much the weather impacts one’s opinion on a place. I suppose it bodes well for Glacier that we found it so stunning even despite a number of weather scares. It is a spectacular park, that is for sure. I think I had expected more of what I saw in the wintry photos of Glacier, and for that and the continually threatening thunderstorms I’d say I was just ever so slightly disappointed with the area. That, and that fact that we saw less wildlife in the park than we did on the roads in Big Sky.  But all in all, it is an excellent little chunk of America (and also makes me want to check out what Canada has to offer just a few miles north)!

Montana with its great skies. Big Sky lives up to the name, that’s for sure. It seems like you cross the border into the state and all of a sudden there’s more fresh air and the horizon has doubled. And once the sun falls and you look out at those millions of stars? Big Sky, for sure. I am very glad that Dave and Barbra decided to get married in Montana. They planned an incredible intro to Montana weekend and it was great to see the state for the first time amongst good friends, kind new faces and a host of superfun activities.

We stopped first in Missoula to see (albeit briefly and from afar) Barb’s alma mater, and to eat some delicious hamburgers at a college bar. The Missoula Club, for all its kitchen glory (essentially a two by two flat top grill, plus a blender for milkshakes), makes a mean lunch. And by lunch I mean cheeseburgers. And shakes (though we forewent these on account of our waistlines). Nothin’else. It was here we got our first taste of the endearing Montana culture: the older gentlemen seated next to Alan saw him looking at some old black and whites on the wall and stood up to point out the 1953 High School State Championship Team and his smiling face among them. He then proceeded to whip out his iPhone and share pictures of his reunion that he posted on Facebook. Love it. This man was at least 75.

::entering Big Sky Country::

::where the magic happens at Missoula Club::

::site of good burgers and kind old men::

The drive into Big Sky was beautiful and full of wildlife already. In fact, just a few hours into our time at Big Sky we saw our second moose of the trip just chilling by the side of the road. After a low key night eating some mean wings and steak the groom’s brother cooked up, it was up early the next day to head out to Yellowstone (including my first foray into Wyoming!). While difficult to peel ourselves out of bed before 6am, it was worth it, because before we even arrived in Yellowstone, nay before we even got off the road that the Big Sky resort is on, I had an epic wildlife sighting. It saddens me to have no pictures to prove this, but friends, I saw a wolf! He was perched up on the top of a hill overlooking the road, and man was he majestic. He looked like Mufasa, peering out over his kingdom before the day’s hustle and bustle had begun. A beautiful, silvery beast he was. Bummer, he was the last wolf we sighted. No such luck in the national parks this week. But in Yellowstone, we did see elk and bison aplenty. (I’m tempted to call bison only Tatonka from now, though I’ve yet to see Dances with Wolves so I feel like I lack the street cred to do so.) Dave & Barb organized a lovely tour which was pretty much family and the bride and groom and ourselves. We had about 15 people on a little bus, and one of the best tour guides I can ever remember listening to. And trust me, that’s appreciated on an 8 hour tour. He took us around for a full day, covering Madison Junction and Lower then Upper Falls, Uncle Tom’s Trail (which included a staircase that engaged my fear of heights not insubstantially – worth it for the rainbows you see in the falls), Old Faithful, and lots of other Geysers, including one that visitors rarely see erupting. We also got on board with the western huckleberry craze by trying some huckleberry ice cream at Old Faithful. Delicioso! We closed out the solid day with a dinner at Buck’s T-4. The food was decent – I very much enjoyed the New Zealand venison, but everything else I tried paled in comparison – and the company was superb, as it was a great chance to catch up with friends from LA and elsewhere. Always a good time with Alan’s Tufts friends.

::moose on the loose::

::beautiful elk::

::bison jam::

::bison jam in Yellowstone::

::natural beauty::

::rainbow!::

::huckleberry ice cream with the groom::

::looks photoshopped right? I promise it’s not::

::bison::

::i want a hot tub built exactly like this in my yard one day::

::Old Faithful::

::more geysers::

::aren’t those colors stunning? too bad you’d basically dissolve if you jumped in there::

Saturday was a good day. This is the day of the Mooning Rafter. You may have seen the photo I posted earlier (it was too good to wait), and I’m here to give you some more color, which will add to the enjoyment of that doozy of a snapshot. We set out to hit the Gallatin River white waters for a little rafting trip. I was mixed emotions on this whole process, as it sounded scenic and entertaining, but mostly like a terrifyingly unpleasant way to die. I am afraid of many (most?) things as you will come to see if you continue reading this blog, and white water rapids are chief among said things. Getting a prep lesson in which you are warned that your participation may result in your demise and given tips on how to avoid death by rock impailment makes me uneasy, and I thought of bailing on numerous occasions. In the end, comforted by a raft full of good friends who mostly did not make fun of my terrified faces and mild panic attacks at each rapid above Class 1, I hesitantly partook (in other words, where rapid class > 2, I essentially ditched my paddle to hang on for dear life (I tried, I really did)). Seth, however, was the opposite. He almost bailed because these puny rapids were too small-fry for his Class 5 Dam Release West Virginian rafting experience. And this was made clear to all on our little raft. Yet shortly into our float, after a small pass which to any other rafter that day appeared unassuming, Seth went flying off the raft and into the water. After a brief moment of shock and horror on my part, everyone burst into laughter seeing our fearless Class 5 Dam Release West Virginian rafting aficionado flailing about trying to get back into the raft. When our friends and guide began trying to pull him back in, his shorts caught on the rope and we all got to know Seth on a more intimate level. (In case you missed it, here it is one more time) His wife valiantly threw herself to his side of the raft and tried to help him pull up his pants, but the damage was done. And the raft behind us? I think one of the women put it best when she said “I was really afraid we were going to get balls.” Here’s a little video to give you more of the live experience (full credit to Seth for being a total sport and laughing with everyone throughout this ordeal and then putting together this epic little movie).

Word of Seth’s ass spread quickly, and it made for good fodder at the rehearsal dinner, which was a true Montana experience. Set atop a mountain, complete with horse drawn wagon rides, a roasted pig, s’mores station, and bluegrass band, it was a rehearsal dinner unlike any other I’ve attended. The wedding, too, was a spectacular Montana affair. We danced to the tunes of a local band, ate fantastic bison short ribs smothered in a huckleberry sauce, and stayed up late laughing and drinking Montanan beers. Wonderful weekend. Congrats again Dave and Barb!!!

::sigh, Montana you are lovely::

::horse drawn wagon ride::

::pig!::

::me and the hubs, huckleberry drinks in hand::

::Tufts crew::

::I adored the little details at this wedding, including the personalized menu!::