Montana

So we left Wyoming for Montana, and the town of Bozeman. Bozeman once again fulfilled the criteria of wealthy small town; lots of art galleries, coffee shops, boutiques and a vibrant downtown. They even had an art centre which was a collection of small studios occupying an old school. Each studio was a very small room and every studio had its own crazy owner and dog but it was a fun place and good for an hour’s walk. We spent the night in Walmart which provided one of the more interesting relationships I was to spark up.

As we cooked a pizza in a quiet corner of the car park a man approached our open van door. Popping one foot up inside the step and taking a long look at Emma the visitor announced a hello in a half Irish, half American accent. This guy was dressed in full hunting gear – cargo pants, boots, military jacket and fishing hat complete with fishing flies. Not wishing to antagonise a man in hunting gear I invited him to sit down and offered him a beer whilst Emma tried to avoid his wandering eyes. Luke, as his name turned out to be, was 24 and had been homeless by choice since the age of 12, which showed in his haggard face. His parents were both Irish and his lack of systematic schooling had left more of their accent in his voice than perhaps might otherwise be expected. He told us some far-fetched stories about how he had killed an attacking mountain lion with his bow and arrow and how he had skateboarded the Slickrock Trail in Moab (the most dangerous of all mountain bike trails). I enthusiastically egged him on and when he invited us to visit his friends in the van next door I agreed as I felt rude that his friends had been sat in the van next to us whilst we talked for an hour and had been ignoring them.

When we walked around to meet his friends he couldn’t remember their names - that’s how good ‘friends’ they were. They had met the night before as the neighbouring van was delivered off the back of a tow truck owing to a destroyed engine. The occupants were mid-twenties Nikki and middle-aged Jeremy, both of a very friendly hippy persuasion. Jeremy cleared a pile of rubbish off the back seat and we drank the night away in their company listening to their tales of the road. How Jeremy had done time for jacking cars, how Nikki had lost her simultaneous boyfriend and girlfriend recently so was making her way to Spokane, Washington to get high. I spent a good half an hour telling her not to go but to little avail. All the while a giant dog named Change snored loudly in the front seat and Emma wondered aloud how hungry he must be. It’s easy to overlook certain social issues when you’ve had a beer but in the cold light of the next day their situation had lost its hippy sheen and, as they traipsed off into town to beg for food and money, leaving Change alone in the broken down van, we were thankful to fall into the category of middle-class traveller where sleeping in the van is a choice not a necessity.

The next town on our to-do list was Helena for no reason other than it is the state capital of Montana. The population was less than that of Bozeman but the town had a certain diplomatic charm to it. We toured the State House where Emma marvelled at the statues of Jeanette Rankin, a famous female politician whose fall from grace came when she became the only senator to vote against joining world war two after the bombing of Pearl Harbour. I am certainly pro-peace in most situations however I am very glad she was unsuccessful in her bid to prevent the US joining the war and felt a certain enmity towards her statue thereafter. I’m sure she didn’t care much. The town also boasted a carousel which Emma was quite keen for us to ride. For a few dollars I sat proudly atop a cutthroat trout and Emma atop a steed as we whizzed around in circles feeling sick. Ride finished we headed north again into the wilderness.

Whilst on this trip we have watched a lot of TV shows and listened to a lot of radio. The first two months every night was spent watching Parks and Recreation and though it might sound like we aren’t appreciating the solitude of nature, having a comedy program to watch when you are parked in a dark and empty wilderness can offer a respite from the niggling fear that someone or something is going to come for you at any minute. When Parks and Recreation was finished we moved on to listen to the hundreds of hours of Ricky Gervais’ radio show, the comedy aspect once again a welcome distraction from some of the creepier places we stayed in.

One of these places was near Glacier National Park in the far north of Montana. Part of the park is actually in Canada and arriving here we felt as if we were arriving at the end of the earth. With no clear free campsites we set about looking for a place to stay along one of the many lakes in this region. We found a small boat ramp and turning circle just off the main road and backed into it so as to be out of sight. As the sun set a number of vehicles arrived, probably looking for a place to stay as well, only to find we had occupied it. Seeing beaten up trucks pull towards you out of the darkness, blocking your only exit is an unnerving experience and even more so when you know that you don’t have permission to sleep where you are. Whenever we slept somewhere ‘unofficial’ I would spend the night waking up at intervals, looking out into the moonlit forests and recoiling at approaching shadows. I don’t know what I was afraid of but I never slept well in these places and as such the comedy programs we listened to and watched were of great relief to me and deserve a mention.

Unfortunately we were a few weeks too early to drive the Going to the Sun Road through Glacier so had to detour hundreds of miles around the park. We spent an afternoon skimming stones on an ice-blue lake and watching bald eagles before deciding against the expensive campsites on offer within the park and making our way west towards the Idaho pan handle through various towns.