Montana Drive

Have you ever driven eastern Montana highways?

Last summer I took my little old beater for a drive and ended up in Montana.  Call it the scenic route.

Actually it is very beautiful around there.  Unfortunately I didn't have a bloody clue where I was except I knew I was in Montana and wanted to go to Wyoming.  Being an intelligent person with a reasonable grasp of geography, I decided south was the direction for me. 

I stopped in a town, bought a map, saw a road labeled highway heading south, and took off. 

As I was going up a hill one of my back tires blew.  Yee-ha.

I like Montana, really I do. 

I flagged down someone to help me change the tire and went back to the town, limping along the side of the road because the spare was a different size from the rest of the tires. 

I got the name of the guy who could sell me tires and called him at home, catching him just as he was going out the door to go fishing.  He was great about the interruption and sold me two tires, put them on and everything. 

Back on the highway heading south, I found out it was an unpaved highway.  I was having fun dodging potholes, waiting for sheep to cross the road, and scoping out the scenery.  It truly is outstanding.  You just have to look at it in between watching for animals and holes. 

Something whapped the outside of my car, startling me.  More whaps came, and I was seeing things flying through the air hitting my car.  One caught on a windshield wiper and I realized I was in a grasshopper storm.  I kept going, hoping it was a local phenomenon.  It was. 

After about thirty miles without seeing a sign, I was wondering if I'd taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way, although I was still going in a relatively straight line south and there hadn't been any turns to take. 

Finally I saw a little sigh that reassured me.  According to the sign, civilization was only forty miles ahead.  I felt much better and started singing out loud. 

Sure enough, about forty miles later, after I'd bottomed out in an unavoidable hole in the highway and bent my front license plate around the bumper, I saw a bar.  I stopped to pick dead grasshoppers out of my grill and almost went into the bar, but continued on my way to Wyoming which wasn't that far away by then. 

Even with the tire blowing, the grasshoppers, and the hole in the road it was a great time.  I had fun. 

And you know what?  I do like Montana.  Montana has good people who are kind to me.  And good scenery.  What's not to like about that? 

I even thought about moving there.  Briefly.