Posted By: Stonecipher
July 9, 2008
After almost two weeks I finally got out of Idaho today. The car is in tip-top shape and I'm back on the road, headed towards Butte, but I'll probably try to get a little farther tonight.
In the mean time I am stopped for a late dinner here in Twin Bridges, Montana. I saw a billboard about 20 miles back that advertised a restaurant called "The Shack" and it mentioned there was WiFi. This was a no-brainer. First of all it's Montana and it's called "The Shack" and second, Wi-Fi. This might be the only wireless internet signal for fifty miles in any direction.
Anyway, I was planning on just checking email, checking traffic on the side and reading some news while I ate, but I have been waiting for my waitress to drop the check for about twenty minutes now. So I figured I would drop the TSR readers a line.
If you come by tomorrow morning looking for my article, you may only find this post instead. The plan is to find a hotel with Wi-Fi, but the options may be limited here in The Treasure State. We'll see. I've got a few hours of driving left in me and two Red Bulls for fuel.
The sun just set here, it's about 10:00 PM. That's one thing I love about being on the Western edge of a time zone like we are here. San Francisco was the same way, but being quite a bit farther north, Idaho Falls and Twin Bridges, Montana have even longer days during the summer. It's great.
The drawback is that I'm about to embark on the scariest stretch of my trip from Twin Bridges to Butte: Two lane highway, no lights, probably no other traffic. Anyone who knows me knows I grew up as a city boy and one of my greatest fears in life (aside from flying) is being in an empty cornfield at night, when no one else is around...that shit is scary.
While I will not encounter any cornfields on this trip it'll be sufficiently creepy enough to freak me out. But once I'm in Butte it'll be all interstate and I'll be fine.
By the way, still no waitress with my check. The food was real good though, and the people are extremely friendly. Not like some other middle-of-no-where spots where everyone stares at you because they've never seen you before.
Just to kill a little more time until I can pay and get out of here, here's a few thoughts from my drive this evening:
- I always wondered why Idaho's northern border with Montana was shaped the way it is. It isn't a straight line, but there is no river or other body of water there. Today I found out why. It follows the Continental Divide. Interesting, I had no idea. The border was at an elevation of almost 7,000 feet.
- Montana is sort of like Nevada in that it has casinos all over, including in gas stations. I knew that poker was legal here, and that many bars also have poker rooms, but I did not know that they were all over the place. Actually, I haven't been in one of these gas station casinos yet, so maybe they aren't full blown casinos, but they advertised as if they were. This will require some further investigation.
Update on my bill: Still not here. One bank of lights has been shut off. This is getting amusing.
- Montana is gorgeous. So is Idaho, but the up here the Mountains look geologically younger (pointy tops and jagged edges, but they're surrounded by rolling smoothed out hills. My guess is they're sand dunes that eventually had grass grow over them, but I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Stonecipher Sr. about that, he'll know. Whatever the case, this place is physically stunning.
Alright, hope you enjoyed a few notes from Montana, and I hope I can get a bill or a free meal before they lock these doors for the night.
I'll report on the fate of my bill as soon as I have the chance.
Oh, and I hope there are no typos or anything, cause I am not spell checking or grammar checking, no time for that nonsense. So hope it's alright.
Ok...uhh...smoke coming out of the kitchen...
Not terrible yet, but more than there should be.
Ok, time to sign off so I can get out of here before the place burns down.
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