The Montana Effect

With only minor details left to finish our home, we've seriously started considering where we would like to move. My dream as a little girl was to own a horse ranch in Montana. I would raise Arabians and Thoroughbreds out West. Then I married a man who is extremely allergic to alfalfa and is weary of hay, and my dreams went down the drain. Or so I thought. Bryan announced his dream location would be to live in Montana, or even the eastern side of Idaho (nearest to Yellowstone of course). And with that, we decided to go on a whirlwind weekend trip of Montana to feel out our dreams a little.
We started Friday eventfully as always. I wanted to take a rental car on our short trip for two reasons: a)it would have air conditioning that worked AWESOME and b)if the car happened to break down, the rental company would show up with another one. When we showed up at noon to pick up our rental, a note on the door promised a certain Nancy would be back at 2:30. The note had a phone number to call which we did and were greeted by a blast of rudeness. Why hadn't we been there at 9 am to pick up the vehicle? But that didn't matter as there was no vehicle there at 9 am to pick up, so we could wait until she was back, which would be 2:15. Huh? Our pick up time was noon. Godsmacked by this, Bryan called Avis command. The operator put us on hold while she contacted the agent, and was given the same routine. And I thought Avis tried harder! We drove over to Enterprise to see if we could get a car there, but all they had was an Expedition that would cost twice as much in rental fees, and triple that in fuel. In the end, we waited and ended up with a Camry, which was mostly comfortable.
Finally on our way at 3 pm, we quickly headed to Pocatello, our first stop. The store there was nice. We even saw an employee who had worked at Logan. She ran over, so excited to see us and say hi. We got back in the car and drove around Pocatello some. It's definitely the same town I remember as a teenager. Full of nice people, but pretty dirty. It wouldn't be too bad to be at this location. Our next stop was Idaho Falls. As we drove into the south end of town, there was a small plane crop dusting the fields. We drove right past the exit that would have allowed us to take great pictures. At the next exit, we noticed another crop duster, so hurried off and drove straight to the field it was dusting. He passed over head as we parked, banked to turn around and flew off. We found our way across the freeway and stopped just in time to watch him fly off to another field. And we missed him again at the third and final field. So much for third time's the charm. Bummed about our misfortune, we made our way to the Idaho Falls store, which is in a clean part of town. We were quite surprised. We've heard time and time again how clean Idaho Falls is, but each time we go through here for Yellowstone we exchange sideways glances; yeah, right. We stayed over night in Idaho Falls, and spent the evening looking over the town for a great spot to watch the air show (by the way, the air show is July 24 weekend and is being headlined by the Blue Angels). After twelve trips through Yellowstone, we finally found the Idaho Falls everyone speaks about. We could definitely live here. We woke at the crack of dawn and had breakfast at Bubba's. Bubba's also has a location in Jackson, which has the same great BBQ dinner, but Jackson has a far superior breakfast. We drove straight north to Missoula. The store here is nice too but the town is somewhat dirty. One other misfortune is the airport, which happens to be about 1/2 a mile away. And why so bad? If corporate decides to make house calls, it makes this store a prime pick. But then again that could be good if you work hard and keep a tight ship. We had lunch at the Staggering Ox, which had sandwiches like the Clinton Shuffle and Yo Mamma Osama and Camel Spit. The bread was divine, and the sandwich would've been great if the mayo hadn't been too sweet, but it was better than the typical fast food. Next was Helena. We decided on the long route, which happened to go by a ghost town. We found our way up the mountain to discover we had come during Garnet Days. This meant the 'ghost town' had more people in it than when it was a 'live town'. Unfortunate for pictures, but we made do. We only went inside one building, which was the hotel. It still had quite a bit of the furniture in it, and the original wallpaper. The town had originally been found back in the 1860s, and then died out around the 1880s, but had a revival during the 1890s which lasted through the 1930s. When World War II struck, the men left to fight the Germans as most of the gold was already gone. On our way down the mountain, we stopped at a view point which gave a magnificent panorama of the valley, and at a small cemetery that had only five graves. These men had no family and no history. All that was known was their name and the date they had died. The placard here mentioned the cemetery was small as most of the town had money and would be buried in city graveyards. These poor five souls had gone to strike it rich and had died before anyone knew who they really were. We continued on our way and finally arrived in Helena, which is an extremely dirty town. The store here was a mess. There was quite a bit to see with Helena being the capitol. We stopped at the capitol building and at a cathedral which had beautiful character. It also had an extremely friendly kitty who said hi to us, and then tried to say hi to the homeless guy's dog. We drove through downtown Helena and took lots of pictures of the old ads you could still see on the side of the buildings. The original buildings here have survived over the years and are more historic than most of the 'historic downtowns' we've seen. We also took a jaunt up the canyon and found the Grizzly Gulch Limestone Kilns. Sadly, Helena is at the bottom of our list. It's a town that has grown quite large, but doesn't have the population to support it.
Our last day of driving we had breakfast at the local IHOP. Our waitress seated us next to the only other customers in the restaurant, which happened to be a group of six teenage girls. My first thought of their extremely loud conversation made me think get your head out of the gutter. There was no way I was hearing what I thought I was. But after we ordered I realized I had heard what I thought. Then one of the girls started hushing the others, as one said to the other that twelve was too young to be saying that kind of stuff. I turned around and realized we were by a group of 13-14 year olds, and the topic of their conversation was horrific. But each comment I thought of making was inappropriate, even if I said what they were talking about was inappropriate. Finally they left, which Bryan clapped to. When we finished, we realized they were all sitting in the lobby waiting for a ride from their parents. As we walked out the door, one said good morning which Bryan replied "It was until you were here." and I burst out laughing. It was one of those moments where you couldn't have stopped yourself if you had tried. Personality two had taken over and pushed you aside with "I've got this." Oh well. As we drove to Bozeman, I didn't pay enough attention to the road signs and missed our turn. About twenty minutes later I realized the mistake and we turned back. Bozeman turned out to be beautiful. It was the cleanest store, and the town was amazing. It felt a lot like Logan. Who knows if we'll ever be lucky enough to get this store, but it's a dream, right? We then drove straight to Yellowstone. The last time we drove through on our way home from a trip, it was after 5 days of winding, rainy roads from Logan to Reno to San Francisco, up the coast to Seattle and straight over to Coeur d'Alene. I told Bryan we could stay until we saw a bear. Ten minutes into the park we saw one and I dictated Bryan home. So for giggles, I said as soon as we see a bear we'll turn and head home. And ten minutes in? We saw two bears! They were courting black bears. After much fits of laughter, we headed further into the park and saw another black bear off the side of the road. Then a fourth bear! The fourth bear was climbing the side of the hill to cross the road after watering at the small stream below. The log jam of cars and large crowd of people caused the ranger to scare the bear back down to the stream. This was not working well, as the bear moved along the hill to try and cross again, by us. I threw in the towel and made Bryan do so as well. We went around the next bend and there was bear number five! The crowd here kept talking about a Grizzly with cubs so we ventured on. Bear six, seven and eight were Grizzlies, that happened to crest the hill right after we stopped. In all, we saw eight bears in an hour! Happy with our sightings, we finally started the trek home. On the edge of Jackson Lake we ended up behind a yellow Chevy Aveo that was driving like a maniac. She would dart to the edge of the road as though to stop and then take off again. I kept telling Bryan to pass her, but an opportunity never presented itself. Luckily the car went straight when we turned to go to Jenny Lake. The parking lot for the lake was packed, so we drove down a ways and took pictures from a new location. We stopped in Jackson Hole for dinner at New York City Sub. While waiting for our sandwiches to be made, another customer came in to order. The gal at the register said they only had one half of a foot long left. After her order, the sign for 'just ran out of bread' was hung. Did we luck out or what! The drive through Jackson Hole to Bear Lake was uneventful and long. Just before we entered Logan Canyon, Bryan stopped to get one last picture. It was a quick one, as the mosquitoes were out and biting fast. Bryan loves the road through Logan Canyon and had a blast hauling as fast as he could until....a small yellow Chevy Aveo stopped us. It was just like Guy Ritchie's movies, but we didn't have any funny jokes to tell. And we wouldn't have been able to any ways as we were laughing too hard.