Montana Miscellany and the Abyssmarck (770 miles)

Glitter church.

Ending grade for Montana: Solid B. I liked it. I liked the people, and I never felt like a tentacled alien slithering from Applebee's to Applebee's pleading for a Glass of Watarrr with Sugarrrr. The countryside is beautiful this time of year, with the yellow long grass flowing under the shining sun. A sea of glowing grain. I also got a chance to hit up the Cracker Barrel while in Billings. This is a place that owns me lock, stock, and barrel, not just because of the food (which is consistently yummy) but because the front store is always full of exactly the kind of garbage I like to blow money on. Encrust it with glitter and I will give you my dollars.

Once out of Montana and into North Dakota, the land turned craggy and strange, and before I knew it I was upon the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I hadn't planned to visit, but it was right there, there was no entry fee, and they had bathrooms, so I stopped for a brief review.

Montana rest stops offer helpful signage in case you need to ID a cow.

It's a cool and strange place and I was glad I pulled over. I watched the biography of the Roosevelts on Netflix when I stayed in the casita in Magdalena (New Mexico), so I remembered that this was where Teddy traveled after his first wife and mother succumbed to typhoid fever on the very same day. He hunted, played ranger, and worked out his grief in North Dakota, if I recall correctly, and I can see how it would be a worthy distraction, though North Dakota can be awfully harsh. Though maybe that was part of it, too.

I also photographed some less dramatic parts of North Dakota along the way. There were waves of hills in places that reminded me a bit of the Palouse, and it was lovely to see while it lasted...after Bismarck and toward Fargo, North Dakota gets really familiar. It is almost exactly the same as Kansas (flat grasslands and tidy crops, with clutches of trees here and there).

Behind the restaurant, where no one goes. Forever alone.

After so much traveling, to circle back to the flatlands is both a relief and knife in the heart. I want to keep Wagon Training, Vern. But it does get lonely and tiring, there's no denying that. If someone had told me how much missing those furfaces that are my mom's cats and not my cats dammit would affect me, I wouldn't have believed them. There were nights, especially near the beginning, when I missed them so much I was almost in tears. Real, live human tears. For God's sake.

But finally I had reached North Dakota, and there was no more obvious a sign that I was nearing the end of my trip than the flattening out of the horizon to a rolling sameness dotted with clusters of haughty trees that refuse to die despite the abusive climate. 

A Taste Sensation!

Another sign of travel fatigue is having the same dish at Applebee's four times now. And while I am so tired of new things and thus falling back onto soft places more regularly, this also qualifies as a big endorsement of said dish. It's off the light side of the menu, believe it or not, and it is called Cedar Grilled Lemon Chicken. This dish is the everlovin BOMB. It is flavortastic and just filling enough. And you don't leave the restaurant feeling like smuck (trans: gravy smothered truck).

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Applebee's is also The Place, The Spot, The Jukejoint where all the hepcats hang in Billings, Bismarck, and Fargo. It was packed every night I went, and people were getting their drank on, like in a big way. Who knew, right? I always just thought of it as a place to take Grandma and Grandpa and get a halfway decent steak for like $12. 

Anyway, I guess it was destiny that something was going to go awry. My illnesses long past, I hadn't hit any significant bumps in the road since and had been having a pretty good run overall, enjoying the places I visited and staying at some truly stellar AirBNBs. 

On my way to Bismarck I received a text from the AirBNB host asking about my ETA. This is standard, and I try to be as flexible as possible since I don't have set agendas for the most part. I stated that I could be there between 6 and 7 and she said that would work. I specifically told her to let me know if she needed me to be there by a certain time.

Little did I know that not only was there no LTE service in the ND sticks, but there would be no LTE service again until I reached Fargo. Nevertheless, I was on track to make it to the AirBNB right before seven when I made a wrong turn.

Google maps can work even if you are out of range because the route loads from wherever you started. If I had started that day out of LTE or wifi range, I would have been screwed, but I'd gotten reception at the Starbucks on the way and had the map loaded and working...until I went off course. If you are in range, Google Maps will automatically reroute your course to get you where you need to go. If you are out of range, you have to look at the map on your phone and find your way back to the original course.

It is actually pretty amazing that Google Maps can do any of this in the first place, but a missed turn can complicate things if you are out of range and trying to hit a mark. 

Anyway, I ended up arriving just a tad late (7:05) to find the husband and daughter sitting out in the cold waiting for me. He was pacing and she was sitting on the steps. After a frosty introduction (they were late somewhere), the kid showed me around and I discovered some unpleasant truths about the place I was staying for the next two nights:

• The ad for the space said I would have my own bathroom on the same floor. It failed to mention I would have to walk across the entire ranch house through the dining room, filthy kitchen, two hallways, and a laundry room to get to it. In the pitch dark. While trying not to step on cats.
• The window in the bathroom was open when I got there. Upon closing it, a smell of permanent cat urine arose. 
• The whole house reeked of thick, heavy grease, not helped by the fact that the dirty pans were left out for at least a day. It smelled that way the entire time I was there. 
• My room door had no lock (nor did the bathroom).
• My room featured a plug in air fresher spewing out a floral fume, something I would have unplugged except for the stench of grease.
• The bathroom amenities included a used tube of toothpaste.
• The carpet was dirty and stained. 
• The man of the house was skulking around at all hours, even late at night and early in the morning, ever present as though he was making sure I wouldn't steal any of their rad stuff. He barely said a word to me when I would pass him. I never saw the lady of the house and only saw the one kid that first night. 
• The house was a general mess--stuff everywhere, clothes and miscellaneous crap...something I would not have cared about if everything else wasn't so shitty, but ya know. In for a penny.

When I was there I kept to my room and avoided leaving as much as possible. One of the problems I have with AirBNB is ME: I tend to be pretty awkward around strangers and absolutely hate staying at other people's houses, family included, with one exception: Mom. Because we grew up together. But strangers? I wasn't even sure I could do AirBNB the social anxiety was so overwhelming. 

But most of the time it really is fine. Sometimes there is awkwardness, or messiness, or little issues here and there. But it is usually just one or two things, not like, seven. So I'm deciding how to address it. I haven't reviewed the place yet. The standard operating procedure in the AirBNB community is to not ding people for minor infractions. You'll find it is very rare to have hosts with less than five stars across the board. Those that do have 4 or 4.5 stars usually don't have big complaints. Every once in awhile someone will go AWF but about 95% of the listings I've reviewed over the course of the past year have had little to no drama (and a lot of compliments, etc.).

The Bismarck place, by the way, had plenty of rave reviews. Either my standards are too high or they're just baldfaced lying. Or they have little or no experience with AirBNB. It's confounding.

It bothers me that they might retaliate out of spite, but I can probably get AirBNB to clear my name if need be. Is it not my duty to warn people that the ad doesn't match the reality? I wouldn't mention the skulker (I may just be sensitive and, as I've said, am already awkward), but I have to mention the mess, the stench, and the fact that the bathroom is all they way on the other side of the house. I guess I just feel bad openly criticizing other people. And if they were letting people stay for free, I could hardly complain...but if I'm paying to stay there? C'mon, man. Used toothpaste? Really? Are we mouthkissing next? What else?

All in all, though, the AirBNB experience has been pretty excellent. I will do a more thorough run down of the service after the trip concludes.

Montanaaaaaaa!

Leaving Dallas/Ft. Worth, Weatherford to Bell County Safety Area (164 mi.)

After I finished my visit to Lochwood, I felt like rambling around so I headed over to the Fort Worth Herd to check out the cattle drive. My friend Burke suggested it, probably because he knows I'd flip out over the cows. He wasn't wrong.

I had a snack at one of the establishments within Stockyards Station--a place called Riscky's Barbeque whose very name was begging for a bad time, but I would attribute what was off about the dish more to my late arrival than anything. My waitress was nice and the cook even asked how it was, so I lied and said Great! because it was a small thing, off hours, and I just wasn't feeling like a pill.

Patron!

I didn't stay to watch the herd actually drive from one place to another because I got to meet Patrón, a nice gentleman with long horns and a polite disposition whose entire job was to stand there while people paid $5 to sit on his back and take a picture. The young cowboy in charge of Patrón told me all about him, from the crusty, raised scar on his hiney (a bad brand from the original owner) to just how spoiled rotten Patrón was these days, eating good food, hanging out (the shifts are 2 hours max), getting full veterinary care, and of course getting cooed at all day long by weirdos like me. I thanked the cowboy for answering all of my questions (Patrón is 15, Patrón is the oldest in the lot, Patrón is not named for alcohol, he is named for the real meaning of the word which is The Boss) then asked him about the grackles because I figured at this point he knew everything. He confirmed that they were indeed crazy by nature, but were particularly whackadoodle in March because it is Mating Season (sound the horns! the incredibly loud, annoying horns!). That is what that chicka chicka coconut dance was all about. Seductionnnn (cue Barry White, chicka chicka coconut).

I decided it would be wrong not to visit Burke's town--Weatherford--since it was fairly close and would take me no time to get there. The fun thing about New York is how everyone seems to be from somewhere else, though it is more likely you will meet someone from Jersey than Weatherford or Wichita. Burke and I bonded over our Central/Southern connections, as there are so many similarities. But still, your hometown is always so different when seen through someone else's eyes. Hell, even people from the same place have different perceptions of that place, even though the landmarks are all the same (or close). My first AirBNB host was from Wichita, perhaps a generation older than me, and had very different stories from Wichita, primarily because he was a South sider while I was from Riverside. We could speak on things most people knew from Wichita, e.g. the South side hosted the unforgettable Joyland, with its scary, swaying coaster, and a possessed clown named Louie playing a Wurlitzer organ welcoming terrified children through the gates. But he referenced things I'd never heard of and streets that were unfamiliar, almost to a point where it seemed we couldn't be talking about the same town, until we'd stumble into another shared memory again.

From my POV, Weatherford was a standard, smallish town in Texas, with an abundance of churches and big trucks. When I texted Burke to let him know I was there, I was parked at the Family Dollar next to a Monster Truck--you know the kind, where the truck is jacked way up and the wheels are hilarious? I noticed a lot of auto shops when I drove through, specifically for detailing, so not grubby but semi fancy, and the Parker County Courthouse, which seemed the center of everything because it has a traffic loop around it, was a beautiful Victorian creature that looked oppressive, haunted, and superfun. Oh to go through the hallways! (Google has one review for this beautiful building--one star, apparently the people within it are ruuuuude, so here's hoping they sweat that and make a change in their hearts, but let's not, you know, hold our breaths).

Weatherford also had kitschy touches along the way (a strangely painted barn, lots of old, rambling Victorians painted to look the part) and it also had SuperTarget and Wal Mart, making it about as standard-issue American as it gets. I had threatened that I would find the Applebee's there, if they had one, and partake in the "local cuisine," and wouldn't you know it, they have one, and I did! It was an old Applebee's, too, you could smell the ghosts of cigarettes past. I got there early enough to get the cheap lunch special and witnessed a good number of retirees getting their drink on. At the closest table, the man kept sending his martini order back because that is not how they made them in Miami, then wouldn't let his wife have sweet tea because it had sugar in it. It was time to leave Weatherford.

It seemed like a town with potential, but as Burke says, so much has changed since we were young. Maybe it does now. I know Wichita is certainly different than the place I grew up.

I stayed in my car at the Bell County Rest Area, feeling much more confident than the first time around. However, the place was different, much more out in the open with no tree barrier between the rest stop and the highway, and there were a lot of very bright lights to try to block out. I did finally get settled in and situated, but noticed a lot of big rigs coming into the car side of the facility, which I gathered happens fairly often after everything I read about forced rest and increased trucking in general. I also thought it might be due to the fact that a big storm was coming, but that was just a guess. I fell asleep around 10, then was rudely awakened around 2:30 by thunder and the first smatterings of rain, I made a quick escape for the bathrooms (since by then it was necessary) and just as I was reaching the door, it started pouring.

The Bell County rest areas are just as nice as Navarro's, but I gotta tell you, there's some soul searching that goes on when you are drenched in a cold bathroom, shivering and staring at your own red eyes in the reflection at 2:30 in the morning. Like, who are you? Why are you here? Why did you dye your hair like that? Stop staring at me.

When the rain subsided I ran for the car. I'd had to close the windows so the interior was fast becoming some sort of cold steambox and I wondered if air was coming in (of course it was) and would I die (of course not) because it was 2:45 at that point and I was so tired, but the storm was wide awake and about to start hollering. As I tried to make myself go to sleep, the rain thundered against the roof of the car and lightning flashed on all sides. I was both cold and hot, covering up with a sheet only to kick it off minutes later. Finally, my tiredness took the reigns and I started to drift and relax a bit, eventually I got cold enough to need the big blanket (!) but once wrapped up, I cocooned into sleep for the rest of the night.

Can't wait to do it all over again!!