Day Two: Leaving the US and heading into Canada

(Alright, alright clearly I made it to Alaska because I am blogging again, but it’s going to take me a little time to catch up on the day by day blog. So, bear with me while I try to give you the daily breakdown of this 6 day trip). I told you this blog could put you to sleep. . . .

On day two (June 24th – Happy Birthday Dad!) Tess and I awoke in Billings, Montana and I implemented my plan to keep Tess relatively sane as I drive her across the country. Besides drugging her with Chinese herbs, I have decided to run the fear out of her. That’s right. Tess and I have officially begun Operation Fitness for Fear (FFF). Ideally the 30+ minutes of running in the morning will tire Tess out enough to get her to chill a bit in the car. The Dog Whisperer would be so proud. And, lest you think Operation FFF is all about Tess, let me assure you, it also benefits me. That’s right. Operation Fitness for Fear should help me avoid abstinence due to obesity, a significant fear of mine! (Sorry mom! It’s the truth)!

After our run, Tess was sufficiently subdued so she relaxed in the cab of the truck while I adjusted the load in the back. I’ve already mentioned the fact that I packed the truck up a little heavier than my Dad would approve, and as a consequence I kept fretting every time I went over a bump. So, after about 45 minutes of repacking the back, I was able to get the height between the wheel and the wheel well to increase by about half an inch. Was it worth the effort? Probably not. Will I stress out about it again at some point in this trip and repack it all again? Probably.

The “silver” lining of re-packing the truck is that I was able to discover an unfortunate incident before it became a terrible accident. I had packed all of my “cosmetics” into a backpack in the back of the truck. Cosmetics for me, means anything that smell girly. So: toothpaste, soap, shampoo, conditioner, hair goop, mouth wash, sunscreen and 409. Of course, because I am a safety girl, I put everything in Ziploc bags so that if anything exploded it wouldn’t leak all over the place. Sadly, I did this with everything except the 409. This isn’t really a cosmetic at all! Explosion. Oh yes. It was in a plastic bag, but not a Ziploc. So, needless to say, my cosmetic bag is now REALLY clean. Boring but true.

After I finished cleaning up the 409 carnage, giving Tess her Chinese herbs, showering and packing up the car, I decided to take a picture of the motel, right next to the porn shop as a form of documenting my trip. Now, admittedly, I was taking a lot of pictures from a lot of different angles, so I am sure that I looked suspicious. But, less than two minutes after I was out of the truck I heard this person saying “excuse me sir . . . ” in an aggressive voice. This is certainly not the first time that someone has mistaken me for a man. Hell, people in Korea thought I was a boy when I was five years old. I am used to it. And, when I am wearing Carharts and a baseball cap and someone is yelling at me from about twenty-five yards away, I can definitely understand their confusion. But, given the fact that I was photographing a porn sign, and I was a big ol’ lesbian in the middle of Montana, I didn’t really want to chat with or correct the guy who was calling me “sir.” Nevertheless, he kept yelling at me, so I finally walked over to him and tried to figure out what I was going to say to him. Well. Lo and behold, he was a she too! As we met in the middle of that dirt parking lot of the adult bookstore I felt a kinship with that Montana lesbian. I think she felt it too. Her tone softened significantly and she said “um, hey, I was just wondering why you were taking pictures of our sign. Is it too high?” And I just chuckled and told her the truth, “Oh no! I just thought it was great that my motel was right next to a porn shop!” We both laughed and nodded in understanding as we made small talk before I hit the road. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this was a DEEP connection, but it was memorable!

A random note: When I go on long road trips I tend to chew a lot of gun and sing. A LOT. Right before I went on this trip I had a couple of old fillings replaced. Sadly, the bite on one of the new fillings isn’t quite right, so after just one day on the road I had to stop chewing gum for 10 hrs a day. This means that the singing had to carry a larger part of the “keep Kate awake” load. Luckily, my friend made me a bunch of CD’s before I left. I’m not going to lie. I like the Pop CD the best. Who is this Jesse McCartney fella anyway!?

Cute/Pretty/Unique Observations from Day 2:
I love small towns. I specifically love small towns in the heartland, places like Montana, and Alberta, Canada. There’s something welcoming about driving through a town that’s four blocks long, where the guy in the Ford heading the opposite way on Main Street gives you the simple car wave. The kind of wave where your thumb still holds onto the steering wheel, but your fingers swing up to acknowledge the other person’s passing. I love that wave. I do it whenever I can. I don’t care if it makes me seem like a poser. I love towns where I can wave like that. I love towns with one Mercantile and one repair shop. I love towns that are so small that as you’re bumping along at 15mph you can see an old guy on his porch. Just sitting there. Letting time roll by. Taking in the day.

I love those small towns, but I love the land that surrounds those small towns just as much. Montana and Alberta are farm country. Hay and tall grass and deep greens and blues surround you wherever you turn. When the wind blows that grass around you can see all the different shades of green undulating in a crazy and completely unique pattern. If you take a minute or two to glance up at the sky you won’t be disappointed either. It truly is big sky country. There’s blue sky every where you turn, and dotted amongst it is a bevy of clouds. In Colorado we tend to get pillow-y clouds. In Chicago you usually get a sheet, a layer of clouds. But in Montana, you get a whole mixture of clouds: big poofy ones and thin, sheet-like ones, and even some that look like they’ve been left by airplanes. In addition, this time through Montana, I also saw waves in the sky. They weren’t really clouds, but somehow (and I wasn’t on drugs) there were very clear waves in the blue sky (we’ll see if they come out in the pictures). It was beautiful. If I could figure out how to get to Montana on a weekend, without having to travel through Wyoming, I’d go there once a month, just to watch the grass grow and an occasional horse chew it.

White Horses Game Update: Tess 491, Kate 0. In a stunning upset, Tess was able to pull out a last second victory when she spotted a Pet Cemetery right outside of Red Deer, Alberta where were stopped for the night. As rule # 612 of the White Horse Game clearly states “If anyone spots a Pet Cemetery they must immediately forfeit all of their Horses to the dog in the car. If there is more than one dog in the car, then the most skittish dog wins.” Clearly Tess wins on all fronts.