Montana the beautiful

After my summer job fell through I needed to find a way to occupy my summer (this was before I found out about my San Antonio road trip), so I decided to see my most excellent ex roommate Emily Jane in her town of Bozeman Montana. Thought I would include the highlights since it would be impossible for me to describe all the amazingness.

Day One (Friday evening)

Friday was the amazing day of flying wet and making Emily waiting too long. On the car ride (back) to Bozeman, with Emily and her comic book fan/friend Kenny (who lent me Final Crisis), Emily talked about her friend Alex (a boy) who would come to stay for a couple days. When we arrived at her house and I saw this friend Alex, I turned to Emily and said "You could have told me that I know Alex." Alex is in my class at Grinnell.

Day Two (Saturday)

Emily had to work in the morning so Alex and I went to Main St. and watched a parade-well it was more like walking next to a parade. We took in all the amazing floats which were affiliated with various local businesses/groups. The only float we couldn't place was a giant duck float which kind of looked paper mached. Whenever its beak opened someone on a loud speaker said 'duck'!

We met Emily for lunch at an excellent burger place. Fox news was on a TV screen in the restaurant. They were covering the crash of an airplane and a helicopter nonstop (the accident had happened four hours earlier and they were still calling it breaking news). We made fun of the news coverage because they were really reaching for details at that point-a child was killed (Oh no! That's awful.) and the plane was filled with Italian tourists (Oh, that's OK then).

The parade was part of the bigger Bozeman Sweet Pea Festival (a music and arts festival). Emily, Alex and I went to the festival later that evening (after a hike up a mountain and a visit to Emily's church) to hear Afro-Cuban music. We danced for about five seven minute songs (I think I've found the one type of music I can almost successfully dance to). After dancing I met my first batch of Emily's friends. At one point all the leaders of the conversation went upstairs and the shy people down stairs (yes, that included me) joked about how socially awkward we are.

Day Three (Sunday)

Emily and I had to say goodbye to Alex around noon and, almost immediately after, Emily left for work (she has three jobs). I took a walk around two lakes with Em's mother and her sister Mary. Little did I know that I would return to the lakes much later that day for more fun.

In the evening Emily and I picked up two of her friends (Beth and Victor!) who were stranded in a parking lot. We were headed to a barbecue (at Beth's house) with more of Em's friends (this was my second batch of greetings, but it included two people from the previous night (Marilee and Trevor). On the way to Beth's apartment we experienced the greatest cosmic setup ever; we all saw...a chicken crossing a very busy road. Obviously the chicken crossed the road to avoid becoming roadside dinner.

The B-B-cue was fun and involved me playing Mario Party on Wii pretty poorly. Kenny showed up late and we discussed how Final Crisis makes no sense-stupid Grant Morrison you think you're so cool and trippy, but really you're just the jerk who killed Batman. The party broke up when a neighbor complained about the noise, but Em, Trevor, Merilee and I went to hang out on a grassy hill smack dab in the middle of the two lakes I walked around earlier.

Day Four (Monday)

Em's sis, Mary, had a friend (onagainoffagainonagainoffagain boyfriend) Tony visiting. While Em was at work in the morning (once again) I tagged along on a hike with Mary and Tony at a place called Hyalite. Let me just say that Montana is absolutely gorgeous. No matter where you are you are surrounded by mountains. The waterfalls at Hyalite were especially pretty.

In early evening I satisfied a Dairy Queen craving and Em and I went to a park. By this day I had been on two/three hikes. Em suggested we take a walk in the park. About ten minutes later I slowly realized 'wait a second, this is not a walk. This is a hike-you tricked me!'. We had a deep conversation about societal expectations and religion.

Em, Trevor, and I had a relaxing night watching The Queen at Trev's house. Trev ended up being the friend of Em I saw the most. He is quite a character, really nice and generally awesome.

Day Five (Tuesday)

Mmm, chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Em's friend Victor came for a chat on the porch. He likes fishing and hunting and goes to a strict catholic school in Florida. Then, Em went to work, but Victor hung around and I talked with him, Tony and yet another one of Em's friends-Sarah. Sarah is a fellow sociology major (Anthropology double major). She's very religious, nice and has the distinction in her social group of never wanting children. Em and I had talked at the park about the basic expectation in Montana for a woman to get married, quit her job and have kids. Many of Sarah's friends insist she will change her mind, but I think Sarah is an example of a woman who is not afraid to admit what she wants, even if it goes against peer pressure and society expectations.

Tuesday night Em and I (Emigail) watched 'Step Up' with Lois (the baby of the family). She kept on getting angry at Emigail for making sarcastic comments at cliched scenes. Come on! How could I possibly watch 'Step Up' without snarking?

Day Six (Wednesday)

This was Em's only complete day off. We picked up Kenny (who has comic books, but no car) and went to a bagel place that really loves to slather on cream cheese. We decided to have a picnic at a place with water and went to Safeway to grab supplies. At one point we saw a watermelon and Emily asked if we wanted to get it. My question was; "Where would we get a knife to cut it". This put Kenny and Em over the edge and they basically laughed at me. Why? Because I had betrayed just what an East coaster I am. In Montana everyone carries a knife and has a gun in their car.

Trevor joined us for the picnic (and insisted on driving even though Em is by no means a bad driver). It was fun, except there was no sun to be seen anywhere. Em, Trev and Kenny all swam in the freezing cold water-I didn't have a bathing suit so I carried their clothes and was eaten alive by mosquitos (my bug bites itch at this very moment). When thunder and lighting appeared we returned to Em's house. Emily made two different types of cookies because the first batch wasn't perfect enough. Kenny and I took turns at the piano (Kenny is a music major and Trev has been playing piano for thirteen years, but I was the only one in the room who could actually read music). After I butchered some Phantom of the Opera on piano we decided to watch the actual movie, until we decided to play Super Smash Brothers (with Tony, Mary and Lois-Em's littlest sister)-I think Kenny had a lot of fun beating me (I was being a little annoyingly competitive). We (Kenny, me, Em, Trev, Mary, Lois) played Scattergories. My favorite part was when one of the items on the list was 'a four letter word' and we had rolled an F for that round. I got the point because I was the only one who really went there. We all had dinner, Kenny Em and I watched some YouTube (Tapiocaaaa!), then we called it a night.

...To be continued