this is my 100th blog post, i wonder if i will get a telegram from the queen? my granny used to look so much like the queen that once some people followed her along and asked her for her autograph. she royally waved them away i believe.
well i have a lot to write about, so i will try to keep it snappy.
below (or above depending where it is) you will find a photo of our new home - a 33foot pace arrow 1985 motorhome. it's amazing, everything is in really good condition, we got it from an old couple round the corner - wayne and elaine - here in kalispell, who are too old to really use it. it had been garaged for a long time so is clean inside and out. it has a tape player, which doesn't seem to work very consistently - either that or it has very refined taste as it played a bach violin concerto tape but not an eric clapton one so far. we also bought a mountain bike for 10 dollars from wayne and elaine, and almost an old falcon road bike - when we took it to the bike shop for a once over they instantly said we cannot possibly work on this, our insurance wouldn't cover us, the frame is cracked and we would be liable if you fell off or worse, you would sue us. i wouldn't, i said, but i understand that this is america and that is the way it is here. we could have had the frame welded back where the crack was (it belonged to wayne and elaine's daughter whose husband was an alcoholic - they said looks like a head on collision type crash from the damage locations - i said that sounds about right for an alcoholic), but that and the respray would cost at least 300% more than we paid for it. shame as it was a cool old bike, with a union jack on the frame, built in lancaster, 1970's racer 10 speed, but he (the bike shop man) said i could pick one up undamaged for around 10 dollars anyway.
bert is busy cleaning all the nooks and crannies of the new home, there are a zillion tiny little cupboards, and from now on our existence will entail constantly putting things away in their little tiny cupboards exactly where they go, because as any caravanner knows, once chaos starts creeping in, it will be a downward spiral to mayhem inside our tiny little house. though it is small it is very spacious, there are enough beds to have 3 guests (preferably small guests, the size of borrowers would be good). there is a 4 burner stove, an oven (keeps turning itself off so our toast was just slightly warm bread so far), a microwave (very retro, just 2 dials to turn - time and heat level - doesn't need to be any more complex than this anyway i always thought), a shower, a toilet (separate), handy little night lights so you don't stub your toe on the way to the loo in the night, and a very cool washing line attachment. these are just some of the features readers. right now i'm writing this in the living room, sitting in an armchair which has a seatbelt so you can sit in it while driving along too, and it slides back and forward on little rails so you can be nearer or further away from your dinner/jigsaw puzzle/other diner.
we have had lots of fun outfitting the home solely from thrift shops (ie charity shops) in kalispell and whitefish. we have probably spent only $50 on all the bedding (including for extra 3 small guests), all kitchen equipment, including one of those swanky cheese slicers that have a wire and a little wooden board - hardly necessary but for 50 cents you can't argue, plus we already chopped some parmesan cheese on it. i also got a cool little bag with a blue helicopter on it, a jigsaw (cheap entertainment is what we need now we have spent all our money on our new home), 8 old national geographics ranging from 1964 to 1988 (which was its 100 anniversary issue, can you believe they started in 1888?), a really cool old crocheted rug with purple, orange and green stripes, and 2 small boxes with filing folder things in to file our bits of paper away and stash in a cupboard. bert got a woolly check pattern montana shirt thing too, which when worn with his cowboy boots and levis and cowboy hat makes him look like a real montanan - which he is, i'll be darned.
in a concerted effort to keep the blog snappy and more digestible, i will contain myself to the highlights of the last few weeks, rather than a day by day list of my every movement. the first week here, which was august 16th onwards, we stayed with robert's cousin vic in whitefish. he has a dog called pearly and a cat called chester. chester is really cute and fluffy and friendly. robert and vic got up early and went to have saunas and the like at some club that vic is a member of - i slept in and awaited the crunch of the tires on the gravel outside then leapt out of bed and pretended i'd been up for hours.... not convincing. robert brought back coffee and mini muffins for breakfast for me which were really tasty, but not a good diet to get started on. it's hard not to put weight on in america, i am a medium fat fatty now.
tuesday 18th august
we went on a drive up the going to the sun highway, which basically crosses glacier national park, and you get to look at all the mountains and views and lakes and trees from your car. this road was built in the 30's and made a whole load of the park accesible to tons of people - the only other way to see it all is to hike in and camp etc, and not everyone likes that sort of thing. we stopped at the visitor centre at logan's pass and looked at the books and at the view, and i voiced my amazement that tea and coffee wasn't served there. only to bert though, not to the management. we walked a bit and saw some goats and on the way back we looked at a bear on a rocky promontory (keep reading for the real bear story). we stopped later in east glacier and had some huckleberry pie, served a la mode, which means with ice cream. it was great stuff. i didn't know huckleberrys were real berries, i thought they were just the first name of huckleberry finn. i asked if they could warm up the huckleberry pie and she said no because of the type of gelatin used in the pie. i thought it would be fine warmer but she seemed pretty final on the matter so i didn't pursue it.
wednesday 19th august
we went up a cable car to the top of whitefish mountain, which is a ski resort, but obviously not in the summer. we walked back down which took around 2 hours. we noticed that most people walk up it and take the cable car back down. i actually think that walking downhill is often harder than walking uphill, so i vouch that we were taking the harder option to all those cissy uphill walkers. we picked some raspberries and huckleberry finns from the side of the trail, and saw lots of chipmunks, which are the cutest animals ever, kind of like small squirrels. they race around all over the rocks and in and out of trees and branches. bert used to have 2 pet ones called chip and dale colier (their surname referring to colier park, oregon, where he got them (taken from the wild - with the famous old stick and box trick)) - bert's dog tipped the cage over and chip and dale got away, chip went and lived in the gopher holes in the ground. bert's dad was drowning the gopher holes later on and accidentally drowned chip. dale ended up in a local bar, and became famous. bert tried to get him back but his mum wouldn't let him because he was such an attraction at the bar by now. that evening we went to some bars in whitefish with vic's son riley. there are some cool old bars in whitefish, and in montana in general - seems you can still smoke in them, but i think that is soon changing - it's certainly weird to see that these days, and especially in america, which i thought was one of the first places to ban it in public. perhaps that was just certain states though.
something else of note today was that whilst hiking down the mountain, we passed a boy running up the mountain - he really was running, but not even sweating and not even a little bit red in the face. we were really impressed and watched him in amazement. about 40 minutes later, he passed us again, this time running downhill. we watched him in amazement again, and figured he must be training for an iron man or some huge athletic event. about 20 minutes later, he ran past us again, going back up the hill. ditto re the amazement.. he may have broken into a very small sweat at this point, but it might just have been us hallucinating, or maybe some of our sweat had got in our eyes and blurred our vision thus making him look sweaty when actually he wasn't at all.
thursday 20th august
we went out on flathead lake with vic's business partner corey and his wife liz, and another couple called bill and mikki (a girl. i think it's short for michaela). we did surfing off the back of the boat, where you hold on with a rope and surf the wake of the boat - it's not the same as wake boarding which is where you aren't attached by a rope and you go sideways jumping over the wake. it's my first time ever doing this and it was very cool, i managed to stay standing for a whole 4 or 5 minutes, all were very impressed. the lake is beautiful, it's the biggest natural lake west of the great lakes (ie those big ones in illinois - lake michigan etc). it was chilly water, to be expected really, but so clear - you don't have to freak out about monsters because you can see what's in there. i think a fish did swim past my leg at one point though so i did some screaming - a bit more subdued than the kind of screaming i'd do in a belizean river, due to america being a bit more civilized. we jumped in from some rocks and looked at some old stone age wall paintings of buffalo on one big rock. i'm not sure if any of those facts are actually correct in that last bit of the sentence, but there were definitely some little blobs of paint on a rock. we oohed and ahed at the amazing houses on the lakeside, there is so much money in america it's really incredible. such big cars and houses and highways and dinners. a rather incredible fact is that 12% of the population in the US live below the poverty line - from being in montana you would not know that poverty existed. i guess it is in places like LA, new york etc where that statistic comes from - everyone here is pretty much living the american dream from what i can see.
legend has it that sylvester stallone has a house on flathead lake. and legend also has it that a man held up a plane back in the good old days when you could get away with this sort of thing, and got a million dollars, and then jumped out with a parachute and apparently lives in flathead valley with all his money. legend also has it that a hang glider pilot landed in a high mountain meadow and was trying to hike out but was never found but his parachute and equipment was, and legend has it that perhaps he got eaten by a bear. what a way to go. more on this subject (bears) if you keep reading. he had a happy life and wife, so they don't think it was a suicide/witness relocation thing. perhaps the bear that ate him did not have a happy life or wife however.
friday 21st august
we went to a rodeo. i had my first ever chilli dog - a hot dog with chilli on it - and some of bert's root beer. a rodeo consists of these various events involving horses, bulls, buffalos and people. the first was the indian relay race - real modern day indians who race round a course, then jump off that horse and on to another one and do another lap. i couldn't follow what was going on too well, but it was exciting nonetheless. there was bull riding, where a bull tries to throw off its rider in a big angry tantrum - this was impressive, but scary when they get thrown off and it seems they are going to get their heads trodden on by the angered bull; there was some lassooing where 2 people on horses have to lassoo a little bull by his horns and feet; another one where you have to lassoo it by its neck then jump off your horse and wrap up 3 of its feet with a rope while your horse stands as a counterweight to the roped up calf whose trying to wiggle his way out of the rope. you have to make sure it's definitely 3 legs you rope up though, if you do 1, 2 or 4 you'll lose points. don't ask me why, i really don't know. the piece de resistance was undoubtedly the last round, which was one of the funniest things i have ever seen - a team of 3 small children, around 8 years old i'd say, hold on to a rope, at the end of which a wild pony (like a shetland pony) leaps and jumps around and tries to get away - the kids are literally being pulled along through the mud by the pony, and flying all over the place, trying desperately to hold on and work their way up the rope - then as if that wasn't enough one of the kids has to jump on the pony and stay on for 2 jumps - a couple of the teams managed this, only to be flung right off into the mud to the great amusement and applause of the crowd. it's all safe and no animals or children were hurt. the rodeo announcer all the while is shouting at them 'get on for 2 jumps!! come on kids!! 2 jumps!'. one kid hobbled away with a mangled knee after the pony managed to kick him. and that was the end of that, all good wholesome fun.
more to come soon, including the bear story. xx
ps please excuse the advert below this blog, but apparently i can make money if i let people advertise on my blog - i think every time someone clicks on an advert i get a halfpenny or something like that. better than a poke in the eye i figured.
a huge pyrocumulus cloud in jellystone park - some of the park was on fire, which can cause a type of cumulus called pyro (meaning fire) cumulus - this one was massive and growing fast, as was our fear as we had to drive right through the smoke and smouldering trees to get to that night's campsite... the ranger told abi and andrew not to stop in their car when going through the fire even if they saw a bear on fire doing cartwheels across the road.
some gummy bears which accompanied us on our hike in jellystone park, you can see some gangrene has set in on the transparent one's right foot. we had to eat him.
