Trip to Billings Part 2

Up and at 'em. We awoke at the crack of 11:00am, trying to recover from 21 hours of driving and a night of poisoning our livers. Our objective was a small diner, The Tippy Cow, 279 East Airport Rd. We had to leave soon; had to beat the church crowd. Off and away we went, driving down the road in the typical Montana style of not wearing seat belts. They just don't do that out there you know? In a land of wind and cold and sky and wolverines and bears and a whole other myriad assortment of dangers, threats, hazards and things that could kill you in a matter of moments, the wearing of a seatbelt is just something of great unimportance. There's more things on the mind. More things to worry about than buckling up. Like getting to The Tippy Cow before the church crowd. Very important stuff!

As you could have guessed, we didn't beat the church crowd. Or any crowd for that matter. The place was totally packed. People lined up out the door. Old people. Young people. Some had beards. Some didn't. Families, couples, loners, outsiders, goofballs, crackheads, vagabonds. The whole human scene was there, waiting outside for some good ol' American cookin'. We left. Tomorrow we would try again.

Instead, we dined at a place known as Montana Jack's. Unfortunately for us we were unable to meet the proprietor of this fine dining establishment; he was likely off somewhere else, engaging in the local activities of the state. Oh well. The visit with Mr. Montana Jack would have to take place some other time. At least it provides a reason to return, you know?

Hashbrowns,  biscuits 'n gravy, three generous cuts of bacon and eggs. Over easy. That's the only way to eat 'em. The meal wasn't very good and it wasn't very bad. It did its job of breaking the nightly starvation session known as sleep so we were pretty content. Plus there was a great selection of hot sauces. Tabasco original and Tabasco the green one. The only two flavors you need. I put so much hot sauce on my meal that Daniel commented that I had "gotten some eggs in my tabasco sauce." I had also picked a good amount of earwax out of my left ear with the help of my pinky finger, only noticing that the waitress watched me do it. As I turned my gaze upon the wax covered finger I made direct eye contact with her, pinky in the air, holding it up as if it were an offering. Maybe it's best we don't go back there. At least for a while. 

After brunch we made our way over to a monument exhibiting mankind's triumph over the natural world: SCHEELS. Daniel needed to replace his rod; this was the place to do it. At 220,000 square feet, this sporting goods store was quite the sight. Upon our first gaze Benny and I were impressed with the sheer size of this thing. It was utterly gargantuan. About the size of the dilapidated, decrepit, derelict, dying, broken-down, battered and soon to be abandoned Pacific View Mall. Yes. One building. One store. The size of a mall. Twenty foot tall copper statues of outdoorsmen being outdoorsy stand guard at the entrance. There's also two busts of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for some reason but just wait till you get inside! They got an aquarium. A Ferris wheel. Hundreds of taxidermied creatures. They even taxidermied President Lincoln. You can see him on the second floor delivering the Gettysburg address. The modern world is a fascinating place.

A fearsome American beast. The bear's cool too I guess.

Holy cannoli! A Ferris wheel!

We passed underneath the visually stunning aquarium. It stretched from one wall to the other, hollow tunnels carved in between allowing customers to travel hither and thither inside this whimsical consumerist paradise. We walked to the shoe section. The fishing section. The home decor section. The gun section. Oh my oh man oh my. The gun section. Pistols, carbines, shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles, automatic rifles, and personal defense weapons galore. Some were black. Some were camouflaged. Some possessed that butrycaceous, rainbow-like hue that oil takes on when floating on water. This section took up about a fourth of the second floor. It also had the highest density of customers in the entire store. I couldn't tell why. On the opposite side of the building, directly perpendicular to President Lincoln, sat a taxidermied Thomas Jefferson reading aloud the Declaration of Independence! Who wouldn't want to see that? You can gawk at guns in most other stores. Walmart comes to mind. But you know something that Walmart doesn't have? THOMAS JEFFERSON! Why there wasn't a crowd of thousands standing before him in astonishment was beyond me. No one was over there. No one listened to Lincoln either. Too busy looking at the rainbow splattered Bergara Exclusive B-14 HMR Rifle $1,049.99. 

With rod replaced we then headed off into the mountains. It was too windy to fish so we decided to just go for a little drive through the backcountry. On the interstate we buckled our seatbelts. Traveling 25mph through a residential neighborhood without a seatbelt is a lot safer than going 95mph on the interstate. We could die, you know? Even though Montana Jack probably goes beltless on I-90 we were playin' it safe. 

The Beartooth Mountains

Off and away we drove, off the interstate, deep into the hinterland. No agenda on our minds. No itinerary to follow. It was just us, the road, the mountains and the snow. The environment here was much different than back home. Just yesterday we were in 80 degree weather. Springtime in So-Cal. And now—this. A primeval landscape of withered evergreen pines and ice and snow and wind and cold. Even though it was only 45 out, hardly considered winter by Montana standards, the cold was foreign to us. The landscape, unfamiliar, yet stunning. Quiet and tranquil. I could see why so many fall in love with the beauty of Montana. Big sky. Magnificent terrain. That's what it's all about my friend. 

As we drove along Daniel introduced us to Wild Bill Lake. It was completely frozen over, solid enough to stand on. We got out and walked around, slid on the ice. No one else was there. We had the whole place to ourselves. Until we didn't. A nice family walked out along the boardwalk, looking confusedly at the grown ass men sliding like idiots on the frozen lake. It's never too old to have fun. 

Goofin' around on the lake

After discovering that it's pretty hard to walk normally on ice (unless there's decent snow to provide ample traction and grip) we continued our drive through the country. We moved further and further away from civilization. There's only a million people that reside in Montana. 100,000 live in Billings alone. The towns we passed through were few and far between. Lot's of land out there. Makes you feel real small. About as small as the towns. Tiny little towns. No more than a 100 souls each. What does one do there? What's life like out there? What is the daily routine? What kind of folks live in places like that? And for how long? And for what reason? Are they upset that their town doesn't have a SCHEELS? Who knows! Questions like these raked my mind as we drove on and on, the sky above our heads stretching off into infinity.

We drove and drove and drove until we reached Wyoming. With only 578,000 people in the entire state, we figured our destination probably wasn't anything urban. But you know what? You could hide an entire metropolis out there and no one would know. It's that massive. Our car just a tiny speck floating along an endless sea of earth. We were insignificant. We were nothing. Just passing through a landscape that has seen eons and epochs and eras of monumental change. The stories the rocks could tell. The things they've seen. The mountains and the valleys and the ground under our feet. We looked upon the landscape, and it looked back at us. We were just another moment. Just a blip in the cosmic timeline. 

Endless Earth

You could hide a city in that valley 

We left the asphalt in substitution for dirt, placing us deeper into the realm of the unfamiliar. We wanted isolation. We wanted desolation. We wanted solitude. Not for meditation. For shootin' guns! After making our way down a dirt road for a ways we finally pulled over and set up a few cans. The scene was ethereal. The sound of Daniel's single barrel, pump action shotgun echoing off into the sky. The sky, an infinite empyrean wonder, absorbing these sounds with ease. It was the first time I ever shot a gun, and I wouldn't have asked for a better setting. There we were, alone in the boundless earth, the sky above our heads and the wind blowing through our hair. Nothing but the sounds of the shotgun inhabiting the landscape, until they too, disappeared forever. The evidence of us being there will be lost in time. The noise gone, the shells collected and properly disposed of, the tracks of the vehicle whirled away by the wind. But at least we were able to be apart of the whole thing. To have existed then and there. Our lives having been witnessed by the rocks and the mountains and the ground beneath our feet. We were apart of their story, and they would remember us long after we've gone. 

Backtracking to the asphalt, we moved on, our destination a place Daniel hadn't been to for a long while. It took us another hour of driving, crossing back into Montana, before we finally made it to the best location of the day. A small canyon, hidden in the vast expanse, now appeared before our very eyes. The water in the canyon was frozen, but cracked, evidence of having melted and re-frozen multiple times over. It was definitely no Grand Canyon, but, oddly enough, it was far more impressive. It was a surreal land of rock and ice and deafening silence. No wind. No nothing. Not a sound to be heard. A deer, laying bloated on the ice, the result of having fallen down into the canyon, was the only other inhabitant of this strange and wondrous place. Just us, the deer, and the silence.

Ad Infinitum 

We made our way down into the canyon, careful not to repeat the lamentable actions of the unlucky deer. Once at the bottom, our nostrils were hit with the scent of dirt and water and rotting fish. Just a few feet ahead, laying prostate on the ice, was the decaying carcass of a fairly large fish. How it got there was unknown. Maybe someone threw it down there. Maybe it broke through the ice but somehow got stuck as the ice immediately re-froze. So many questions that remain unanswered to this day. 

No goofin' around here

There was something uneasy about this place. The silence, the death, and the isolation all contributed to this eerie feeling. But at the same time it was incredibly peaceful. We were simply witnessing the beauty of life. The clouds kept movin' and the sun kept shinin' and the ice kept freezin' and the deer kept rottin' and the rocks kept erodin' and life kept rollin' and rollin' and rollin' along. There was nothing to fear here. No reason to feel uneasy. We were there and that was all that mattered. We were able to see the beauty of this place, able to inhabit its space for a little while. Standing there on the jagged, icy shoreline, staring out  at the frozen river, looking up above at the sandstone walls, and observing the passing of the clouds overhead was extremely satisfying. At least for a little bit. I had to pee. Benny had to take a dump. It was time to go. 

Little car in a big world

On the drive back the sun sunk beneath the horizon which meant that it was time to turn on the headlights. We spoke to pass the time, talking about girls, booze and whether or not killing your clone, an exact copy, same memories and whatnot, would be considered murder or suicide. At around 10:00pm we finally made it back to Billings. We saw the glimmering neon lights of an Applebees. We entered. We ate. Daniel's roommate, Adam, met us there. We chatted. We left. Back at Daniel's place, Adam played his rendition of Jack Johnson's Better Together on guitar. It was good. Then we called it a night and hit the sack. We had to wake up early the next day. Had to beat the breakfast crowd for The Tippy Cow. God willing, we would make it this time. 

Dirt roads, power lines and big sky