Roadtrip To Montana

Man, am I bored out of my fucking mind. Spokane sucks. There's nothing to do in the downtown area. Everything recreational here is like for people with speedboats or guns. It's too hot to do anything outside most of the time now. Every day it has been in the mid 90s to low 100 range on the temperature. Being in the car is the worst because I end up using the air conditioning. I started having more bloody nose of hate lately because I was using the air conditioning at night in my apartment and during the day in the car. Especially when I left the one in the apartment on all night. I'm all screwed up now and bleed almost every time I sneeze.

I went into Montana over this past weekend so I could see a different part of the country, and get out of town for a while. I was hoping the drive would help me to relax and clear my thoughts on how rotten this relationship with Jennifer is going. Before I left Spokane I stopped by a chain record store and picked up Lush's new album, Lovelife and also got a tape by some new band called Garbage. I needed something different to listen to during the drive to Missoula, Montana. I'd be on the road for a while.

I took the Interstate east out of the city and across the panhandle of Idaho. Driving through the skinny strip of Idaho known as the panhandle I became more homesick for California. The scenery reminded me alot of the Sierras around Tahoe. Continuing east I hit the Montana state line and an interesting freeway sign caught my attention. What I got out of it after reading the black and white large text sign was, "As long as safe weather conditions permit, you sir, may drive as fast as you please". There was no speed limit in this fine state. I had to give this a try as it seemed too good to be true.

There wasn't anyone out on the road that day. I hardly saw any houses along the freeway and seldom saw any other cars. I knew some people lived near the freeway in a few places though because their chickens were pecking at junk in the meridian of the freeway. I took the rental car up into triple digits for long stretches of pavement. It was fun. Speeding shouldn't be such a crime, I thought. It felt like it was more fun than it should have been just because I knew I was doing something on the road that was taboo. I was rockin' out to Lush and Garbage on the car's stereo while the outside world blurred past me.

Up ahead there was a Montana Highway Patrol car.

Well, shit. If I'm going to put this speeding thing to a serious test there's nothing better than finding out what the lawman will do when I pass him at 125mph. Fuck it. It didn't take much more foot pressure to reach the 120s so I gently gave it a shove and next thing I knew I was up alongside the cop. Feeling a little nervous, I looked over my right shoulder into the driver's window of the squad car and saw the patrolman look over at me about the same time. I gave him a shit-eating grin and waved at him. I sped away and watched his car fade in my rear view mirror. The red and blue gumball lights never turned on, so I guessed the Montana no-speed limit was for real.

Arriving in Missoula I was hungry. I didn't know anything about the town other than it had a college and a girl I was seeing years ago in high school named Sophie Curtis had at one point gone to college there. Wandering around the city on a grey afternoon I pulled into a diner that didn't have a single customer in sight. I got a cheeseburger and fries and thought about how miserable I was. After the meal I found a payphone in the parking lot and I called Senor 23 and left a stupid message on his answering machine at the B Street house.

That afternoon I drove all over Missoula and parked the car in downtown areas that looked interesting. Walking around the place I talked to alot of the locals and I was treated exceptionally well. It's funny, my feeling was that Spokane would be progressive and cool, whereas Montana people would be backwards and podunk. The exact reverse turned out to be the case. Everyone in Missoula was totally cool to me and acted like they had a brain between their ears and all the people of Spokane seemed completely jacked up like some country bumpkins working the fields. I never would have expected this. Talking with some of the people I mentioned how weak I thought the Spokane scene was and they all said the same thing, those guys 'over there' are assholes. That was kind of a relief to hear because I thought it was just me being weird about it all. It's good to have a reality check every once in a while.