Montana Continued

OK, so where did we leave off? ... Oh yes, we had just picked up the car rental.

After we picked up the van, I dropped my cousin off at her house so she could pack, then I drove down to Provo to pick up my aunt. She had to run to the store to pick up some things, then we loaded her and her tons of crap (just kidding, she actually had the least crap of any of us) in the van, and headed back to Draper.

The orgininal plan was to get up at 3:00 to load up, then get on the road by 4:00 am. But by the time we got back to my cousin's house it was after 1:00 am, so we just decided to load up and take off right then. So we did.

We left the house around 2 am, and drove all night long. We stopped twice to sleep because both of us were having a hard time keeping our eyes open. The drive through Idaho was fairly uneventful, except for the snow that hit around the ID/MT border. It was sticking to the ground, slush was everywhere, and it really slowed us down. After we crossed into Montana, the weather got a little better, but still not great.

Montana was an interesting place to drive through. There was beautiful scenery, but every little outpost along the way had the same bar/saloon in it--and none of them would let you use their bathrooms unless you bought something from them, which we had to learn the hard way. We pulled off at several of them, only to get back on the freeway as fast as we could, until we reached a desperate situation. Our bladders were full and our gas tank was empty, so we stopped in Clinton, home of a unique and legendary celebration: The Testicle Festival, aka The Testy Festy. Their slogan is, "Have a ball!" and we had to take pictures of all their advertisements, and so forth. I'll share them as soon as I can. The gas station was also the same type of bar we had seen in every other town, and I can now tell you all that I have been in a bar. It was thrilling. Gas was over $4 a gallon there, though, so we only bought a couple until we found a larger town with cheaper gas.

Around 3:00 pm we hit Kalispell and found ourselves in the middle of some kind of freak traffic jam. It was really weird, because I couldn't figure out what so many people were doing on a Thursday afternoon in a town like Kalispell. Oh, and every Kalispell driver (except my cousin) drives at like five miles per hour. It was frustrating in the extreme! My poor cousin got really car sick because I was driving, and trying to pass stupid drivers as fast as I could. I got a little crazy, I admit, but I had reached the end of my traveling rope long before we hit Kalispell, and this traffic jam was like being kicked when down. It was a cheap shot citizens of Kalispell, a cheap shot I say!

Anyway, we finally arrived, and spent the evening catching up, showering, and taking naps. It was good to be out of that van! Well, I'll close for now; in the next post I'll tell you all about the trip to the temple, and what a nice but weird town Cardston, Alberta is.