The sky really is big out here

Hello!
I'm in Havre, Montana (sounds like "have or", unless you're a big dork like
me and have to pronounce it like Ben Stiller said Brett Favre's name in
There's Something About Mary).

Last week we were supposed to bike 70 some miles one day b/c there really
wasn't any other option - no towns along the way. However, half way there
we spied a little marina and decided to just stop in really quickly for a
drink. Unfortunately for us they had about 10 kinds of homemade pies
including many that contained joonberries, which are a north dakota
specialty. Well, after our slices of pie the owners convinced us to stay
the night and we could rent kayaks and take them out on Lake Sakakawea
(pronounced sa-cock'-a-we-a) yeah there's no "J" in Sakakawea, i don't know
if that was a pittsburgh thing to inject a J, which in that case gets filed
under things I learned when I left Pittsburgh. Sort of like the public
school system allowing me to think that "the grass needs cut" was a proper
sentence, and the accent in Carnegie is on the second syllable - of which I
promptly was made fun for both when i got to college. Any way you pronounce
it the lake was unbelievably beatiful with the badland topography all around
(i also didn't know what badland topography looked like, but hopefully you
will b/c i don't know how to describe it). It was really nice talking to
the owners at dinner, turned out that he was a biology professor and she was
a personnel manager at Hewlitt packard and one day they both decided that if
what they really live for is their 3 weeks of vacation hunting and fishing
in north dakota, then why not quit their other life and do that full time.
So they bought the marina, opened a restaurant and are absolutely loving
life.

On the border of North dakota and Montana we stopped at the rest stop/casino
- there are casinos everywhere out here...in the gas stations, restaurants,
hotels. Inside we talked to the bartender - we'll call her Marlene. She
couldn't believe that we were biking all the way across Montana. Suddenly
her face showed that she had an idea and said, "well, you could count all
the crosses on the side of the road, where people died in car accidents on
Route 2. That would give you something to do to pass the time." Well, gee
thanks there Marlene for that extremely gruesome car game.

Many of our nights have been spent at the city parks which are usually free
or a couple bucks to camp. At the park in Wolf Point the showers were
attached to the town pool. The "showers" were actually shower heads on the
wall in the changing area/bathroom. I heard the lifeguards whistle
signifying the end of the swimming day and knew that soon i would be
bombarded with lots of little girls - many who would be quite shocked to see
me showering in the middle of their changing room. I decided to prolong the
encounter by changing my contacts. Suddenly I heard little shouts of, "you
have contacts?! can i watch?! Can i touch them?!" Apparently the advanced
technology of contacts isn't widely spread across Montana. I got to talking
with the little girls and when they found out that I lived in New York,
their obvious first question (as any good 11 year old would ask) was, "do
you know where the TRL building is?" When I replied "yes" their eyes got
really big and fought each other to be the first to get the next question
out, "do you know Carson Daly?!" (For those of you who haven't spent much
time near a 10-17 year old lately, TRL and Carson Daly are the American
Bandstand and Dick Clark for the new millenium.) To their dissapointment I
admitted that i did not know Carson Daly and my stock continued to fall as I
answered "no" to the questions of "Did i know Britney Spears Christina
Aquilera Backstreet Boys nsync?" I thought really hard and said, "I did see
Gwyneth Paltrow on the street once." That received an eyebrow raising, "oh
that's not bad" and i was back on their good side. We discussed how I was
soon to take a shower inside and they said that people take showers in their
w/ their bathing suits all the time, except this one time when this crazy
lady took a shower buck naked, w/ soap!" I replied that soon I was to
become that crazy lady and they decided that it was time for them to leave.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers!
leigh