I'm your huckleberry

Hello!
I'm in Whitefish, MT. I'll be here for the next few days, because Alex went
to a bachelor party in Lake Tahoe and as much as I'm sure that I would have
been really welcome to join them in their festivities, I decided to kick it
in Whitefish for the weekend.

I'm not really sure where I left off, but the last story I can think of took
place in some remote town in central Montana. Alex and I were biking along
and a truck pulled up next to us. An old man who was hard of hearing (we
soon found out) screamed out to us, "You lookin' for work?!"
Kind of surprised, I shrugged and said, "No."
Of course he replied, "HEH?!"
To which I screamed, "NO!"
He then responded with, "I heard you were lookin' for work."
Me - "No, not us! Just looking for a store."
Old man - "Well, do you wanna herd sheep?! I'm lookin' for people to help
me herd my sheep!"
Me - "No, we're just passing through."
Old man - "Oh." short pause during which i thought he would drive away then
suddenly he yelled out, "Can you cook?!"
Me - "Uh... sort of."
Old man - "We need a cook too!"
Me - "Yeah, but I'm not looking for work, remember?"
He then asked us where we were going and the usual questions, but when he
found out that we were going to end up north of Seattle, he chimed in with,
"Oh, you'll love it out there. You could get a job at the docks! I did
that for a few years!" I looked at him and wanted to say, or scream as the
case may be, "man, you missed your calling as a headhunter, you should have
never settled on ranching." His final words were, "Are you sure you don't
want to help me round up all the dogs in this town. We'll put these dogs to
work and you on your bike, we'll herd those sheep real good." I just smiled
and shook my head.

We passed through many small (small as in less than 250 people) towns and
lots of dried out farm land. This was the worst summer for rain in the past
50 years following the prior two worst summers - about 2 inches of rain in
the past 4 months in these parts. It made for a really depressing and
desolate landscape. In the little town of Hingham we camped at the city
park and went for dinner to the only place in town that served as the
bar/restaurant/general store/showers. After I had taken my shower I went up
to the bar to order dinner. There were a bunch of farmers and ranchers
sitting around the end of the bar and when they saw me one yelled out, "Are
you a lawyer?" Looking around, then realizing that he was talking to me, I
responded, "no." He came back with, "Ever want to be a lawyer?" Again I
answered, "no." The final question was, "Are you an environmentalist?" To
which I had to admit, "well, not really." Then suddenly he screamed out,
"CLINGER! Buy these two a drink!" And wouldn't you know the bartender
walked over and looked just like a 21 year old Jamie Farr from MASH. What
followed was one of the most fascinating nights on the trip. Every 15
minutes one of them would yell out, "CLINGER! We're thirsty! I'm buying
everyone a drink." It got to the point where I couldn't keep up with all of
the beers bought for me and I looked up and there were 3 empty overturned
shot glasses signifying paid drinks for me. We talked about everything with
the farmers - their dislike of environmentalist lawyers and why, to
government programs/the economics of wheat farming, to the deterioration of
their small towns, to the importance of high school sports. It was here
that I found out how these small schools can support a football team - they
play 8 man or 6 man football. In 6 man the center can catch the ball, but
the quarterback can't run, where in 8 man usual rules apply. The entire
talk was completely enlightening. To the point where I think every student
of econ 101 should be forced to go out and talk to a Montana farmer to fully
understand the ramifications of different economic theories.
I was reading their beer list at one point, and asked what a red beer was.
For those of you who don't know, a red beer is any lite beer on tap, such as
Miller Lite, mixed with tomato juice. Or you could use V-8 juice, OR, if
you liked clams...clamato juice. I tried it; it wasn't bad.

The past week we've been biking in and around Glacier National Park. Wow,
is it beautiful. I had never seen the Rocky Mountains, and they blew away
my expectations. We biked over them on the Going to the Sun highway. They
weren't as bad as crossing the Appalachians (hopefully I'm in a little
better shape than I was at the start) but there were lots of switchbacks so
the climb wasn't as rough.

There are also lots of huckleberry products out here. Never having tried
huckleberries before, I have discovered that I love them. They are like
blueberries, but much better. Subsequently I have had huckleberry pie,
huckleberry ice cream, huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry vinaigrette salad
dressing, huckleberry chocolate bars, huckleberry daiquiris...

In case you were wondering, luckily the forest fires didn't touch the roads
we were on, but it was very eerie watching gigantic clouds of smoke billow
up and over the mountains and being covered by ashes by the end of the day.

Hope everyone is doing well.
cheers,
leigh