After our cheap $30 a night high class accommodation we were to vacate the premises and move onto our next destination of Billings, MT. Home of guns, country folk, two-stepping and AJ. Getting to Billing, MT while not so hard in theory, by public transport it proved to be a hilarious combination of amusement and stress.
While we had left a message with the local county bus company the night before (as the bus only ran once a week and only if a reservation is made would it actually arrive in Sweet Grass at all), we still were not completely certain if they were going to turn up or not. We had even been reassured by the bar wench and local alcoholics in attendance the night before, that every Thursday the bus appeared at 7.30am in front of the service area next to the servo. As much trust as I had in the local drinkers, we thought it sound that we call the bus company again that morning as we waited, in order to double check. Getting signal for the cell was challenging in the podunk town of Sweet Grass. While I wandered around various locations to get signal, I was stopped yet again by border patrol and asked to produce identification. Turns out they don’t get too many people around these parts that don’t haves a car. I guess they thought I was some sort of Australian bootlegger, just trying to get my hooch into Canada.
30 minutes later the bus actually turned up, heading in to drop off the local border employees it seemed. But then just as we think it is going to return and pick us up, the bloody bus drives off. Panic resumes again as this is the only way we have out of this town, I take off down the road chasing the damn thing, shouting and waving like a crazy person who got splash back from a portapottie. Crystal at the same time tried calling the bus company for the third time, getting hold of an actual person, who in turn informed the rapidly departing bus that 2 desperate backpackers were still waiting for him to pick them up.
The ride itself was relative uneventful, apart from being completely free, thanks to it being a community bus for the local county, which was awesome. First stop was Shelby, another town that typically does not appear in guidebooks, where we transferred to in another community bus in order to continue on our merry way. Crystal passed out as per usual as soon as we starting rolling, I have come to the conclusion that she passes out at the drop of a hat on any form of public transit, with the exception being if she needs to pee and or poop, which she will then keep me informed at all times as to her bathroom needs and her lower gastrointestinal status.
I as per usual made a new friend; Max was an ex-rig pipe fitter, who was on his way to Great Falls to see his doctor about his back problems. When I enquired as to how this unfortunate event had occurred he muttered something about his wife, and ideas in the bedroom (It was actually chronic pain due to someone dropping pipes on him when he worked on a rig). By the end of our 2 hour chat about many topics of a manly nature I managed to acquire the name and address of a friend of his that lived in Billings, that should any emergency occur I could just call him and say Max sent me. It sounded a bit suspect to me, especially after Max had earlier given me two pills with the statement, good for pain. But I figured, Max seemed like a cool cat, why wouldn’t his friend be?
Another greyhound station and we were away off into the wild blue yonder of Rimrock Trailways buses, the chariot of the rednecks.
Some classic quotes heard from the crème of society that happened to be riding with us on the bus,
One sided phone conversation of a redneck male speaking to current/ex-female he places his penis into on an irregular basis,
“I’m coming all these ways to Billings and I hears off Teddy that you been seen at other mens trailers”
“Well, if they’re your friends, then why are they all mens”
“No, I can’t get off the bus, it’s a bus”
“Then I won’t be seeing you, you whore”
Heard from one of the 4 mothers with snotty nosed rug rats in toe,
“I gots 8 kids” she then proceeds to name and age all of them, the oldest being 18, already with kids of their own.
Replied one of the other breeders, “Wow, you don’t look it at all, I would have said only five”
The joys of buses and the microcosm of the underclass they can be.
We eventually arrived to our destined location of not Billings, but Boute (pronounced, Boot) where my brother from another mother, AJ picked us up and we promptly headed off to a hot springs resort that he had sprung for. We got a bit messy and warmed up the stiff and sore bodies, which felt amazing on the war wounds still present from the car rollover. Over the next couple of days we stayed at AJ’s parents house, dining like royalty on the delicious food that his mother would prepare for us everyday, I’m pretty sure I gained a couple of kilograms in those 4 days we were there.
Some other country activities fulfilled were shooting some weapons, now Crystal had been complaining for as long as I had know her that no one had ever taken her out on a gun range before. When she heard the news that AJ was going to take us out, I am pretty sure she wet herself in excitement of the possibility of having a loaded weapon in her hand. We drove out to middle of no-where-ville up in the hills overlooking Billings, in apprehensive excitement of some pistol and rifle shooting. In total we had a .22 pistol, 9mm pistol, .22 rifle and a 303 rifle, the latter being the big boy toy I was looking forward to handling, in a completely heterosexual manner. After all her pre-shooting excitement, Crystal didn’t hit a thing on her first clip, turns out she didn’t know how to aim the gun, and was using the camera method of just pointing in the general direction of what you want and shooting. She eventually got better enough to the point that one bullet out of the clip hit the water jug we were using as a target. The author on the other hand was an awesome shot, killing that mother bitch that was the water jug. With the scoped out 303 definitely being my favourite.
Some other activities that we also managed to participate in were a fair bit of two stepping the social activity of choice for the locals for cross-sexual congregation. Where some enjoy the nightclubs with their black lights and anonymous sex, Billings as the largest city in Montana had only one nightclub but copious amounts of bars where one could shake their tail feather two-stepping style. AJ was the master of the two-step, and I was the master of my own domain, which was definitely not two-step. But we had had a fun time doing what we could with what He gave us. Shaking it.
In order to get from Billings, the most cost and time effective method to get from point A in Billings, MT to our next destination of Denver, CO turned out to be renting a car to split the cost between the two of us. It was an enjoyable 9 hours straight shot, busting through the entire state of Wyoming, stopping off for just snack and pee breaks. From what we managed to see of the state from the car windows, there was a lot of yellow grass and not much else. The minimal time spent in Wyoming did not weight too heavily on my heart nor cause much undue loss to my traveler’s soul, ‘cause central Wyoming looked like a fairly unexciting place to be. Before our eventual arrival in Denver we did managed to acquire ourselves a delicious homemade meal in Fort Collins thanks to the work of Michal and family, good friends of young Crystal
Denver, CO
Denver was educational to say the least, I expanded my lexicon with many new words and slang, I learnt about the state of Colorado and the many nations that have at one ruled the fine state (one of them being France), I generally froze my arse off in the snow, I was educated as to the process of brewing a fine craft ale and rediscovered that hiking above sea level is very tiring to say the least.
During our time of dormancy in Denver we stayed at the delightful apartment of another of Crystal’s friends, Signey a girl with an amazing personality that is not to say that she is not one to look at, but that she is an all round great person, who happened to study engineering. Because all engineers are awesome does not necessarily impact nor void on previous sentence due to me being biased. She was however living as she said in the real life version of the L Word. For those who do not know of this thing I write of, read the link ya pack of lazy bums. She worked at a lesbian coffee shop of a day and at night was bar tending at Her Bar, the aptly named newest and hottest place to be. The full on dykestyle did lead her to being fair busy most of the time, but she did mange to squeeze some time in for her guests. That being said there wasn’t really much to see in Denver itself, we managed to see the Capitol building, buy some craft beer, expensive cheese and visit a bookstore (Tattered cover book store, the best part of the highly overrated 16th street ‘Mall’). The latter 3 were starting to become fairly standard for most cities we were in. We were budget backpackers, but we could always afford a little for some of the luxuries in life, namely boutique beer and soft cheeses. After which we would celebrate with a meal of ramen.
Signey also had a car, which meant on one of her days off she drove with Crystal and myself to Fort Collins for some brewery tours (a similar concept to winery tours, except more awesome because it is beer). We hit up both O’Dells and the New Belgium Brewing Company. Some highlights included, slides inside the factory for the tourists to get from one level to another, an amusing lack in OH&S with allowances of open toed shoes on the brewery floor, being able to take your pint of beer around with you as you tour the factory all employs at NBB are given a bicycle to ride to work, the company is 100% employee owned and beer is only allowed to be stocked by stores and bars if it is door-to-door refrigeration there by maintaining the character of the beer due to a lack of variations in temperature. We also had some sampler beers and took a growler (refillable jug of an on-tap beer) with us.
After all the brewery touring, the girls decided it would be fun to do some hula hooping, it was amusing to not just me, but some passersby had a bit of a chuckle as well.
Some other fun that was had during our time in Denver was at the aforementioned bar, Her Bar. Where I recreated 2003 in glorious form, cutting the dance floor like I was a hot knife, and she was my butter, which I would then spread on some bread, the bread remained more amused than receptive to my spreading skills. Short story short, it was a good night and a rough morning. A couple of days after the groovetastic time of the Her Bar we managed to partake in a fairly easy hike in Bolder with Signey and her girlfriend. Boulder is a small mountain town less than an hour north of Denver and part of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Fairly easy hike in Boulder should be noted that it is a bit of a challenge due to such high altitude, 5430ft above sea level (1655m). There was some fairly heavy breathing going on, and not of the sweaty and sexual variety, more of the passing out due to lack of oxygen type. Signey and her girl on the other hand were barely even breaking sweat, turned out both of them were in training for a triathlon. Then we went to eat some crepes in town and they were delicious.
But like all good things and bad our time with Signey was coming to a warm and sticky end, like a pearl necklace encircling the slender, swan like neck of a duchess, sometimes it is short and sweet, and if you get it in her eye, it won’t be fun. And as per usual we got to experience the bad again in the form of the devilishly fun Greyhound bus system for the onward journey to Albuquerque, NM.
Albuquerque, NM
Adventures were had while we were stationed in Albuquerque. We spent most of our time relaxing with Michelle, a friend of mine who also studied with me in Mexico. While the city of Albuquerque may not be up there on the list of must see tourist destinations, for me it really was the people that made it. Everyone I met there were just such chill cats, not in the sense that they were frozen felines, but in the way that they were so welcoming and accommodating to people that they only just met.
A majority of the time was spent socializing with Michelle and her friends at house parties, random BBQ chicken nights, Passover with some quality eating of motzo ball soup and potato pancakes. But definitely one of the best days of all was the Sunday kickball day where I got to experience the time honored Nuevo-American tradition of kickball. While I had not played this game before I figured the rules could not be any more difficult than the Australian gentlemen’s sport of cricket.
For those not in the know, kickball has the same layout and pitch as baseball or softball, except there was no bat and only a large kickball that a ‘pitcher’ would roll at speed out to a ‘batter’ who would then boot the thing as hard as they could and hope one of the 20 or more drunken fielders would not catch it, nor tag them with it. While it is a sport, the prime concern of to most involved was a the consumption of beer, according to some rules it seems beers do not come out onto the pitch, leaving the batting side to be the only one drinking till 3 went out and they rotate with the fielding side. This was not case in Albuquerque, as long as you were standing you were able to be A) playing and B) drinking. Some of the more inebriated team members had to be reminded that they needed to place their beverages down before they could catch the ball, lest their beer be displaced from their grip. Interestingly sometimes the kicker had to be told to put down their brew before starting their sprint to first base.
As the afternoon progressed into evening, half time was declared so that the players could rehydrate, pet dogs could be let off their leashes and the official half time break grilling could begin. A grill was setup in the back of a pickup (Australian translation: Ute) and dogs and burgers were cooked to perfect for the ravenous players. When play resumed, things got a bit more heated, a bit too serious and a hell of a lot more messy. The game ended as the light faded and the sun set over the field of dreams, the final scores were only a point between the winner and losers, the author of course unfortunately was not the of the victorious side, he chooses to blame inexperience.
The two main touristy type things that we managed to partake in were the University of New Mexico’s world famous duck pond and their Geology Museum, not just because it was free, but because rocks are awesome. A mini tour of the restaurant and tacky gift shop centric Old Town was also conducted, but it seemed this areas was mostly inhabited by geriatric tourists who were being shipped there and bused out again by the all inclusive casinos that they were all staying /slowly dying in.
Getting out of Albuquerque to Oklahoma turned out to be less of a challenge than we expected, after posting a ridesharing request on craigslist, we were not too hopeful on this panning out. But as it turned out we lucked in, or out, depending on your take of what happened on our easterly adventure.
