It occurred to me today that I haven’t blogged about some of
the small moments that have given our travels color and interest. Here’s what
Frank and I could pull out of our not-always-reliable memories.
Leavenworth
One day while we were lounging in the bunk end, a fellow
tent-traveler wandered up from the other side of the campground. He was a
Leavenworth local, a retiree who sometimes substitute teaches at Leavenworth
High. He was up at the river to escape the heat.
After comparing features in our tent trailers, he regaled us
with his stories. I share them here. They are rather violent, so skip down to
“Glacier” if you’d rather not read that kind of content. It’s also possible these
stories are some percentage bullshit. Fair warning.
He revealed that he was in Vietnam. Upon his discharge at a
fort back east, he left the base, headed home, only to find a whole string of
recruiters from various police departments set up just outside base, all vying
to employ the recently discharged soldiers. He ended up hiring on in DC, since
they offered 20-year retirement and a wage considerably higher than he could
expect in his chosen career of teaching. “You might have to kill people,” the
recruiter warned. “What do you think I been doin’?” he replied.
He told us about walking a beat in DC, before the age of
cell phones, and how anybody he arrested had two choices: riding calmly with
him back to the precinct on a city bus, or waiting for the paddy wagon. The
wagon might take a while to come and then wouldn’t return to the precinct until
it was full, which could mean a long, hot day for the arrestees, riding in the
back with the drunks and the dangerous. Most people chose the city bus.
He described the profiling he did, which was to pull over
cars with Oklahoma plates that were headed into bad parts of town. He would ask
the driver if he was going to be willing to run over small black children (allegedly
planted in the middle of the road by criminal types) rather than stopping the
car to avoid the kids and then be mugged and see his wife raped.
Here’s how to find a fugitive, he says: Check the dog
registrations. He says it’s amazing how even the people most determined to hide
will register their beloved dogs.
And here (based on his interviews with professional
burglars) is how to avoid getting robbed: (1) Keep a yapping dog, the kind that
will not shut up no matter what. They draw too much attention for burglars’
comfort, whereas larger dogs can be tempted into friendliness by treats, or stunned into silence by shining a bright light in their eyes. (2) When you leave the house, close all your interior doors. The burglars
told him that when they get into a house and see closed doors, with no way to
know who or what is behind them, they turn around and leave again.
Finally, if you are ever in need of killing someone, but you
don’t really know how to handle a gun, just point and shoot. He said they would
interview cop killers—people who had managed to kill their targets with one
shot, despite lacking the hours of marksmanship training and range time that
police officers get—and that was what they said: “I just pointed the gun and
pulled the trigger.”
[end violent content]
Glacier
One of the campsites near us was occupied by a group of
people in plain clothing. We don’t know if they were Amish or Mennonite or some
sect we’re not familiar with, but we found it very interesting to see that they
were traveling in a big Class A RV. We saw a couple of them at the “laundrymat”
(yes, that’s what they call them here) in Hungry Horse, and a couple more
getting a restaurant meal in West Glacier.
Near the end of our stay at Avalanche Creek, some
louder-than-most people pulled into the site next to ours. They had a little
girl with them, about 4, who was so
overtired. Instead of helping her cope, they yelled at her a lot and made her
cry repeatedly. You can imagine, then, the gratification we felt one day when,
while they were away, the ranger came by and carried off their coolers. They had
left these sitting out in camp despite signs posted everywhere that said not to
do that, and despite the fact that they had a big trailer and multiple vehicles
that could easily have housed them. The ranger only put the coolers in nearby
bear-safes (he was within his rights to confiscate them), but he left them what
we hope was a citation. If only he could have cited them too for being mean to
their kid.
Duck Lake
The first two nights we were there, we had neighbors to our
left facing the lake. They had a pretty nifty screen tent set up over their
picnic table, and I stopped to asked them about it. It turned out they were
down from Alberta for some fishing, and they were both extremely nice. So
friendly! He had a clear Canadian accent, but hers was European, not sure what
exactly. Of all the people we’ve chatted with, I wish we’d made more of an
effort to socialize with this couple.
There was a bare snag between the couple’s campsite (#20)
and ours (#21). We could see it from our site if we ducked down to get the
right angle, but our best view of it was from our little floating dock on the
lakeshore. Every evening, a hawk or osprey settled in there for the night. It
felt like a benediction.
Note: If you ever get to the Duck Lake Campgrounds and
Cabins, sites 20 and 21 are the nicest.
Browning
When we stopped for groceries, there was a pickup next to us
that had two dogs in the back. The owner of same came out while we were
unloading our cart into bins and cooler. He scolded the female dog for barking
at me and explained apologetically that both dogs were still pretty wired up:
They are bear dogs who had just come from a job chasing a bear out of a campground.
Aspen/Little Belt
Mountains
For some reason, these little mice or voles—some small furry
creatures—decided that beneath the blue tarp (we use it as flooring in our
screen room) was a super cool place to be. We had to be careful whenever we
walked across it not to squish anybody.
As we left the Little Belt Mountains, heading south on
Highway 89 (which is a truly spectacular drive that I highly recommend), we
passed a length of fencing that was right alongside the road. A golden eagle,
bigger than big, was perched Right There. So beautiful!!
Bozeman
Our first order of business when we drove into Bozeman was
to get some lunch. Conscious of our food budget, we decided to get a quick,
cheap burger at McDonald’s, knowing we had yummy leftover pork chops awaiting
us back at camp. In our experience, it is never hard to find a McD’s, so it
didn’t occur to me to do a search for one on my phone. Well, we still have not
found a McD’s in Bozeman, but we sure got to know the town well! It’s really
very nice and so far comprises my entire list of Montana cities I’d like to
live in. (This is not to disparage Montana cities! I just haven’t seen many
yet!)
What we found instead of McD’s was a pizza place—Bozeman has
about a million of them—that offered Chicago-style pizza and calzones,
strawberry lemonade, outdoor seating, and free Wi-Fi. It was pretty nice! While
there, we chatted briefly with a man who was wearing an “Atheists Assemble”
t-shirt, and whose group appeared to be faculty of or otherwise affiliated with
Montana State University, located here in town. I asked him if he ever gets
flak when he wears the shirt. (I confess I had fears for this man’s safety. We
have seen no shortage here in Montana of “Impeach Obama” signs, often
accompanied by indications of the owner’s willingness to engage in violent
rebellion in order to get the black man out of office.) He said, “Nah, Bozeman
isn’t like that,” and indicated that the response he gets is actually pretty
positive. Ah, I do love university towns.
On our way back to camp, headed back up into the Bridger
Mountains on Highway 86 (another really beautiful drive), I punched it up to 70
to pass a slowpoke and then had to brake firmly to allow two prancing spotted
fawns to cross the road in front of me. They were seriously cute, with sassy
white tails. Their mama hung back and waited for me and the slowpoke to go by
before she crossed to join them.
