Day 5: E-Ticket Ride: Idaho to Montana

July 19: Washington to the Idaho Panhandle to Glacier National Park to Bozeman, Montana

Soundtrack: Ryan Adams, Gold; Willie Dixon; Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; Beethoven, More Greatest Hits; Oingo Boingo, Farewell #1; Chicago sountrack; Aviator soundtrack; Wall of Voodoo, Call of the West; Eric Clapton, Unplugged

The next passage in my journey is a love affair. I am in love with Montana.
John Steinback, Travels With Charley in Search of America

As the sun came up we crossed the last bridge over the Columbia River, just before it joined the Snake at Pasco, Washington, and headed north toward Coeur d’Elene. Having passed the only designated scenic section of Highway 84 in the dark, the road to Idaho was fairly plain in this direction, with rolling hills occasionally through farms and empty stretches of prairie. Laura slept on in the back, even when I stopped for gas somewhere on the 395. I was on autopilot by this time, but we managed to avoid Spokane and pulled into a sweet little cafe on the edge of Coeur d’Elene for breakfast. It had historic Idaho photos on every wall and I I walked around looking at them all, listening to locals talk real estate and home improvement.
We drove into the picturesque lakeside town, again shopping for a pin button for Natalie, and found one, with a tiny glass crescent moon for Charlie’s memorial, in a glass-making place in a restored brick storefront. Northeast through pines and mountains into Montana, we cruised through Glacier National Park like a Disneyland ride, wishing there was more time to stay at one of the expensive lakeshore hotels, take the quaint open air shuttles and sightseeing boats, climb the rocks up to snow, and luxuriate in the pure air. Stopping beside a snow-fed stream near one of the visitor centers, we waited as mountain goats crossing the road jammed traffic and everyone got out for the photo opportunity.
Since we were in Montana, Laura had to get another pin button, so we visited the visitor center and I found an octagonal retro decal that used the Glacier National art from the WPA project illustration. Laura and I took each other’s pictures with the backdrop of Going-to -the-Sun Mountain; I was wearing my Vincent Price shirt, which was appropriate since he once made a murder mystery in the Park.
Down State Road 89, Browning, a Blackfoot Reservation town with murals and natives in pickup trucks displaying Red Pride stickers, led into high plains. We saw a red fox, what Meriweather Lewis called “the most butifull fox in the world” when he encountered one in Montana, and trailing behind him were two sashaying skunks by the side of the road. What a tableau!
South of the Park into green rolling hills, we came to a town that Laura decided was perfect: Choteau, Montana. Under shade trees, past churches, and houses with sweeping lawns and a park with whooping children in a swimming pool, the road curved into the Lewis and Clark National Forest. She swore she wanted to retire there and open a bakery or a candy store, after she made it big in the industry.
But we bore southwest through rollercoaster hills toward Bozeman. Laura was driving and I tried to get the Heritage Motel on her cell phone to make a reservation. As the guy on the Verizon commercial said, it was a “crapshoot:” The disembodied voice of a young man came and went with the elevation and it took four calls just to transmit the number off the credit card. As it grew dark, I took over and Laura dozed in the back.
The short rode to Bozeman became a maze of detours and missed turns and deer in the headlights. Does and fawns were trying to cross the road in the dark; I passed several inert forms and narrowly missed pale shadows coming out of the rocks on a ten-mile stretch of gravel and roadwork over Bozeman Pass. It was staring into blackness and white-knuckes on the wheel the whole way to keep from hitting them. The whole experience was made more poignant by the remembrance that Charlie had thought of the deer as his totem animal, like Harry Potter with his stag.
Finally, we pulled into the parking lot of the Heritage Inn and met the owner of the disembodied phone voice, who reminded me of Charlie at 16. We were welcomed by a huge blond grizzly bear, standing over ten feet high, next to the rustic fireplace in the lobby. After the dark passage through the backroads, we found comfort and joy, real beds, and a heated pool in the morning.