We crossed the border into Montana yesterday. I had a lot of anxiety leading up to it; if they didn’t let me cross, what were our options? Best case scenario was that Catalina drives across and I fly to Billings and meet there. When we actually got there, it was surprisingly easy, even with a 15 foot U-Haul. They didn’t make any motion to searching the truck. They asked if we had weapons, or houseplants and that was it. No mention of cannabis at all. After less than five minutes it was “Safe travels” and then we were off.
Things we saw while driving: In Great Falls, there were a large number of people demonstrating on the main road. They were anti-abortionists, probably a church group. They were mostly older men and women; the only young person was a man.
An antelope jumped across the road right in front of us. We think it was an antelope because it was certainly not a deer. We nearly hit it, but thankfully didn’t.
No one is really wearing masks here. Maybe a few token people were, but those that were seemed to be half-hearted at best. There were signs saying “We request that you wear masks”, but inside no one, not even the clerk was wearing.
Billings was very pleasant to look at; you come down a high winding road and it is all before you. It looked promising for running, but my actual route was something I planned in under five minutes that mostly took me through an industrial park and a big box store complex.
It is really warm here. The high today will be 29°C. That is hot summer weather for me, despite being autumn. It does look like an American Western film here. The land is arid and dry with rolling hills, but it seems to be more green in the south east. At one point, off in the distance, we saw a perfect plateau rising up off the plains.
2021-10-4 10:02