Billings is so different from Bozeman. Its all cowboys and business. No mountansexuals. The city is sprawled out, and despite a pretty significant college-crowd not all that liberal.
In the evening Miranda and I got decent Thai food with some of the field crew leaders from the Billings region of MCC. They had just come back from their very first hitch. Made me miss that job so bad. Yeah, guys remember that story you heard during training about co-leaders quitting a week into the season? Yeah, that was MY co-leader. And do you know Kaitlin and Zack from Bozeman? Yeah, they were on my crew. The trail/corps talk didn't stop all night.
Saturday morning I drove into Bozeman. It was raining and super-cloudy and I didn't get to see the Bridgers at all! So sad. It felt strange driving through town. While waiting for Matt to get out of his volunteer project I went to one of my favorite spots - the cafe at the main Co-op. I've spent so many hours up there, catching up on emails or writing personal statements for graduate school.
The town hasn't changed a bit. But I guess its only been 6 months.
Finally I met up with Matt and Monk. Both were crew leaders with me last season and Matt was my roommate as well. Monk, that lucky duck, is now working trails in Glacier National Park. His co-leader from last year, Lulu is a trail dog in Grand Teton National Park. This is why MCC is awesome.
In a whirlwind of activity we picked up the other Matt, my old co-leader and headed to The Garage to fill our rumbling tummies. Delicious as always. Then back to Matt's cave to place Settlers of Catan for hours. It was my first time playing the game, and I've heard good things forever. SO. MUCH. FUN.
At 6 pm it was time for sports - final series of the Stanley Cup and the final game of Celtics-Heat series. We headed to our favorite spot, the Hideaway, where during the season we hid away from all of our crews. Our small party of 4 soon took over a good portion of the bar when Forrest and his two friends and my (hopefully) future roommate Teal arrived with her 3 friends. So many people to talk to!
Celtics disappointed.
The night continued with more Settlers of Catan at Matt's. Not much sleep and up early for more sports - we made breakfast at 7am and watched Nadal-Djokovic battle it out on the clay court.
I left pretty early and headed up, through Bridger Canyon to my new home for the next 3 weeks - a small, family, permaculture farm in the Shields Valley of Montana. The weather has only gotten worse from Saturday and I ended up driving through snow on the Bridger Pass. That's early June in MT for you, I guess.
I arrived at the farm shortly after 10am and was welcomed in by Allison. Awkward introductions. Then we were off to the "bunk house", about a quarter of a mile up the road where I am staying, with 4 other people. When we walked in Kira, Leslie and Dave were getting ready for a snowy hike up in the Gallatins, by Big Sky. Within an hour of arriving here I was in the car heading back towards Bozeman to go for a hike. Did I mention I love Montana and people here?
The house does not need the word bunk in front of it. I get my own room. There is laundry, a porch, fully-stocked kitchen and a nice living room. The pantry and fridge has amazing food. All of that just for 30-hours of work on the farm, which I WANT to do anyway. Yes!
First stop was Planet Natural store in Bozeman. The farm sells a lot of their seedlings through this gardening-supply store. But today we were here to pick up ingredients for the next beer that Leslie and Dave were going to brew.
We decided to do the Lava Lake hike. 2.75 miles one-way up to a big non-glacial lake by Table Mountain. We had the trail all to ourselves since it was cold and raining. The lake looked absolutely beautiful, with the mountain sides covered by snowy clouds. The place felt magical. So quiet.
It was too cold to stay up there for long, so we took pictures, had some snacks and headed back down. The rain got more intense, so by the time we got back to the car we were soaked and freezing. Heater full blast. We shivered our way about 15 miles South to Big Sky and rolled into the Lone Peak Brewery and Restaurant. Much food and beer was destroyed.
We arrived back at the house at 10 pm, with the sky not yet completely dark. I love Montana.
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