Lost Highway Times...Paths in Oblivion

Well, it's been a big week or so. Several end of year get togethers followed by a trip to Montana to hike, which I just got back from.

It was the first time I'd been to Montana; I went to Glacier National Park and did some really good trails, took a lot of pictures, and, surprisingly, relaxed.

Immediate responses? Montana is nice but as an interview with the Lowbagger blog mentioned, in order to actually survive up there you need several service jobs, since there aren't really any jobs up there and besides the people who have lived there their whole lives get the good jobs.

When you see the same people behind the counter at a restaurant and then at a store, while hearing them talk about the third job they have, it sort of sinks in what the situation is...

Plus, too isolated.

But nice for a visit.

Oh, yeah, on the way back I took 95 down the Idaho panhandle, beautiful drive, and drove by none other than Hayden, as in Hayden Lake, where the Aryan Nations compound is. How should I put this? The town is really a suburb of Coeur D'Alene, which is a decent sized city, and so it ends up that the white supremacist compound is about a mile and a half away from a symbol of the decadent liberal conspiracy, Borders' Books and Music. Yeah. Just keep on with all of your fantasies, fellahs, I'm sure the Coeur D'Alenians think of you as a bunch of freaks who live out by Hayden Lake....

Sort of less intimidating when you realize that the 'compound' of these people is a short drive from a Movie Gallery video rental and the usual spate of chain restaurants and chain stores, to say nothing of a taco stand, which is actually in Hayden right near the turn off for Hayden Lake.

Oh yeah and conservative Idaho? Idaho might be conservative but it's not monolithic; several miles up the road from Hayden I saw a person who'd parked their VW Van by the side of the road and was selling homemade tie-dye tapestries. So there.

Ah well, you can never have too much fun at the expense of white supremacists, but everything has to end sometime, so I"ll just leave it at that.