A sea of cows

Well, I’m here. Now what?

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Actually, as I’m sitting in the living room of the bunkhouse typing this, thunder grumbles menacingly and lightening strikes the mountain tops surrounding the valley I now call home.

I’m also wearing my fire uniform – green Nomex pants, with my yellow shirt close by – and sitting on the edge of my seat. Thunderstorms mean smoke and/or fire… which means that I could be called out at any minute.

Exciting! A little scary!

Did I mention that I am 50% of the fire engine crew here?

And, by the way, I’ve never worked on a fire before?

Bring it. ;)

At least these fire pants make my ass look good.

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Let’s backtrack a little bit. (rolling thunder and lightening flashes every 2 seconds… nervously waiting…)

The drive to Montana from Michigan was annoying. This is coming from me, Xena the Road-Warrior Princess. While passing through the flat expanses of boring South Dakota, a black nasty thunderstorm like none I have ever seen loomed straight ahead. Then I think about flat… like Kansas… Kansas gets lots of tornados…. South Dakota is flat… What if I get stuck in a tornado!!

I’ve never seen a storm somewhere so flat that the entire system surrounds and bombards you with lightening from all sides. I love thunderstorms, but this one was pretty severe and I got a little freaked out after it passed and suddenly the winds were practically pushing my car off the road. (rain is pouring… where’d my boss go??) I was almost convinced a big ol’ twister was gonna come down and sweep Focus away!

I made it through alive, but got caught hours later in an even worse storm. Needless to say, I was done driving for the night – hours short of my planned stop and I knew I’d be running way behind schedule the next day. Murdo, South Dakota. Get a decent room and take my bike off of my car to bring it in. No problem. Right?

“Hey, you aren’t bringing THAT thing in here are you?!” said the hotel keeper.

Yes, he raised hell about my bike. It was going to ruin his entire hotel. Grease and mud and oil EVERYWHERE! I didn’t even stop myself from laughing at his exclamations.

(YIKES! HOLY SHIT! Lightening just struck something right outside!!)

You probably can’t imagine the anticipation it is to be sitting, watching every lightning strike as a potential fire that you have to go and put out… when you’ve never done it before!!

Anyway, I yelled back at him in exasperation that I had to leave my very expensive bike outside to get stolen and I even cleaned it off with a towel. This old, stern man looked disgusted but when other people told him he was being ridiculous and that hotels never want people to leave valuables outside, especially not bikes! I had my way.

Of course, when I woke in the morning and brought my bike out, another hotel employee – another stern @sshole – looked at me like I was walking out with the TV. He gave me hell and I just laughed at him and sassed him good. These country folk just don’t know how to handle a city girl like me. ;)

(Uh oh, now we just lost our satellite cable signal, and my boss still isn’t back. He’s probably running around in the rain, looking for a reason for us to get in that engine!)

Blah blah blah, Focus usually gets around 30 mpg but with the bike on top, going up and down mountains - but Focus doesn’t like to multitask and I’m afraid she’ll explode if I go uphill at 75 mph with the AC on, plus the strong winds and the drag from the bike… I got 20 mpg! Which means my car only got 200 miles per tank. That’s a helluva lot of gas fill- ups.

Did I mention after spending 2 hours at a boot shop, trying to find fire boots to fit my feet (most places don’t carry fire boots that small, since it’s mostly men that buy them), I finally go to pay and the credit card company FINALLY decides to block my credit card for suspicious activity? I mean, I love that they notice strange charges and that would help in case it was really stolen, but at this point I had already gone through 6 states and spent hundreds of dollars. Subsequently, it took the clueless girl behind the counter and I half an hour to talk to the credit card company and prove my identity. But at least I was finally verified and it wouldn’t happen again.

It happened again. And I went through another 10 minute interrogation.

But alas, I finally reached… Bozeman. Then West Yellowstone. The last town I would see for over an hour.

Down a long, winding dirt road I drove. And drove. And drove.

And then I stopped. Huh, funny. There seems to be cattle blocking the road. I’ve never been stopped due to a cattle-jam. 28 miles of cow.

(Lightening has calmed a little and Gator is back. Guess I’m not going anywhere anytime soon?)

I finally reached the refuge and, simply, it is postcard beautiful. Miles of lakes and wetlands, blooming wildflowers, and surrounded by mountains on all sides. I drive up to a few small log buildings.

Home!

I went to my boss’ cabin and was invited to stay for homemade blueberry yogurt with him, his wife, and their friends. I was delirious from driving, chugging Red Bull, and devouring Twizzlers, but I smiled and nodded and kept my drooping eyelids open.

After a while, he brought me to the bunkhouse. Welcome to my new life!

(the photo is of Heather, Steve and I at Jeff's for my going-away party on Saturday. I do remember this picture being taken, hee hee!)