Flippin' Sweet Digs

I left Thayne with a bittersweet feeling in my throat. Sad because I was leaving my new friends, and I had given back the cowboy hat before anyone noticed. I had left it on the table of Len's workroom, on purpose, wanting it to be bought by someone who would actually use it. Whoever had taken the time to make it, I felt bad taking it merely to decorate the interior of my car with. If either Len or Larry noticed before I pulled out of the lot, they said nothing.

The sweet part came from knowing that I had made terrific friends in a short amount of time. "Another breadcrumb on the trail," I cheered myself. "Another spot where someone knows your name."

I crossed the border into Idaho and felt the familiar feeling of a quickening pulse. It happens whenever I cross another state line that I haven't been to yet. Now the only ones left, however, are Nevada and Oklahoma, so I'm trying to space those out. They'll be my last new frontiers of the Continental U.S.

Idaho looked very much like Wyoming, but with more shade. Sagebrush and knotty pine dotted the hills that rose on both sides of Rt. 36 and there were so many trailheads I couldn't resist. I pulled off on a secluded trailhead and hiked up the switchbacks to Lookout Mountain. I made it half-way before the bugs got to me. I slapped them in such a rhythm I felt like a one-woman drum kit, but they were inescapable. Still, even only doing two miles, I was proud.

I meandered through the grassy plains, trying to remember every curve and buttery valley on the road. It was gorgeous. Towns came at me, nothing more than a handful of buildings in one square acre, no actual businesses, just houses and barns. On the two-lane road I passed tractors and the locals passed me, riding my ass like Seabiscuit until they could get a clear passing lane. My father's words echoed in my head: "Getting somewhere isn't a race. Just let the assholes pass you." Thanks, Dad.

For once, I had a specific destination. Preston, Idaho. Home of Pop'n Pins, Big J's, The Cuttin' Curral, Rex Kwon Do and, of course, Napoleon Dynamite. Now, you can think I'm a dork if you want to, but I love that movie. It makes me heart-happy. I planned on splurging on a motel room for two nights, locking myself inside, armed with cheap booze, ice and crackers, and writing until my fingers bled. And taking pictures, of course. Too bad I was about a month early for the 2nd Annual Napoleon Dynamite Festival, but I liked the idea of discovering the town on my own anyway.

I thoroughly enjoyed my drive into Southern Idaho, perhaps because I was at the wheel and not carsick in the passenger seat. It seemed that every fifty feet was a recreation area -- reservoirs, rivers, lakes and mountains. A commercial came on the radio. "We here in Idaho know how lucky we are to have the Great Outdoors right in our backyard. So if you're looking for a new ATV, mountain bike, climbing harness, or jet ski...." It was outdoor heaven. It had everything except the ocean. But no outdoor heaven for me this time -- I was behind on writing and needed to punish myself for it.

I crested a hill and thought I was driving down into Preston, and my pulse beat even faster, but it was only Mink Creek, the town prior. I filled up at a gas station and walked inside, fully expecting to see Napoleon Dynamite merchandise all over the walls. There was none. But the gas station itself served as the central hub of the town, as is the case in very small towns all across the country. Gas station, grocery store, video rental shop, liquor store, toy store, drug store, bait shop, hunting and fishing licensing place and restaurant. The amount of stuff they are always able to squeeze into a small space never ceases to amaze me. I bought a bottle of STP gas treatment, flipped through a People Magazine for a weekly dose of mind-numbing crap, and set off for Preston.

I entered the town via Rt. 36 and ended up so excited I turned onto Rt. 91 and drove right through Preston and into Franklin. One kamikaze U-turn and seven weird looks from strangers later, I was back on 91 North, and back in Preston. I didn't know where to go first, so I just drifted through town, looking for landmarks from the movie. The first one I found was the high school, home of such wonderful scenes as "Let me borrow your bike!", "It's a liger," "You got shocks, pegs -- Lucky!" and, of course, the Summer Wheatly pinata. The second thing I found was Uncle Rico's orange Santana van, delectibly parked right in someone's driveway. Someone had scribbled the words, "Sweet!" and "Vote for Pedro!" in the windows with soap. Third was The Cuttin' Curral, as in, "I already get my hair cut at the Cuttin' Curral." Then I tried to find Pedro's house, which involved half an hour of rubbernecking through the side streets of Preston, annoying the locals and drawing way too much attention to myself. I couldn't find it with a magnifying glass. Finally, I ended up on State Street, the main street of town, standing in front of a town map in a storefront window made specifically for people like me, with all the movie landmarks listed right there. I wrote down the addresses of places I wanted to go, and then tried to find Pedro's house again. I still couldn't. I gave up and went to Napoleon's house instead. It was slightly easier to find, but not by much. I had forgotten that his house was on a gravel road, not an asphalt one, so I drove past the right road several times. I took pictures, just waiting for someone to come to the front porch and say, "Get off my property or I'll call the cops on you!" But no one did.

I stopped at the grocery store for anything wet and cold that could be ingested. The cashier looked familiar; a curvy, pretty red-head. Her nametag read, "Nanette". I asked her The Question of Death That Would Surely Prove Me A Tourist: "Where's Pedro's house?"
She laughed at me, reaching for a pen. "Here, I'll draw you a map." She explained the simple directions so completely, so thoroughly, in two sentences, that I couldn't help but feel like a total ass.
"Good luck finding it," she said.
"Thanks."

And I found it. Like a religious artifact, there it was in the middle of the block on North Second Street. A sprinkler in the front yard sprayed right into my open window as I gawked and took a picture, and I didn't care. I'll take a little water in the face for a picture of Pedro's house.

As the sun went down, it was definitely time to find a place to stay that night. I pulled into the only motel in town, the Plaza Motel, and walked into the office, prepared to hand over what would feel like my heart, soul and first-born child. In other words, $70.00 per night. Which is exactly what I paid, $140.00 in all, but for the solitude and electricity it would give me, it was well worth it.

A sweet grandmotherly type greeted me with a cheerful hello from an obvious apartment attached to the office when I rang the bell. Children shrieked and chattered beyond the walls. When I asked what rooms she had available for two nights, she ran her finger over a dockett and brightly said, "Forty-one! That's a king-size."
"Oh, no! Does that mean it's more expensive?"
"Oh, no, sweetie! It's the same price."
That day I learned to spell relief, "S-A-M-E P-R-I-C-E".

While the credit card processed I checked out some "Flippin' Sweet Napoleon Dynamite Merchandise" on a makeshift shelf in the office, like left-over T-shirts from the 2005 Napoleon Dynamite Festival from Pop'n Pins that say, "Sweetest Lanes in Preston!" The lady remarked on my Six Million Dollar Man lunchbox, which I was still on a retail high from, and asked, "Do you have a Napoleon Dynamite lunchbox yet?"
"No. I only collect vintage ones. All the Napoleon Dynamites were made in the last couple of years."
"Oh. Well, you know, room forty-one is the room Napoleon Dynamite stayed in when they were filming the movie.""WHAT?! You mean Jon Heder?"
"Is that his name? I don't even know. But, yes, that is the room he stayed in for about two months!"
"OH MY GOD! Are you serious?"
"Oh, yes! There's even a movie poster in the room!"
"OH MY GOD!!!" At this point, I'm dancing around like Jojo the Idiot Circus Boy, right there in the office.
She laughed. "You like the movie, huh?"
Mid-stomp I sang, "Yes! The nerds win! It's a modern-day 'Revenge of the Nerds!'"
"Well, enjoy your room!" She handed me The Sacred Key.
"Oh, I will!"

(If up to this point it has not been obvious that I am a geek, I hope it is now.)

I scrambled up to the room, which was on the second story, terrifically eager to see my new temporary Napoleon-tastic digs. Sure enough, there was a movie poster right over the king-size bed. I jumped on the mattress, my head crashing into the ceiling. Then I laid on it every which way I could, trying to find a position where my head was on the tip of one side and my feet hung off the other. It was impossible. The bed was so huge, a nation could have staged a war on it. "All this space and I'm alone, god-dammit," I thought, text messaging my boyfriend.

Then came the phone calls. "Guess where I am?" I screeched into the phone to my father, my brother, my friends.
"Where?"
"I'MINNAPOLEONDYNAMITESROOMANDTHERESTOTALLYTHEBIGGESTBEDI'VEEVERSEENANDWOODPANELINGANDAMOVIEPOSTERANDAMICROWAVEANDAFRIDGEANDACLOSETANDABIGTV!!"
"Okay, um, what?"
I explained further, slower, to the delight of everyone Out East.
"Wow!" they all exclaimed.
It was a big deal to us.

After the dispensary phone calls, it was time to settle in. That required hauling out the propane stove, cooler, ice, vodka, orange juice, cup, soup, crackers, laptop, backpack, shampoo, underwear, propane tank, stuffed moose, change of clothes, facial scrub, camera, charger, and oatmeal. Never let it be said that I'm not a Boy Scout.

I know I made an odd sight to other people in the motel, namely, the burly, young construction crew that was staying below me and to the right, so they could see perfectly into my open window. Couple that with the fact that I was a) alone and b) wearing a mini-skirt and they were on me like white on rice. Except this rice didn't want to be white.
Watching me pull the cooler of ice, vodka and juice up to the room, they shouted, "You gonna drink all that beer all by yourself?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"Yeah."
"I don't have any beer," I snapped. And with that I was gone.


Two terrible seabreezes later, I was a writing machine.