My Last Day in Missoula.

In the morning my alarm went off on the dash and I opened my eyes to see the wind blasting my tent like an angry god. I watched, too sleepy to move, as the cover lifted, then one corner, then another, until the thing was upside down, held by a single stake. Max was on the steps of his camper, watching with bewildered amusement. I stepped out of my car, laughing, saying, "I got it! I'll get it!"
He looked surprised to see me. "I thought you were in that thing!" he shouted over the wind.
"Hell, no! If my tent were a ride like that, I'd charge admission!"
He threw his head back and laughed, showing broken gums.

I began taking the tent apart -- an odd sight as it was still upside-down -- as a woman walked over and asked if I needed help. She was thin, with short blonde hair and kind blue eyes behind her glasses. She was one of the four people who I thought were talking shit about me the day prior. Max called over, "Bernice, are you gonna help her?"
"What do you think?" she snapped back, winking at me.
"Well, alright then!" Max shouted from the steps.

She helped me break down the tent and weigh it down to dry -- again -- on a picnic table. I stared at the cheap shower curtain I had placed below it as a tarp, wondering what to do. "I'll get some paper towels!" she offered brightly, and soon we were wiping mud from the rippled vinyl.
"So you're a long ways from home."
"Yeah..." I explained, telling her about the trip and the book, Los Angeles, New York, and the desire to be anywhere but there.
"Have you been to South Dakota yet?" she asked.
"Yes! Last year! I loved it!"
"That's where I'm from originally. My children still live there. I have three daughters and a son. My oldest daughter, she's a nurse. And I just went down to visit my youngest daughter because she started chemo."
I had no idea what to say, so I just handed her back the paper towels.
"You can keep the roll," she said as I handed it back to her.
"Are you sure?" She was so nice, I was about to go into a nice-induced coma.
"Of course! Have you had coffee yet?"
"No."
"Well, come on!" She started leading me back to her camper.

Max yelled from the steps again, "Bernice, where are you taking her?"
She laughed. "She's coming over for some coffee, you old coot!"
"Well, where's mine?"
She politely gave him the finger.
"I think you just flipped me off!" he said.
"I think you're right!" she laughed again.

I followed her into The Nicest Trailer I Have Ever Seen. "You pull this on the back of a truck?" I thought.
Bernice's husband, Burnett, and his brother ___ were inside, sipping steaming mugs of coffee and talking about fishing. "Hi, there!" they said as I came in, hands in my pockets, not sure where to sit, and just looking around, overtaken by kindness. Bernice poured me a cup of coffee, asking "Cream and sugar? Do you want regular milk or this special creamer stuff?"
"That's great," I said, pointing to the Coffeemate.
She gave me a spoon. "You can fix it up however you like. Have a seat!"

Still in my sweatpants, I perched on an easy chair and fielded the usual questions. "What are you doing way out here?" "What do your parents think?" "Do you have a publisher?" "Don't you get scared?" The three of them were so welcoming that by the end of the conversation, I was as comfortable as if I had known them for years. I leaned back in the chair and hung my leg over the side, laughing along with them as they told stories of their children, peppered with names I didn't know. They showed me pictures of animals they'd taken up close, bald eagles, moose and even a bear. We traded bear stories and watched out the window as two gorgeous horses wander through the woods on the south side of the campgrounds.
"Last year there were two different horses that would come through here, every afternoon at four o'clock," Burnett said. "And if Bernice wasn't out there with their carrots and sugar cubes, they'd stomp and throw a fit!"

Another set of pictures came out for display, this time of Bernice and Burnett's fishing trip the week prior. Row upon row of trout hung from lines as Bernice stood to the side, smiling. "She caught all those," Burnett said.
I looked up at her. "You did?!"
"Just about!" she smiled, as Burnett showed me another one.
"This here's one I caught in just a little pond over back that'a way." It was priceless. A picture is worth a thousand words and this was no exception. Burnett was holding up a thirteen-pound rainbow trout with such a look of disbelief it almost looked like the photo had warped. His jaw hung open and a cigarette stuck square to his bottom lip, dangling out of his gaping mouth. Even through his dark glasses you could see the whites of his eyes. I burst out laughing so hard I almost spilled my coffee.

This is Montana. These are the Midwest, come on in, take your shoes off, have some coffee kinds of people I knew existed! Max and Willow, Bernice and Burnett, Lala and Megan, it was all coming together. "I could get used to this," I thought as Bernice refilled my cup.

I excused myself to take a shower and ran into the same woman I had in the bathroom the night before. "Sorry about the rain!" she cried. "I felt so bad, 'cause I told you it probably wouldn't!"
"Yes, damn you! I blame you!" I teased.
We chatted about Yellowstone -- "I think I'm going there tonight," I said -- and she told me, "I heard you can't camp in a tent there."
"What?"
"Yeah, something about bear danger, you can't camp in a tent in Yellowstone.""That's..... huh. Really?"
"Yeah... but that's just what the RV salesman told me when I bought my camper. Maybe he was just trying to sell me an RV!"
"Well, I guess I'll find out!"

I didn't make it to Yellowstone that night. I spent the rest of the day just hanging out, rollerblading the backroads of Turah, typing, and going to Lala's restaurant to say goodbye. Bernice's sweet-as-pie neighbor, Kathy, told me to come over and check my email so I spent about an hour chatting with her as well, completely comfortable camped out on her floor while she smoked a cigarette at the kitchen table.
"You're doing it right," she told me. "Just do your thing while you're young, before you get too wrapped up in life."

She told me about her family. "I have one son and a daughter. My daughter had a twin that was killed in a car accident. My son was the driver, so he hung on to a lot of guilt. And my daughter, that was her twin, so it was really hard, but you know how sometimes a death can pull a family apart or it can bring them together? Well, I'm really glad that it eventually brought us together."
All I could think about was my brother.... and his evil boss, The President.

I went back to Max and Willow's camper, to say goodbye. Max was feeding Will brown lumps in brown sauce and she smiled at me through a mouthful of food. "You take care now," he instructed. "And tell your parents that two hicks up in Montana think they did a damn good job."
I blushed for the millionth time this month. "Okay. You take care, too. I'll be in touch somehow." I kissed Willow's outstreched hand and tried not to cry as I got back in the car.

When I went to El Cazador, Lala's restaurant, I grabbed a seat at the bar. Lala was running around taking care of tables and I waited, while an adorably healthy-looking guy came over and introduced himself. "So, are you Lala's friend who's a writer? I'm Josh."
"Nice to meet you!" I shook his hand as he asked me a host of questions about "my job". I've found that sometimes I get caught up in the minutae of surviving on the road day-to-day, or I lose the magic in what I'm doing because I expect so much of myself, and if something doesn't get done to par, I become very disappointed, and it's answering questions like, "Why are you doing this?" that bring me back to reality, to the present. Josh and I chatted for quite awhile, until finally I found the motivation to get back on the road.

I didn't want to leave Missoula, that's what it really was. I was having so much fun, meeting such incredible people that it felt like a crime to leave. Still, I had to head south to Yellowstone so I could continue on to Utah, where I had friends waiting for me.

I gave Josh my website and information and told the both of them to keep in touch. And with that, I was on my way to Big Sky.