Well, what if I were to tell you that this update involves being in the same car with a convicted meth supplier and murderer who has been shot 5 times? What if I told you I almost killed both him and me while driving home yesterday? Would that give you any incentive to read on?
I suppose not. No bears, no reading ...
For the record, I think this will be the second to last update in the Road to Canada series. The final update will be a summary after I've had a few more days to think about the whole adventure.
Friday, as promised, Barbara picked me up from the pricey HoJo and we drove to Butte. The hillsides were simply aglow with aspens in their bright, fiery oranges and blindly brilliant yellows. Barbara dropped me off at the Butte Library and continued on to meet with her mother, vowing to return to the library to pick me up around 3 PM.
I had 5 hours to do whatever I wanted to do in the historic uptown Butte district. Too many, paralyzing choices! Should I visit the world renowned Dumas Brothel (spoiler alert: I did visit the Dumas Brothel, only to learn, it's just a museum/gift shop now. Damn!)? How about the Montana Chemical Dependency Center (which is actually sponsored by the tobacco industry to get people hooked on various chemicals)?
How about neither? On the way down to Butte, the topic of Lars and the Real Girl came up. Barbara has never seen this gem, so my first goal was to find a copy. Did you know that the Butte Public library system has only one Ryan Gosling movie and it's not Lars and the Real Girl. I was so dumbfounded with the result of this spartan search, I asked for help from a librarian. He was a little chagrined to admit that, yes, it appeared that the Butte Public library system has only one Ryan Gosling movie and it's not Lars and the Real Girl. He suggested a pawn shop within walking distance and my fate in the historic uptown Butte district was now set ...
... on to a pawn shop!
Damn it, John, what about the murderer????
I walked down to Bruce and Bob's Pawn shop (note that this street view image shows a motorcycle illegally parked on the side walk, one of my favorite subjects!). They didn't have the movie (and the motorcycle wasn't on the sidewalk, either), but all DVDs were now half priced at only a buck apiece!
I had struck out (technically, that was only 2 strikes, but it was getting hot in Butte so I decided to forfeit the rest of my searching for Lars and the Real Girl at bat). As I was meandering around the historic uptown Butte district, I stumbled across the Butte Rescue Mission Bargain Center! My chance for a real third strike!!! Of course, they didn't have Lars and the Real Girl,. I had done it! I had legitimately achieved the "three strikes and you're out" plateau! In spite of not having the movie, they had a real nice belt for a buck which I bought to hold up my brand new Costco pants that were a bit too big (I lost 10 pounds on the ride ...).
So, I now had a belt but no movie.
Murderers, John, murderers ...
I remembered that a couple of southbounders said that I had to visit the Berkeley Pit, home of a massive, rising pool (now more than 4000' deep!) of lethal water, so I headed that way. I stopped in at the The Broadway Cafe for some gourmet pizza and talked at length with Cheryl, the owner, about the history of the place and the plans for the future (pave paradise, put up a parking lot). The daughter-in-law compared me favorablely to Grandpa Joe who, disappointingly, really did look a lot like me: he looked like an old guy in a pony tail ...
The Berkeley Pit was impressive for its size and the absolutely mirror like finish of the rising water. No one attempted to swan dive from the observation deck into the absolutely still waters of the pit, but there was a guy who was threatening to do a cannonball. I did not stick around for that because, really, how many times have we heard people say they are going to do that and they never do?
I returned to the library to await Barbara when it dawned on me I had the world's collection of movies in my pocket via a little thing we call "the cloud". I stole 431M of data from the city of Butte and downloaded Lars and the Single Girl to my phone ... for free (I had $6 worth of credits somehow). Damn, I could've just stayed in the library all day, catching up on back issues of Historic Uptown Butte Today! and you would've got to the murderer sooner ...
We returned to Helena where we ultimately joined Connie, fellow book club member, who was guarding the storage units she owns (long story ... yes, we know, John, murderer???). We went for a walk to see if there were any vagrants hanging out in the land behind the storage units (not sure what we were supposed to do if we found any) and then we were treated to a spectacular sunset with the clouds aglow, vying to outdo the aspen, "Jesus Rays" shooting through the clouds. Wow ...
On my suggestion, we made a Panda run and ate our pseudo-Chinese food sitting on the back of Connie's pickup truck, Montana style. Then, believe it or not, we watched Lars and the Real Girl in Barbara's car while parked on the street outside the storage units. It must have looked very odd to the few cars that cruised by ...
That's it, I give up. No murderer, no reading ...
I'm almost there and now you're leaving???
The next day I rode my bike to the Helena Regional Airport and picked up a Hyundai Elantra for the long trip home. I pulled out of the pricey HoJo around 9:30 AM with a full tank of gas, 60 ounces of Mountain Dew, a bag of pretzels from the Dollar Tree and the determination to get home in 11 hours or less.
Just a few miles east of Billings, I picked up a hitchhiking convicted murderer. When I picked him up, he was not wearing a sign declaring all of his past convictions and dropped charges. My fault for not asking him about his criminal record before I let him in the car, but I thought I was "paying it forward" for everyone who had helped me out on the trip.
Hunter was also shot 5 times during the course of his life. His own brother shot him 3 times, he was shot in the chest at point blank range by a rival biker gang and had his left hand blown up when someone threw a gun on a bed, it discharged and the bullet went through his left hand.
I was too timid to question the validity of any of these statements.
Almost immediately, Hunter fell asleep. This was not part of my plan, either: A) I wasn't planning on picking up a convicted murderer and B) I was hoping that anyone who I picked up would talk to me to help me stay awake. Instead, Hunter's snoring helped put me to sleep.
I'm falling asleep just reading this over ...
... I had 4 bouts of microsleep. Nasty stuff, that. Each time I'd snap to, I'd put a notch in the steering wheel to keep track of the number of times Hunter and I had cheated death. I was only going 85 MPH.
Hunter wanted to get down to Woodland Park, Colorado, and I thought about driving him all the way, but I'm sure we would have been killed if I tried that as I microslept us off the highway and down an embankment (always down the embankment. What's with that?). I wasn't going to put him up at my place, so I dropped him off at the Lowe's at 136th and I-25, gave him all my remaining Slim Jim Original Smoked Snack Sticks, 0.28 oz, a protein bar, thanked him for not murdering me and I drove home. He was very grateful for the ride as he told me it would normally have taken him 4 days to get that far.
So, I did pay it forward, right?, and I lived to tell the tale which you didn't read because you gave up on this update 20 paragraphs ago.
Total mileage was 761.4 miles and I did it in almost exactly 11 hours, including two fuel stops (which also included a Burger King stop (Hunter's favorite restaurant ... any place you want to go, Hunter, is fine with me ) and a Wendy's stop (Hunter's second favorite restaurant ... that's good, right, Hunter? We got to both 1 and 2? Great, huh?)).
Oh, I also did a discharge a convicted murderer stop.
Isn't it great to be back home???? 
No and I'll be sorting that out in the coming days. Look for my last, convicted murderer-less update in the coming days.
Still waiting for closure..........! Lol
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