I’m in Montana for six weeks studying geology, living at a field station south of Helena and west of Bozeman. Technically it’s in Cardwell, but I don’t really know where that is.
Right now I’m in the town of Ennis in a café/bookstore/antiques/saddle shop, and I think the table I’m sitting at and the six chairs around me are for sale, but it’s the only place to sit. Aside from this set, all they have for sale are dozens of dressers, bureaus, vanities, and dry sinks. Maybe they already sold all the useful furniture. Every dresser/dry sink seems to have a theme for the knick-knacks decorating it, I think my favorite is the “ceramic frogs with crowns” cabinet. It’s covered with frogs wearing crowns, on top and on all the shelves inside. If you are ever in southwestern Montana and in need of flameless candles, this would also be the place to go.
Montana in general isn’t what I expected, but I don’t think anyone expects to find themselves living in a giant aluminum can from 1940. It’s more like half of an aluminum can tipped over on its side, but it’s big enough for 100 or more people to eat and study, and it’s easily four times bigger inside than it is outside. It’s a pretty impressive sight.
Everything is really big here, actually, especially the sky. There are no clouds, and basically no trees either, except along the rivers, so nothing obstructs your view of anything. There’s either a lot to see, or nothing, depending how you think about it, but either way it’s huge.
(Some stuffed animal in the back, probably a moose, just started singing “My Favorite Things” from the Sound of Music. It’s hard to capture the charm of this place.)
Back to the giant aluminum can. It’s incredibly cozy inside, there’s lots of pictures on the walls, a rickety piano in the back, a huge tiled fireplace/fire pit in the middle with a giant hanging square chimney maybe 10 – 20 feet long on a side hanging above it, surrounded by chairs and desks and tables along the walls. There’s some pretty dry geology reading, but we have a few dozen books too, ranging from the Chronicles of Narnia to “Sherlock Holmes in Dallas” to John McPhee’s “Encounters with the Archdruid,” and even a pretty juicy looking romance novel called “Serpentine.” I’ll try to type up the back cover when I get a chance, it’s worth a read.
(Some other animal just started singing that “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” song.)
There are (or were) 75 students in this course, and about 50 of us drove here from Indiana in 20 gigantic SUVs, each using about $80 of gas per day. I tried to do the math for our five day trip, but didn’t make it all the way. I think we averaged 15 mpg. But as wasteful as that seems, it’s amazing to see 20 dark colored SUVs shooting down the highway in a line, each with a giant CB antenna stuck to the roof.
There is no phone service at the field station and internet is dial up speed, limited to 30 minutes per person per day between the hours of 8 pm and 5 am. At first all of these rules seemed frustrating, but now it’s nice not being able to/not having to stay in contact with anyone.
While we were driving through Yellowstone the next-to-last day of the caravan trip from Indiana to Montana, the car I was in was hit/t-boned by an oncoming car while we were driving over a bridge. I think they swerved to avoid the bridge’s stone barrier because the road became narrower, and they swerved a little too far. The driver of my vehicle was pinned in her seat for three hours and ended up breaking her leg, the guy sitting next to me broke two ribs and ruptured his spleen. Myself and the other two passengers were fine, but when everything stopped moving and I saw steam or smoke coming from the front of the car. I didn’t want to risk being stuck in a burning vehicle and decided to jump out and get away. Then I blacked out and hit my head on the pavement, so we all got driven to the hospital in a van while the rest of the caravan, after a four hour hold up, continued on through Yellowstone to sleep at the cabins near Old Faithful.
It wasn’t all bad though, because this happened the evening of the Fourth of July, and as we were driving to the hospital in Jackson, Wyoming (Jackson Hole), we could see the fireworks going off over the town from miles away.
But we’re all back together and the first week is over now. In case you are interested what someone does at Geology camp, we spend from about 8 am to 4 pm in the field every day, hiking up and down slopes/mountains, looking at and learning the rock stratigraphy and the general structural features of the area, and later apply this knowledge to a new area. Basically we are learning how to wander into the woods and figure out what is going on, geologically… I’m sure it will be a useful experience.
The lodging is sort of uncomfortable here, but not awful by any means, and at nights it gets pretty cold. This is nice though because I wake up more often, and remember more of my dreams, and usually they’re pretty bizarre. Last night, for instance, I dreamed that a friend and I made glow in the dark brownies, or they might have been regular brownies with glow in the dark chocolate chips in them. Pretty cool right?
Sunday is our only day off, and today is my first Sunday off. We’ve been working a lot and I haven’t had much of a chance to just sit and relax, so for most of the morning I just read. I didn’t have the energy for a real book, so I browsed the magazine selection. Unfortunately, all they have are old computer and travel magazines from the year 2000. The Conde Nast Traveler magazines were pretty good, but PC World (“Sony’s New Playstation 2: Better than a PC?” “Wireless Internet: The New Craze!”) wasn’t all that interesting. I didn’t make it to the Sunset: Living in the West magazines yet, but they look promising.
It’s an eclectic bunch of students here. Two days ago Mikhail taught me how to write “how are you,” “asshole,” and “syncline” in Russian in the dust on the side of the SUVs.
Other big things in Montana: white trucks, country music, and huckleberries. The bacon here is incredible. Everything is sort of slow and gritty, but it’s a nice feeling.