krista@Travelintoxication.comDay two of the road trip.
Once we were up, showered and Ron Burgandy (or Georgia Peach, whichever you prefer) was packed, we picked up Martin’s nephew and he took us to the Breakfast Nook. Great food! After dropping his nephew back off at his house we headed back to the highway. Next destination…Deer Lodge Montana.
On our way down the highway we decided to stop at a very cool water hole just off the highway. We would have loved to have walked down to the water but it was down a steep trail and we probably would have melted. It was about 90 degrees with no wind and not a cloud in the sky. Plus, we are on vacay and it’s acceptable to NOT do any physical activity. Right?
Around 3:00pm, as we were flying down the road at 80 MPH (that’s the speed limit here you know), Beth and I looked at each other and realized that we had just lost an hour…hello time zone!!
We stopped at the River City Grill in Bonner for a late lunch. Amazing food! I see a theme around food going on here. They actually served multiple salmon dishes, and the boys said their fish was really good. I ate the only vegetarian dish on the five page menu…grilled cheese on sourdough with beer batter French fries. It was a good call as it was in preparation of the alcohol consumption that was awaiting us in Deer Lodge.
Around 6:30pm we arrived in Deer Lodge…at the Travel Lodge in Deer Lodge. It was nestled between sage brush and desert. Next door was an abandoned bar…which looked like the bar that was in Roadhouse. (Great movie with Patrick Swayze if you didn’t know the reference). As we came into the front lobby we encountered Kathy. She was not someone who looked like she enjoyed her job, people, the sun…or life in general. She was a real peach. We paid and went into our room. It was like a Bates Motel, very old, but clean. Only $25 per person…score!
They did not have a luggage cart, but Kathy was kind enough to get us her handtruck from the back room to help load all our crap in. Once we were in our room, and getting freshened up to go downtown, Kathy tricked us by calling us to make sure our room was acceptable and if we needed anything. Umm, what? What we didn’t tell her was that all the top outlets in the room didn’t work. If we plugged something into the lower ones, they worked. Good thing we didn’t say anything because we realized when we were checking out that they didn’t work unless you turned on the light switch by the bathroom. Rookie mistake on our part. Dumbasses.
We decided to check out the one horse town. No stop lights, a main street with lots of bars and mini-casinos. We ended up walking into The Corner Office. I texted my dad letting him know that we were in a bar called The Corner Office. That is what my grandma called the casino, her office. He texted back saying, “Don’t see any slot machines”. I texted him back a picture of the slot machines in a room off the bar…said, “Yep, got them in the back room”.
It was a great little bar with a jukebox and a pool table. About four people were sitting at the bar, all of them turned and looked at us when we walked in. “Not from these parts are ya” is what I could hear them collectively think. The drinks started to flow…and why wouldn’t they at $2.75 a drink. Another score!!
More people started to come into the bar as it got later. We cheered every time someone new came in. It was like Cheers, but instead of saying Norm, we just said Yah more people! Sitting at the bar was a couple that we started talking to because we overheard it was her birthday. Her name was Judy, and her husbands name was Ricky Striker…but we just called him Ricky Martin. I gave them one of my travelintoxication bumper stickers and Judy asked me to sign it just in case I become famous…thought that was cool. Another odd thing, her daughters name is Beth, and her granddaughters name is Krista…just can’t make this stuff up!
It was a great spot to just chill and have fun. We closed the bar down…not too bad for a bunch of 40 year olds.
I took some notes on my phone during the evening so I wouldn’t forget certain aspects of the night, but the only thing that I wrote down that I have no idea where it came from or what it means was what I decided to title this post…”One Eye Open…Standing Crooked”. What the hell does that mean????
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