Two of us wearing raincoats
Standing solo
In the sun
I am somewhat amazed that I haven't gotten bored or stir-crazy in Bozeman yet.
It's been 14 months since I moved.
And I have only made one friend (Double B) a couple of kinda-friends since I moved here. Kinda-friends are friends that you do something with every 6 months or so.
Of course, I had my built-in best friend, Bells, already here. Which is nice. (We grew up together in the Dam.)
Anyway, it's a small town (maybe 35,000 people), in a small county (maybe 70,000 people), in the middle of Montana. If you don't know what "in the middle of Montana" means, let me break it down for you:
We are two hours from Billings.
Yes, Billings.
It is the biggest city in Montana, at a whopping 150,000.
And when you get there, you may ask, "I drove two hours to get here?"
There are only 900,000 people in the entire state of Montana.
And it is a big state. 4th biggest, behind Alaska, Texas and California.
Let's break it down further....
If you aren't into Billings, which I am not, you can drive the other way three hours to Missoula.
(Disclaimer: The one friend I have made, Double B, lives in Billings. Trust me, his presence alone makes Billings a destination worthy of a two-hour drive.)
Missoula is about 55,000 people, and is a fairly cool town, in a hippie-writer-university-stoner-hard-drinking-killer-fly-fishing-mediocre-skiing kind of way.
Let us delve even deeper, and range out further.
A six hour drive will get you to Spokane, Washington, a hotbed of hills and, um, I am not sure what else, but I think it is bigger than Billings, so it's got that going for it.
Salt Lake is an 8 hour drive away, making it the biggest, closest city. And if you have been to Salt Lake, you are laughing right now at the prospect of driving 8 hours to go there fort any reason other than skiing. (Admittedly, my favorite skiing in the country.) But you can pick up another wife there.
I guess you could drive the 11 hours to Seattle, or the 16 hours to Minneapolis, but why the fuck would you want to do that?
But I digress.
If you're a cosmopolitan hipster who craves hustle, bustle, traffic, outlandish broadway productions, the smell of hot garbage and piss, high-rises, a cultural melting pot, concrete, 576 bars, 689 restaurants, 4 a.m. delivery of thai food and/or heroin, and noise.... Bozeman, Montana is not the place for you.
Don't get me wrong, it's a cool town. It is actually kind of hip in a lot of ways. There is plenty to do: music to see, art galleries, lectures. Fuck, there is even an opera and a symphony here. Not that I would go or anything. There are a half dozen good bars, a couple dozen good restaurants. (And a few great bars and restaurants.)
Truly, though, the fact that the town is cool is just icing on the cake. The cake being miles and miles and miles and miles of the most beautiful, (truly wild) wilderness, mountains, rivers, and forests in the lower 48. Fantastic skiing/boarding (this was the real hook for me), endless amazing hiking and mountain biking, great kayaking, the best fly-fishing in the world, climbing (not that I would know, beyond "scrambling")...
And most importantly, no fucking people.
Even the places that are considered "crowded" by Montanans aren't really crowded.
Take Big Sky, for example.
I snowboarded 30 days there this year. Excluding the tram,
I waited in a lift line exactly twice, for ten minutes each time.... on Christmas Eve Day and New Year's Day.
(The tram runs up to the peak. There are only two "cans" on the line. 15 people fit into the can.... so 15 people at a time. I waited in line there a few times, but it was always worth it.)
Anyway, I have spent more time alone in the last year than I ever have. (And this alone time will increase exponentially come mid-August.) I live in the middle of nowhere, far from any large outposts of civilization.
Oddly, I couldn't be happier.
It's not that I am anti-social. Far from it, in fact.
I was talking with Dawn, Dan-O's wife, and she commented that it seems like I am always doing something.
I thought about it, and in the last fourteen months, I have spent only two weekends doing nothing, sitting on the couch, watching movie after movie. That's 56 out of 58 weekends spent exploring, hiking, floating, snowboarding, biking, fishing, communing with bears, etc. (And, let's be honest, quite a few weekdays as well.)
I think it is all that activity that makes solitude a comforting gift, rather than a spiraling loneliness.
I'll have to make sure to keep doing things and adventuring in the upcoming months.
After all, there is such a thing as spending too much time in your head.
Especially my head.
It's not always pleasant in there.
It's been 14 months since I moved.
And I have only made one friend (Double B) a couple of kinda-friends since I moved here. Kinda-friends are friends that you do something with every 6 months or so.
Of course, I had my built-in best friend, Bells, already here. Which is nice. (We grew up together in the Dam.)
Anyway, it's a small town (maybe 35,000 people), in a small county (maybe 70,000 people), in the middle of Montana. If you don't know what "in the middle of Montana" means, let me break it down for you:
We are two hours from Billings.
Yes, Billings.
It is the biggest city in Montana, at a whopping 150,000.
And when you get there, you may ask, "I drove two hours to get here?"
There are only 900,000 people in the entire state of Montana.
And it is a big state. 4th biggest, behind Alaska, Texas and California.
Let's break it down further....
If you aren't into Billings, which I am not, you can drive the other way three hours to Missoula.
(Disclaimer: The one friend I have made, Double B, lives in Billings. Trust me, his presence alone makes Billings a destination worthy of a two-hour drive.)
Missoula is about 55,000 people, and is a fairly cool town, in a hippie-writer-university-stoner-hard-drinking-killer-fly-fishing-mediocre-skiing kind of way.
Let us delve even deeper, and range out further.
A six hour drive will get you to Spokane, Washington, a hotbed of hills and, um, I am not sure what else, but I think it is bigger than Billings, so it's got that going for it.
Salt Lake is an 8 hour drive away, making it the biggest, closest city. And if you have been to Salt Lake, you are laughing right now at the prospect of driving 8 hours to go there fort any reason other than skiing. (Admittedly, my favorite skiing in the country.) But you can pick up another wife there.
I guess you could drive the 11 hours to Seattle, or the 16 hours to Minneapolis, but why the fuck would you want to do that?
But I digress.
If you're a cosmopolitan hipster who craves hustle, bustle, traffic, outlandish broadway productions, the smell of hot garbage and piss, high-rises, a cultural melting pot, concrete, 576 bars, 689 restaurants, 4 a.m. delivery of thai food and/or heroin, and noise.... Bozeman, Montana is not the place for you.
Don't get me wrong, it's a cool town. It is actually kind of hip in a lot of ways. There is plenty to do: music to see, art galleries, lectures. Fuck, there is even an opera and a symphony here. Not that I would go or anything. There are a half dozen good bars, a couple dozen good restaurants. (And a few great bars and restaurants.)
Truly, though, the fact that the town is cool is just icing on the cake. The cake being miles and miles and miles and miles of the most beautiful, (truly wild) wilderness, mountains, rivers, and forests in the lower 48. Fantastic skiing/boarding (this was the real hook for me), endless amazing hiking and mountain biking, great kayaking, the best fly-fishing in the world, climbing (not that I would know, beyond "scrambling")...
And most importantly, no fucking people.
Even the places that are considered "crowded" by Montanans aren't really crowded.
Take Big Sky, for example.
I snowboarded 30 days there this year. Excluding the tram,
I waited in a lift line exactly twice, for ten minutes each time.... on Christmas Eve Day and New Year's Day.
(The tram runs up to the peak. There are only two "cans" on the line. 15 people fit into the can.... so 15 people at a time. I waited in line there a few times, but it was always worth it.)
Anyway, I have spent more time alone in the last year than I ever have. (And this alone time will increase exponentially come mid-August.) I live in the middle of nowhere, far from any large outposts of civilization.
Oddly, I couldn't be happier.
It's not that I am anti-social. Far from it, in fact.
I was talking with Dawn, Dan-O's wife, and she commented that it seems like I am always doing something.
I thought about it, and in the last fourteen months, I have spent only two weekends doing nothing, sitting on the couch, watching movie after movie. That's 56 out of 58 weekends spent exploring, hiking, floating, snowboarding, biking, fishing, communing with bears, etc. (And, let's be honest, quite a few weekdays as well.)
I think it is all that activity that makes solitude a comforting gift, rather than a spiraling loneliness.
I'll have to make sure to keep doing things and adventuring in the upcoming months.
After all, there is such a thing as spending too much time in your head.
Especially my head.
It's not always pleasant in there.
posted by Joe at
9:11 AM
4 Comments
