“I’m sorry for you, but you’re Welcome here”
Country side Montana
With a variety of experience through these parks, we wanted to go up-north to Glacier NP.
So, we started our drive from Gardiner, MT to East Village park, MT. It was a rough drive for us. We hit a snow storm on the way but it was not as bad as getting stuck in a snowstorm on I-80 during Thanksgiving back in 2016. The drive was as snowy white as the land could be. The horizon and the land melted into each other with a visibility of 50 feet. On our drive to East village park, 30 minutes before Choteau, MT, we stopped at a coffee shop in a small town called Augusta, MT. We entered the place at around 3 PM. The bar was owned by a lady and there were a couple of ranchers drinking beer, so we joined them asking for a coffee( yeah coffee because we needed to drive).
One of the gentlemen asked: “ Where are you from?”
We replied: “San Francisco”
He said: “ I am sorry for you but you are welcome here” …
They were really nice and concerned for us because we were planning to drive through a snow-storm around a reservation land. The rez land was considered dangerous by them and out of their concern( I guess), they suggested that we could spend a night in their town and helped us to get on MDT( Montana Department of Transportation) to check road conditions. The conversation went something like this.
Gentleman 2: “Have you looked at MDT for road conditions?”
We: “No, what is that?”
Gentleman2 walks over to our table and says: “Ohh, it the Montana Department of Transportation.” Takes out his phone from his pocket and start looking at his phone while he says: “Let me check it for you. Hmmm… The road looks okay and is not icy.”
Gentleman 2: “If the route you are taking has black lines then don’t drive but if its blue then its drivable”. Gentleman 2 looks weary about something on this. He pinches on his phone and looks up to the rest of the folks in the cafe and asks:
“ hey , are White people allowed up there”
Anki immediately in her cheerful and ignorant way says:” ohh, but we are brown” and gives a smile.
He looked up at us and now really noticed the two people in front of him and perhaps felt a little uncomfortable about what he had just said. He then told us - “You should be okay to drive, the road is not icy” and keeps his phone in his shirt pocket, and goes back to his bar stool. The owner of the bar suggested that we could spect the night in the town or in a hotel which has an outdoor swimming pool in a town 30 mins north . Eyes brightening up, eyebrows raising as they suggest and insist on swimming pool (and I am thinking in my mind why would I need an outdoor pool on a freezing night.. may be an outdoor swimming pool for a cold water therapy ??) . Well, while I am trying to figure out how to use a swimming pool on a cold evening, Ani bursts my bubble and says Bye to all and whispers in my ear(“lets go”).
Nevertheless, with a new instilled fear and our rugged Mercedes, Ani and I decided to plow through (pun intended) the snow-storm to East Village Park, MT which was 2 hours away from the town. We didn’t know about the MDT site before we walked into that bar and that was a good piece of information for us to use for our rest of the trip.
A week later on our way to Badlands NP, we drove through the same plains and saw the mightiness of these plains. The snow had melted down and there were just vast plains till the horizon.
PS: I had my biggest bowl of ice-cream for $3 in that coffee shop. I forgot to take a picture but it was 4 scoops of ice cream in a bowl.
