training in missoula; seeing the Frys and the coz

We're training in Missoula, Montana, a place very familiar to me as a stop on all 20 of our road trips up to Glacier in my youth. The air smells better here, fresher; it's a very homey and comforting smell to me. And people are generally very friendly. The lady at the front desk faxed something for me, free of charge and very happily when their fax machine didnt work. And people who ran and biked by us on our walk all said hello as they passed. very sweet.

not quite as sweet were the girls being interviewed to work at hooters running around our hotel which appeared to be ground zero for their hiring fair. i roll my eyes.

My cousin Garrett took Becky and I out on Tuesday night to give us a real taste of Missoula, which both Becky and I find extremely lovable. We went to 5 bars and a bluegrass hoedown. Not kidding. the people were young and deodorant challenged and danced like you would imagine they do in local productions of 7 brides for 7 brothers. becky met a mountain man with a foot fetish and as we were feeling quite charitable at night's end, we did in fact take our feet out of our heels for his perusal and i'm sure he was over the moon about it.

so this hotel has been rad. i have been soaked in starbucks' verona coffee and Tazo tea every day, they've provided breakfast and lunch, and have neutrogena toiletries. it's like the northwestern land of plenty. i, of course, have been pilfering all of said amenities whenever possible--i.e. when our snack was clif bars and at the end of the day there were like 10 left and no one wanted them. i am totally taking them on our california road trip.

there's an adorable assistant manager here who has taken chinese lessons and we have been chatting in mandarin at regular intervals. he didn't know who chiang kai shek was and iw as scared for him, as was becky the history teacher. i coudl see he was itching to get himself abroad and experience adventure. he asked why i left and it was impossible to tell him that someday you might actually want to move back home and stabilize. i just said he needed to do it for himself. i cant believe it has been almost 2 years since i lived in taiwan. crazy. i still want to know what part the whole chinese thing will play in my life. seems so closed now.

i managed to see the Frys on this trip. crazily enough they are holing up planning their next strategic move from Helena Montana. as God would have it, they were planning on being in Missoula in the same time frame as myself. they experienced what we later found out was the infamous montana summer construction delay. so they were cooped up in the car for hours. this will explain why the pictures have so much outside in them. we went to starbucks after dinner which sort of completes the circle of life as we were devotees of taiwan's starbucks as well. note that izzy has already taken to drink to ease life's frustrations.







awesome name alert: UNC wrestler