8/24/13, Day Four, Helena, Montana

  Where to begin? How about I can't fucking believe it's only been four days since I left Portland. Time seems to speed up when I sleep in a different place every night, and I've definitely spent more time awake than asleep. I can think of a bunch of things to write, but usually at the end of the day I'm too cracked out to do it. But tonight I can stay up a little late, because for one, I'm not in a campsite, I'm on a king sized bed in a Super 8, and because I can actually sleep past six for the first time in a week. I'd rather be watching the Tosh.0 marathon on tv right now, but for you, dear readers, I'll try...

  8/21/13 La Grande, OR. My appt was at a place called Faerie Beads and Gifts, and it looked exactly like it should look. And when the proprietor's name is Dancing Hands, I would expect nothing less (though eventually she introduced herself as "Phyllis"). All she wanted to look at was my semi precious stones (cue ball jokes) and as soon as she saw the crates, she insisted on organizing all four. I mentioned that I'm an artist, and she demanded I draw her a fairy (sorry, FAERIE) while she looked through the stones. She kept haggling me for discounts, and eventually I felt I was being glamoured, though in the end she spent $1500. The whole appt lasted five hours, which meant I had to cancel my tentative one later...and also that I listened to FIVE HOURS of Celtic music.

  8/21/13 Lewiston, ID. I called Chuck at Golden Gifts to say I'd be late, and he was fine with it. Three hours later I rolled into his driveway and he came out with his jewelers magnifying visor still on. He reminded me of Jack Nance's role in Twin Peaks, and he had an oddly comforting smell; like the leather of an old Cadillac. His shop is right next to the trailer he and his wife, Virginia live in, so my tardiness was fine. And it turned out he wanted to look at stones too, so it was great that Dancing Phyllis had organized them all. We chatted as he looked through and told me more than I ever wanted to know about them. Eventually, I noticed it was getting late and tried to book a motel, only to find that almost everything in town was booked (later, Chuck would tell me that it was because of Lewiston's "Hot August Nights", a car and music festival). Chuck offered his couch to sleep on, his garage to store the van in, and to take me out to dinner with the gift cards he'd won in a photography contest. After the sale, I backed my van into a former boat garage, Chuck locked it, and we were on our way. As he veered off on a dark side street, I had about a 30 second window of cold realization that I had no access to my van, and not very many people knew where I was and maybe Chuck was going to take me to the docks and murder me...but he was only trying to get into Tomato Bros. the back way. After a nice dinner where Chuck (who's real names is Charles Browne, heh) told me stories of his youth, kicking around Oregon, bouncing at bars, and touring with a local band called "Tease" who let him sell his rings on stage during set breaks (apparently Chuck got more pussy than the band) we headed back to his trailer. He had three exotic fish tanks, and a dog named Sister with a gimpy paw. I woke up the next morning...and I didn't feel drugged, nor was my butthole sore. Chuck is just a really nice dude.

  8/22/13 Rathmund, ID. Not much interesting about this appt. Two very sweet ladies who bought a decent amount of stuff.

  8/22/13, Spokane, WA. This one was at SewEZtoo, a sewing store with a bead section. I swear, I think every woman who works at a sewing/fabric store has been beaten and/or raped at least half her life. I'm not saying that to be funny; such sad, worn down ladies. Nice, but timid, or cold. The most interesting thing that happened while the two buyers picked through the boxes while their supervisor breathed over their shoulders was the supervisor's daughter. I never caught her name, but let's call her Vickie. Vickie was 46, and had a pretty heavy case of Down's Syndrome. She sat across the table from me and the whole time was doing one of three things: she had at least 500 well worn playing cards in four stacks in front of each other. She would pick up about twenty, fan them out in her hand, re-arrange them for a while, and occasionally either yawn, or get intensely happy looks on her face. Or, she would be looking up something on her iPad, or iPhone (with a zebra print case) but she would hold ether of them an inch away from her face the whole time. Or she would interject a comment into whatever conversation that really, while not particularly interesting, or relevant could have come from someone who didn't have the excuse of a mental handicap. I really could have watched Vickie all day. (Side note: as I watched her, I came up with the theory that all the things she was doing that made no sense to the rest of us, and everyone ignored WERE ACTUALLY SUPER IMPORTANT because she was a MIB type alien agent, or spy. She was just a mole, of sorts, disguised as the last person you'd think was running a top secret mission for another race. Yeah, and SHE'S the retard...)

8/22/13, Spokane, WA. Downtown Spokane is a shithole, by the way, and pay not mind to the Satellite Diner being the top rated restaurant. My tuna melt was B-, at best, and the clientele was a bit scary. One dude had one of those scars that you get from someone sticking a knife in your mouth and carving a smile line up your face. And a neck tattoo. Anyway, I tried to move up my last appt, but the client never called me back, so I went to an Army surplus store to get supplies to make a cargo net for the van, since I'd brought too much shit. After buying some fishing net, hooks, and duct tape, I downright impressed myself with my ingenuity, and soon had a place to store my sleeping bag and guitar. I drove to the client's house, only to find she was not there. Her family informed me she was at the gym...blah blah blah...you know, when she showed up, she was super nice, and so was her family, but nothing really all that interesting happened so I'll just skip to:

8/23/13 Kalispell, MT. After spending the night in Coeur D'Alene, I drove up to Kalispell, and would have made the three and half hour drive with ten minutes to spare...had my phone map decided that the address was to the west of the highway, instead of where it actually was to the east. But, Cindy was fine when I got to Powder Horn Trading Company, a gun/western wear/gift/bead shop. She poked through the beads, asked about Amal, and told me that on his last go round, Amal had been burnt out, and was looking forward to dating again. In fact, most of the appt was her giving me the impression that she thought I would burn out on this job pretty quick. After a modest sale, the last thing her husband said to me as he bought a rifle from a dude was, "Your girlfriend won't be there when you get back!" Thanks, dick. That night I camped at another RV site, next to a quiet stream, and a loud Mexican family. I drank a beer and played guitar on the picnic bench, and started to get a "first week of summer camp" kind of feeling. As in "fuck this, I want to go home". Not that I've ever been to summer camp. My mood flattened out, I got surprisingly drunk from one tall bottle of beer, and zonked out in the tent.

8/24/13, Libby, MT. After a shitty night's sleep (I should have packed a pillow...and flip flops for public showers) I got up at seven to drive the two hours west to Libby. Here's something about Montana: you can go 70 mph just about everywhere, and it gets comfortable fast. ALSO, there are many, many reminders of why this might be a bad idea. There are little white crosses mounted on red sticks fucking. everywhere. It would be a fun drinking game to take a drink every time you passed one, except that you'd get wasted, and end up having a cross yourself (and that's probably how most of them died). Sometimes there's one. Sometimes two next to each other, or three. There was one cluster that really must have been a school bus. Fucked up. And there are skid marks everywhere, along with blood splatters from roadkill deer, some of which are still rotting by the side of the road. Other that THAT, it was a lovely drive. The first thing I see when I roll into town in a dude come out of his trailer with a rifle. And not just casually holding it, but more like holding it like you would right before you shoot something. When I got to the place my phone thought Boho beads was, it wasn't, and I called Stephanie, the owner. In a small voice that made me imagine a 60 year old redneck, she gave me long, detailed instructions about how to get to her house, and as I followed them deeper, and deeper into the woods, my mood got bleaker and bleaker. Great, some tweaker in the woods that gonna buy $400 worth, and then I have a fucking five hour drive. Fuck this. But man, sometimes I love to be wrong. Stephanie and her hubby, John, are rich as fuck. At least, that's what their giant house on a giant hill overlooking more giant hills seemed to say, and that impression was backed up two hours later when after a very pleasant appt, she bought $1600 worth of beads. She gave me a pear (that I'm saving for breakfast), and I had lunch at a surprisingly good Mexican place. After a five and half hour drive through some lovely country (and more of the those damn crosses!) I'm shacked up in a Helena.

PUHRETTY!

DIS TOO!

I DUNNO WHY THIS IS HERE!

This is Boho beads. Not the meth lab I thought it was going to be.

Not a bad day at the office.

These little crosses are EVERYWHERE.

Brutal commute, dude.

  There you go, buddies. I could blab on some more, about all the shit I think about when I'm driving...but that'll have to wait. I beat. I wanna watch more Tosh, jerk off, and sleep sleep sleep. In the meantime, here's more pictures than you ever wanted. ENJOY!

Miles:1,055
Money: I don't know