Installment #4

First and foremost, hello all old and new friends, I wanted to make a comment or two before I begin. It seems I may have offended a person or two with some comments I made regarding women in the last installment. I believe I was misunderstood and I'm not sorry for what I said, I'm sorry that it offended you. Please forgive me.

All right, all right, to catch ya'll up, I go from barhopping Spokane in an hour with three strangers who I will somehow always consider friends to hearing on the train: "Next stop, Whitefish, Montana." I was out of sorts and looked out and it was dark! It was 7:15 in the morning and it was pitch black. I hadn't realized that we are glided right on through a time zone while I was scrunched up in a couple of train seats throughout the night. Regardless, it's quite a way to start a new city, hungover. I get off the train and it's freezing, there's no other way to describe it. I have an idea where the hostel is but they're not open yet so I look for a place to eat. I end up at the Buffalo Cafe and I got my first vibe of Whitefish. There are four or five people sitting at the counter of the cafe and they all look over at me, while they are in the middle of a discussion of last night's football game. Last night's HIGH SCHOOL football game, and how they drove sixty miles to go see and "their boys really looked like they had a chance for awhile." My waitress named Tammie, wrote in my journal and informed me that she was looking forward to hunting season and that last season she had killed and gutted her own deer in the back of her old Dodge. That's the first woman I've ever met who bragged about killing something but apparently it's normal in those parts. Met a nice girl working at a small coffee hut and she gave me a good travel coffee mug which I have sitting with me here in Toronto. The hostel in Whitefish was nice but nearly empty. I had my own room all three nights which was nice but it was a little eerie because the doors were not locked, didn't even HAVE locks and I"m talking about the outside doors. I met some people through the coffee hut girl and made them drag me to another town for dinner, where we ended up at Moose's Saloon. EVeryone I met reminded me that "Old Moose just passed away a couple of weeks ago" and I mean everybody. I was intrigued by the effect he had over the town. They asked me at the bar to blow into some horn and I could have a free beer but I wasn't drinking much that night so I declined and it turns out that when you blow into the horn, a bunch of black soot goes right into your face in front of a hundred people so I'm glad I didn't those good ole' boys something to laugh at the LA kid about. Some headlines from the Montana newspaper the next morning were: "More than a fifth of Montanans hunt", and "If a gun is stolen from my vehicle, is it covered?"....cracked me up, could you imagine seeing the second headline in LA???? Got a free meal and some free beer from a nice bartender named Cat at the Great Northern Bar and Grill, she even gave me a nice long sleeved shirt which I have with me too...but then a strange thing happened. I woke up the third morning feeling out of place. It seems the "best" things to do around Whitefish required a car, like going to Glacier National Park and going to CAnada for an afternoon and I couldn't get anyone to go and I just got the urge to leave. I went to the Greyhound which was cleverly disguised as "Stumps Pumps" but it had left and even considered renting a car or going west again but I decided to stick it out and leave for east in the morning. It's hard to describe but nothing is holding me anywhere and I wanted to up and leave so... I went out drinking the last night and woke up at 6:30am the next morning hungover again and while trouncing in the freezing October morning two blocks to the train station I ran into my Amish friends again and spent the morning talking to Vernon... a very nice man and he told me the process on how he became a preacher and then after seeing his eyes when he described his favorite dish that his wife made, I went over to her and got a recipe for stuffing that I"m going to make at Thanksgiving or Christmas....and that's how I left Whitefish, Montana...

and on the train not much happened. I felt like a spy because the terrain was so foreign. It was flat and yellow for nine hours and then it became dark but I don't suspect that it changed, and then I piled out into Minot, North Dakota.

I shared a cab with a guy from Max, North Dakota. It has a population of 301 he told me and seeing that he was in his sixties I figured he was in the first ten people of the town or so....got off and into the motel in North Dakota, my alternate besides hostels. It was all right but I needed to see some night life and so the cabbie told me about the Blind Duck. I walked in and the place was smokey, huge and loud. Karoke and bingo were happening and there was gambling to the right. I felt so out of place that the first thing I did was order a shot of tequila and a 16oz. Coors Light and I"ll be damned if it didn't come up to only $4.35!!! Met some interesting people that night, even sang some Karaoke, a Merle Haggard tune that I sang with some dude I met. He had on a cowboy hat and lived sixty miles away. I ended up getting five free drinks that night from people and I felt it the next morning, vowed to keep clean for a few days which I did but then....Minot was cold, freezing, blowing and blustery the next morning. I hitched a ride from the thrift store to the post office (it was only 8 blocks Mom!!!) and then walked around. THere wasn't much going on at ALL in this town. I even went to the police station to see if I could have a picture of me being arrested and the cop thought I was mocking his job so I bailed on that. AFter walking around some more, my train didn't leave for four or five hours still and I ran into a couple of high school girls working at a drug store. I finally, after hanging out with them for an hour asked where there was to go and they suggested the strip club. I have never been to a strip club before and it kind made me feel funny but I was so booooooooored out of my goard in this town that I had the girls call the place up to see if there was a cover. Mind you, I'm budget travelling and don't really have money to give naked girls money. It turns out the place, called Legends, was right across the street from the YMCA!!! Go figure. I went in and didn't want to sit where the dancing was going on because I didn't have any money so I just went up and told the bartender that I just wanted to read and hang out. Not an hour later one of the dancers was hanging out and talking to me and the bartender is the one that took me to the station!! They were two of the nicest people I met in North Dakota...

and on the train to Chicago

talked with some people that were catching a buzz on the train and met some nice women from North Dakota and such. It was fun trying to get them to be nice to me because they didn't like me at all though they claimed it was sarcasm....it's a fine line, girls....

Finally pulled into Chicago and here's what happened. Met some folks that helped me take the right trains to the hostel. Different color trains and without them I would have ended up in Wisconsin, this I know. The hostel in Chicago, north of the city is a piece of shit. It's like a hospital and the curfew is ridiculous and so is the check out time. It felt more like a halfway house and I was glad to get out of there after a night. Had some friends who let me crash at their place for a few nights and we hit some interesting clubs, one a goth club where the cabbie that took us there had a Laker's discussion with me and then we ate at a place called Clarke's with the late night joint and had many drunkards throwing down potatoes at two in the morning. The next night we went to a drag bar called the Mashed Potato and it was a blast. I'd never been to a drag bar and the only reason we ended up there was because the bar we were supposed to go had a 20 dollar cover charge...forget that. Saw a great drag show, which cracked me up and then spent Sunday relaxing and then cooked dinner for my friends and watched the Simpson's Halloween Special which most of you will know how that made me feel. Saw another friend on the MOnday and we walked all around the downtown area and ate at a place Pizzeria Due which was damn good and then we found this great bar which happens to be an unknown gay bar. It's not like any of the others. This was for professionals in their 30's/40's and me and my friend did not fit in at all but we met a guy who was a waiter for AMtrak and so that was cool....

Spent 15 hours on the train yesterday and pulled into Toronto a little after midnight. It was absolutely cold, where I wasn't sure if I was going to have enough clothes are not...but, the city is waiting for me and seeing that it is almost lunch time, I want to get out there and catch a vibe....

Peace to ya'll, hope you enjoyed and again, please email someone on the list so we can all get a little closer.

Oh yeah, my shameless plug for the day, please check out the website: www.geocities.com/jasonconga

and read a story or two. For anyone that has read all twelve stories, please email me with your address and you will get a postcard FORTHRIGHT.

peace and smiles from Canada,

J