Wine, women and song

And Rovers......and fire stuff. Some particular favorite highlights of the trip:

First, the wine. At NOtaBLE in Calgary I had a pinot noir from the Okanagan region of British Columbia. It was really, really good, so I'll have to investigate further this region and their wines. I recommend you consider doing the same. After the New Zealand trip I came away a beginning wine enthusiast and I frequently pick a NZ sauvignon blanc when out at a restaurant, but now maybe I can add another wine to the old stand by list.

As for the women, well a gentleman never tells everything. I can say that I met many wonderful people on the trip, some of which also happened to be lovely young women. Must be that good clean living up there in the mountains. I think only a few of you dear readers are single guys, but if you are, and you're in to the outdoorsy, athletic type, leave now and head to Montana.

Song(s). Well, sadly I didn't get much live music other than Mestizo in Boulder, but I made it through the old fashioned way, good 'ole FM radio. Interestingly enough, all the way across the country and back I forgot to get the iPod out! Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem" was frequently on the play list at many stations across the country, but I have to single one radio station out. That would be 102.9, KMTN, The Mountain, Jackson, Driggs, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. All throughout the trip, it was like someone was controlling the playlists according to my mood or what was going on around me at the time. Going down Rt. 40, through the Kanansakis Country, I was really looking forward to getting home. The radio was on scan constantly, no radio stations around. It was beautiful driving through the mountains, but I was homesick something bad. I broke out of the mountains on to the rolling foothills and all of the sudden the radio stopped its scan and slightly staticky, the Boss belted out "Born in the USA". Simply perfect.

KMTN seemed to play a lot of appropriate for the mood music but with completely new to me songs and artists. Many of you may be more in tune to the new and hip artists out there, but not me. If I don't hear it on the radio, I'm pretty clueless about lesser known musicians. The Mountain played some really great stuff. Check them out online. All good road trips have a sound track and mine surely did. Too bad I can't remember most of them!

Rovers, well that was a bit of a let down honestly. I saw a few LR3s and Range Rovers, mainly in the cities, but as far as Defenders, a big goose egg. I did see two Disco 1s, both of which I saw in Livingston. One was a near copy of mine, even down to the color. The second was kitted out like he was on an adventure with a canoe on the roof, as it should be. I think I saw two Series trucks outside of Billings or Bozeman, I can't remember. Of course, I did stop at The Rover Shop in Calgary, but outside of that, I really didn't see many Rovers out there on the road. You think that would clue me in, wouldn't you? I did see a Classic towing a pop up camper in to Yellowstone. I actually got a return wave from that driver, nothing from the LR3s. Poor form. Oh, I did confirm that the FC101 I saw in Athens, OH several years ago is still there and looks restore-able.

My Disco did pretty well, all things considered. The shocks got fixed, but the headliner is really sagging down now, it'll overheat if you idle for more than a minute and the Vehicle Speed Sensor went out somewhere near Clyde Park, MT so I don't have an accurate count of the mileage after that. Even with all of those issues and the abuse I put it through (the Beartooths and Big Horns) it never let me down and got me back in one piece.

I didn't run across any incidents of note, but I did get in to a couple of firehouses along the way. Each time I met someone at the firehouse, they were more than happy to show me around and tell me about their Department. I've mentioned some of the places I stopped in such as Greenough-Potomac VFD and Great Falls FD Station 1, but I think I glossed over the Babb/St. Mary VFD. Located about ten miles south of the border crossing at Piegan it is a small (26 members) department that serves a very large area, 400 miles. It is encouraging to know that out in a remote, isolated part of the country, fire houses are pretty much the same everywhere. This Department is progressive about their training and sends their members to training events around the country, especially the DHS offerings in Alabama and New Mexico.

I passed a good number of fire houses along the way and managed to take pictures of a few, but I'll save those for a separate post.

Next: a few final thoughts.