Montana 2009: Day 4

We went on a five mile hike today. We drove for about 20 minutes on dirt roads (which is what most of the roads are around here) and then parked at the trail head. We were doing a hike that was around 2.5 miles in and ended at a lake called Fuse Lake. The hike in went through at least three different types of terrain. We walked through some meadows which were filled with luxuriant plants and flowers, then into a pine forest, and by some extremely rocky areas that I presume were the result of rockslides or avalanches, although I can’t swear to it. The lake itself was beautiful, very cold and clear. Unfortunately , it was also the site of a squadron of flying insects: mosquitoes, wasps, and huge nasty black flies. Our picnic lunch was not quite as pleasant as we first envisioned and there was a lot of hasty gulping down on sandwiches while trying to keep moving. The enemy thoroughly routed us from our position and we left in defeat.

The hike was great, and I did really well on the way up. On the way down, I started to feel the jarring of the impact in my lower back, and I was really ready to sit down by the time we were done. We rested for a short while and went into Phillipsburg for dinner and a play. Phillipsburg is a cute little town, with a population of 920 people, according to the sign. It also claims to have the world’s largest candy store, which I find HIGHLY doubtful, but it is still pretty darn impressive, and I may have had a grizzly claw, turtle, and/or piece of fudge or ten. We ate dinner at a pool bar (the table kind, not the swimming kind) I had a DELICIOUS cheeseburger, made of local beef, and tator tots. I can’t even tell you how good those tator tots were. The play was called “Butterscotch” and was a small community theater production. There were only five people in the entire cast, but they did a great job. I was honestly surprised by how good it was! Community theater is something I almost never think about, but nearly always enjoy. I’d love to devote more time to exploring theater back in Rochester, but we’ll see if that happens in reality.