Part Two

We were going to go to Missoula, but seriously, when you see a sign like this, which way would you go? There was simply no other choice, of course we were going to head to Paradise, I mean, who wouldn't? We headed down the small back road, off the Interstate, off the beaten path and tuned the radio to a Paradise channel to see what was happening in that neck o' the woods. Well, ok, there was no channel, the radio actually went off the air. Oh well, we were in a sort of a desert that lay tucked in between two mountain ranges so it was to be expected. Instead we just sat back and enjoyed the scenery as it flashed by, no houses or animals, just a serene view of distant, hazy mountains and lots of small bushes and shrubbery, it looked and smelled like sage ("the sage in bloom, smells like perfume, deep in the heart of Texas..." You know that song? We weren't in Texas, but it was reminisent of that type of land, odd to find it here.)

We rolled along, listening to the thump, thump thump of the tires and then the tick, tick, tick, of bugs hitting the windshield. What? More than one tick? How many bugs are there? Is it hail? Oh, it's grasshoppers....wait, LOTS of them, a hoard, a pestilance, a plague? They smacked into the windshield, grasshopper innards smearing all over, some were getting caught in the wiper blades and struggling to free themselves before the rushing wind blew them away, little legs kicking, and in some cases, kicking without a body attatched. It was hard to see, and using the wipers only smeared it worse. I was recalling one of the biblical plagues and wondered if it were the beginning of the end. I didn't want to pull over and clean the window with all these creatures flying around, bugs with kicking feet and beady eyes and yellow guts getting caught in my hair? No thanks! Then...whew, we saw a sign that said Hot Springs and we sighted a gas station. We pulled in and heaved a sigh as the bugs had vanished and it was silent again.

We stopped and Steven got out to clean the windshield and I gazed around in semi-disbelief. There was a few lawnchairs by the building with some folks sitting and watching. Odd folks, a large lady with no teeth dressed in Fortrel pants and a dirty sweatshirt was sitting by a table with a handwritten sign that said "Peruviuan jewellery" and a display of beaded earrings, the dangly kind that a kid might make from a bead-kit. A skinny man with a straggly wispy beard was laughing with a big ole fat man who looked like he hadn't washed in a long time and their table had, maybe, suncatchers or some home-made sparkly things hanging. Over on the other side of the parking lot was a collection of about 60 blue porta-potties. No sign, no "for rent", just this odd collection. Do these people drive around and steal them? Is that what they use for their toilet? Steal a porta-pottie, use it until it's full and then go steal another?

There was also a little settlement of about 7 trailers, not mobile homes but the camping kind, each with tattered awnings, ratty mats and tinfoil covered windows, each with a selection of goods for sale, from tires and rims, to old buckets and tin things, a sign may have said "antiques", but believe me, this was worse than junk. The owners all glared at us as if we were interlopers, and I certainly had no desire to make eye contact with anyone. Can you say "Deliverance"?

We hastily hopped in our vehicle (which was mansion-like compared to theirs, which made me nervous also, I mean, no one knew where we were, we could vanish like those people that you see on Dateline...just gone. Maybe stuffed into an old porta-pottie.)

As we drove down the road, we saw another sign directing us to Hot Springs, and we felt ready for a nice soak, maybe this was Paradise? We drove off the already back road we were on, to an even "backer" one and came to the Symes Hotel. I tried to convince myself that it was quaint and "fun", but it was just old and somewhat creepy. The sign outside it said that it was built in the late 1800's when hotsprings were considered a novel way to regain your health, everyone who had any money travelled to "take the waters" and Montana apparently has quite a few of these spots, and Symes was one of the best. In the 1800's. Not now.

Inside, the tubs looked the same as I think they did in the 1800's, with clanky pipes that moaned and groaned and spit out a trickle of rusty, sulphurous, smelly water. Good God, who could sit in one of these things? Not me!

We stood at one end of the hallway (the little rooms with the ancient tubs are on either side) and there wasn't a sound to be heard, other than, and I kid you not, some faint laughter in the distance. As I mentioned, I have a vivid imagination and I have probably read one too many horror story and watched one too many creepy move so I know what happens to folks who split up and go for a bath and then plan to meet up later. We ski-daddled right out of there.

Locusts and water turning sulphurous are 2 of the biblical plagues you know. I'm just sayin'....