Your Questions, Part 2

I’m home. My dog is thrilled. One of my cats won’t stop yelling at me and the other has yet to surface. I’m worn out but it’s a good exhaustion.

Ok, back to your questions.

• Best food was either the steak and egg burrito I made in 4′ of snow at a blocked entrance to Glacier National Park or the eggless omelets I made in Banff. Self-promoting, I know, but they were really good. The eggless omelets weren’t some vegan effort but were instead the result of finding the eggs had frozen into tiny oblong musketballs. Photo is above.
• Scariest moment in the T@b? You’re probably thinking of the big 3 – bears, serial killers, and mice – but the only kind of scary moment came when I was camping alone in 20 degree temps and my thermostat died. But friendly strangers on Facebook walked me through it and I lived!
• How do I fall asleep at a populated stop? See below.

• Most interesting place I visited. This is a tough one. I like odd, quirky, off-the-beaten-path kinds of places so it’s either the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois, which was chock full of superhero stuff, or Trixie’s Antler Saloon in Orvada, Montana, just because it was a dark, kitschy diner in the middle of nowhere.
• Would I do it all again? and If so, what would I do differently? So hard to answer. I would do a big road trip again but probably not the one I just did. It’s so hard to separate the weather from the trip so I can be objective. The truth is that the weather had an enormous impact. It changed everything from the things I did to the places I went to the length of my trip. It prevented me from doing what I went out there to do, which was kayak, sit around campfires, and stare at millions of stars. Don’t get me wrong – I love snow, but two blizzards in about a week was tough. No one had predicted that before I left home so I wasn’t well-prepared.
• Same question, still rambling. So what would I do differently? I would find a way for my dog to go with me because it’s a LOT of miles alone. Me in my head for that long isn’t all that wise. I would take on a shorter trip so I could go more slowly and not feel compelled to rush to get somewhere. I would refuse to go on interstates and do only backroads. I would plan absolutely nothing which would have eliminated a TON of stress both before and during the trip.
• I’m not ready to answer the rest of the questions yet because they require more introspection than I have right now but instead I’ll answer one you all haven’t asked yet: What was the biggest difference between where you live and where you went? I have 2 answers. First, trees. I like ’em. I’ve heard of midwesterners saying they feel claustrophobic in the east and I get it now because I felt exposed out there. But once I got to the Great Smokies, I relaxed again. Second, people in the midwest and in Canada are super kind (especially in Montana) but southerners are far more polite. Not one guy held a door for me. Granted, I walked and smelled like a Yeti because it’s impossible to walk like a girl in hiking boots, but no Southern man would have let a female Sasquatch open her own doors!