Montana and Seattle Road Trips

So far this year I’ve done a good job keeping my travel blog up to date. With that in mind I’ve got some catching up to do for the month of August.

Last August I did two road trips into the United States. The first one was Aug. 3-6 on a road trip to Montana. On that trip it was me, Warren, Travis and Richard. There we saw Glacier National Park and went to White Fish and Missoula.

The second trip took place Aug. 25-26. Dave, Brad and I did an intense all night drive to Seattle to check out the PAX convention.

Here’s a bunch of quick thoughts on my trip. This one’s pretty short but I really wanted to get something on the ol’blog.

The United States of America

Considering how close we are and how much culture we share, it was surprising how different the USA is from Canada. Not that the differences were large ones, it was more a ton tiny little ones that sort of added up.

Some obvious differences were the availability /cheapness of booze, miles per hour instead of km per hour and availability of new products (such as the infamous Dr. Pibb).

Perhaps more striking though is how different each state was from each other. Sure I only went to Washington State and Montana, but they both one had completely different characters. More than you expect for States that border each other in the same country.

One thing that always got me about the States are the huge civil structures that make up the road systems. The overpasses and bridges are mystifying in their size and ambitiousness. It would have not been fun to be around when they were first being built but now they make driving a much more pleasant experience.

Montana

It doesn’t take you very long to realize that Montana is a Red State. The billboards displaying the Ten Commandments and ease of access to guns tip you off pretty quickly.

That being said it’s still a pretty cool place. Glacier National Park is pretty awesome/treacherous drive that everyone should do sometime.

White Fish also introduced me to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. At the bar it cost $1.50 a pint. That’s a sign that it’s going to be good quality. However, as bad as the stuff is, the tap which we bought it from must have had special powers because it hit Travis and I like a rock. All it took was one to go from being happy-go-lucky hiding from Richard and Warren so I could stay out later to falling on rocks and using all my will power to make it to the bathroom.

The whole justification of our Montana trip was so Travis could get some turn tables cheaper in Missoula. We succeeded in this task and I am now gifted with hearing Travis mixing pretty much every night. Good times.

Seattle

The drive to Seattle was a hardcore one. Seattle is 15 hours away and in order to avoid taking vacation time Brad, Dave and I took turns driving (though an extremely caffeined Brad some how managed to drive nearly the whole way going to Seattle).

Seattle is a pretty chill city. It’s like Vancouver but smaller and American. Another nice bonus is the fact we were able to walk around and see all the major sites in a day. Seattle also contains a bar filled with pin ball machines making the city 100 times cooler.

The reason that we went to Seattle was to attend the Penny Arcade Exposition or PAX. For those of you not in the know, Penny Arcade is a video game themed webcomic and the convention was good times. When I first walked in I got so over stimulated that I must have had some kind of a seizure running about seeing all the cool things scattered about.

The USA is pretty cool place to do a road trip in. With the ridiculously strong Canada dollar I’ll probably be making my way down there very soon.