Pip's Road Trip

Pip finished university this week and is now driving across America with his flatmate before his trip to the Far East with Anneli. Here's his update en route: We are currently in Lewistown Montana about 150 miles from Great Falls and about 8 or 9 hours outside of Calgary. We had a really long drive yesterday across 3 states but we saw some amazing scenery and stopped in some very cool small towns along the way. Met Jack who was the 74 year old owner of the gun store in the flooded town of Valley City North Dakota, the grizzly old gas station owner in Circle, Montana that has created a device out of a fly-swat to keep his store door from being blown open by the constant gale-force winds, and the lovely lady at the Jordan, Montana (pop. ~350) cafe and bar that told me that if I wanted something to eat in town I should go to the gas station (though she did think she might have a frozen pizza in the back somewhere). All in all a great day: we drove through Western Minnesota that resembles rural Ontario, flat, vast praries of North Dakota and Eastern Montana, scarred, barren, bad lands of central Montana and just poked our noses into the trees and foothills of the Rocky Mountains by the light of the moon. Anyways, I think we are trying to make it to Calgary today so that's probably where my next correspondence will be from. The plan then is to stay there for ~4 days before crossing the Rockies into BC. I'm going to grab the tail end of the free motel breakfast now so I have to sign off... I remember those days...!