Montucky

August: Life becomes single-focused and practically monastic. Ride in the morning. Job hunt all day. Ride in the evening. Make dinner with the parents.



My ride is just about the same every day: 16 miles out and back to the hamlet of Thompsons. The job hunt is just about the same every day: I've carpet-bombed the Interior Northwest with resumes and applications. Dinner is often different but often the same: we don't call it "Mexican food" we just call it "food."

September: More of the same, though it's not as hot. I used to think of my afternoon rides as "rendering the lard," now, 90 degrees feels like autumn.



The job hunts plugs along, though we gradually narrow where we apply to. I made a list of top tier towns -- places which have everything we'd ever want -- and a list of second-best towns. Missoula was a top tier town, and luckily it had the most job prospects.

But job hunting 2,000 miles removed from your goal is difficult, at best. Laura and I decided that if Missoula was the place, then we just ought to head out there. Then, in one day, we both got nibbles on jobs in Missoula. In one crazy 72-hour period, during one of Atlanta's signature downpours, Laura packed the truck and trailer and got them both out to Houston with but one mishap: a flat tire on the Southwest Freeway during rush hour.

We spent two more days in Richmond arranging things before shoving off north by west in the Altima (leaving the heaving truck and trailer in Richmond). For the first two days we followed the route pioneered during our winter ski trips: Bryan, Waco, Ft. Worth, Wichita Falls, Vernon, Amarillo, Dalhart, Clayton, Raton, Trinidad, Denver. We spent the first night in Amarillo and were up before dawn the next day. We saw the mountains at Raton, sampled the good-old Colorado in Trinidad (not to be mistaken for the new Colorado, which might as well be a different state) and saw snow in the Central Rockies. We had each applied to jobs in Boulder, Ft. Collins, Longmont and Loveland and we checked those towns out. I found them to be just what the accolades say: clean, quiet, well-planned and eminently livable. And also: kind of boring and rather suburban.

From Ft. Collins we headed into Wyoming and camped in Sheridan after checking out Buffalo, where I was offered a job I turned down. Finally, on Sunday we crossed into Montana and idled through Livingston, Bozeman, Butte and Deer Lodge before entering Missoula.



I'll always remember the first time I drove into the Salt Lake Valley: it's a magnificent event. Driving down Hellgate Canyon to emerge in Missoula is a level or two less intense than that of Utah, but still memorable: the city set against yellow hills, sparkling afternoon sunlight, and the mountains all around.

October: Our home for two weeks was the Misasoula KOA, which was fine unless it was raining, snowing, windy or very cold. We again fell into a routine: up with the sun, breakfast at the picnic table, shower and dress up, and into the job service, where we'd spend a few hours on the job hunt. We'd break for lunch and poke around town for a bit before heading back to the job office.

We took a weekend to go to the nearby Swan Valley.





We both got job offers which we both turned down -- mine was in a pretty small town not far from Canada, and Laura's was at a nonprofit here in town.

Then it snowed.



We took this as our cue to check out of the KOA, where we were the last campers left and where we'd worn the grass pretty thin, and into a very livable apartment, which was no more expensive than camping, really.



Hopefully, we'll get some furniture soon.

There's lots going on, but not a whole lot to report. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here's the Bitterroot River above the confluence with the Clark Fork to keep you company.