(Written this last Monday…)
Let me preface this post: some of you will likely be offended. It’s Monday. Get a beer after work and just let it go.
As noted above, it is Monday. And after being gone much of last week for work in Florida, it was just a little bit hard to come back into the office and face the couple hundred emails rather ominously awaiting me.
One can only edit so many rod tube stickers before madness seeps in.
And so during lunch I made a sanity run back into town for a significantly caffeinated latte and a taste of sunshine. On the way back, I pulled onto the highway behind a suspiciously lowbrow-looking Dodge diesel truck with a mismatched topper.
Now, I’m strictly a Ford girl, but as I cruised along and watched the Dodge driver casually ride double lane for a few hundred yards in order to cut off a little Pennsylvania-plated Prius, I grinned. It was a sunny day, I was mainlining wake-up juice, and hell, it was entertaining.
As we cruised along, I got a closer look at the Dodge’s license plate. Montana. A Montana “7”, to be exact. The Big Sky State, in the pattern of many Western states, codes their plates with a county designation. It’s a source of much rivalry and internal judgement, as various parts of the state are in turn proud or derisive of others.
This particular county is the Flathead, up in the northwestern corner of the state.
AKA home.
In a land far way from the Big Sky, it’s a surprisingly pleasant boost to see something from home. Thus far I’ve been limited to talking with Orvis friends who lived in and guided out of Helena for ten years, and ogling the “5” license plate on their boat trailer. So, you can only imagine it was a pleasant Monday boost to see a fellow Montana rig cruising down Highway 7 in Vermont.
I did, however, cringe for a brief moment with my “6”—Bozeman—license plate and missed the Flathead Valley “7”s of my childhood. I hoped somehow the Flathead rig in front of me would take the fly rods littering my rig and the assortment of fishing stickers as a sign that I wasn’t a yuppie from Bozangeles.
