Nov. 28, 2008

Before leaving campus, everyone asked us, "What are ya'll going to do in Montana?" To tell you the truth, I really didn't know what we were going to do here. I figured there would be a bunch of flat land and nothing to do. My assumptions seemed to be true when we first arrived. However, this has been a great trip so far.

Thanksgiving was a very memorable day for our team. First, we traveled to the Yellowstone National Park. On the way we stopped at a place called Chico's Hot Spring Resort to eat lunch. Not knowing where to go, we walked into a saloon where there were some (I'll put this nicely) "unfamiliar" faces. We were a little hesitant but eventually we made our way to Percie's Poolside Grille on the other side. From the window, we could see visitors outside swimming. I know you're wondering how they could possibly swim in 40 degree weather but this was not an ordinary pool. The pool is heated by the hot springs so the water is always 96 degrees or above so the people swimming were far from freezing!

After lunch, we continued on our way to Yellowstone Park. Once we arrived, we started seeing elk and deer everywhere. I'm not too into the wildlife so I was fascinated to see them up close. To the left there was an elk hanging out on the local school's football field. On up the road, there were deer crossing the road right in front of us. We drove for miles and miles taking pictures of the mountains and spotting out the wildlife. Eventually, we got to place where we could get close to one of the hot springs. We got closer to the hot springs but we also got a lot closer to the elk. Everyone was a little scared but once we saw that they were more worried about eating grass than us, we inched closer and took pictures.

We continued to drive on this never ending road into the mountains. Just when I thought we had seen enough, we spotted some buffalo just hanging out on the side of the road. It was amazing. The buffalo didn't want to run us over or anything, he just sat there looking at us like "Oh, here are some more tourists. Take my picture and keep it moving, I'm busy." We tried to take pictures but by then it was getting dark so we figured we would just "keep it moving".

I didn't realize how far we had gone until it was time to turn around and head back towards our hotel. About 2 hours later we arrived back to where our trip had begun. By this time, we were all hungry again which leads me to why our trip to Yellowstone Park was so memorable. We quickly realized that practically every business had closed early for Thanksgiving. For about 30 minutes, the coaches scrambled around trying to figure out where we would eat the most important meal of the day--Thanksgiving dinner. Becoming desperate, we tried Burger King, Buffalo Wild Wings, McDonald's and every other restaurant. Eventually, we came down to two choices: the hot food section at Walmart or a random restaurant attached to a truck stop...

This time the Lady Catamounts decided to live on the edge a little. We wanted to take a risk and do the unexpected so of course we chose the truck stop! The decision turned out to be a great one and everyone left satisfied. We had a good time laughing about how special our Thanksgiving was at a truck stop in the flatlands of Montana. This just goes to show that it doesn't matter how or where you spend your Thanksgiving. It's all about what you make of it. We truly missed our loved ones on Thanksgiving but at the end of the day, it's still A GREAT DAY TO BE A LADY CATAMOUNT!

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