15. ohh Montana (photo Jonathan Cracroft)

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ohh Montana (photo Jonathan Cracroft)

A few weeks ago I was invited by a good buddy to take a trip to his girlfriends cabin outside of Kalispell, Montana. The trip started out super awesome when my buddy called me up to tell me I would be riding up there with 3 genuine hotties I had never met. 3-1 odds, stoked right? Yeah…well he forgot to mention one minor detail: these gals were all from the same sorority, and lets just say the chitty chatty did you hear about Robby n’ Sally palooooza did not even think about halting for the entire 12 hour trip!

At one point, in sheer desperation for mental peace, I dropped in on a few sleeping pills I found in my old travel bag. It coudn’t have been more than a few minutes later, however, that I was awakened to a slew of horrendous death screams coming from the 3 drama princesses.

Thinking we were either about to die or already on the stairway to Hell, I leaped out of my solitude to find the crime scene of a poor little bird’s collision to the windshield. Apparently it got completely decapitated by the wipers and although it was quite gruesome to watch the remains being splattered across my windshield, watching them in an absolute panic was (its twisted I know) kind of satisfying. Anyways, to make a really really really long story short; somehow, somewhere, we arrived.

Oh blessed Montana! I’m sure the 12 hours of chatterville had something to do with how gorgeous this place in Montana seemed to me, but honestly, I had never seen such a more majestical and pristine lake in my life. No wind, complete cover by luscious green pines, crystal blue water, and you can ride with the sun til 1030 at night. If it wasn’t for the mere 3 months of unfrozen water, the dominating race of the lumberjack, and the man-eating mosquito brigades, it could definitely be a wakeboarders paradise.

We fished, we rode, we sailed, we chopped wood, and then we chopped some more. Yeah… it pretty much became “Man”tana, or so we thought. Lets just say the last day of our trip we met the real deal, and he put us in our place.

His name was Pastor Joe. We met him at the little local church next to the lake. It was a beautiful Sunday and after we the service had ended, Pastor Joe came over to meet the new crew of attendees.

We started chewin the fat with good old Joe, when he suddenly gets a massive smile and asks us, “Yal wanna see my museum?”
Uhhhh…. “Yes sir Joe, we’d be abliged!”

Not knowing what to expect, he ends up taking us down to his house and into him and his wife’s bedroom. (I’m not going to lie, at that point I was creeping out but I had my bros with me so I felt safe.). We then entered into the gnarliest and freakiest room of my life. Before our eyes were hundreds and hundreds of animal heads, antlers, skins, full bodies, and horns just grafiting the walls and floors. There was even a badger skin and head used for their bed spread!  “Aint this fantastic fellas?”

I couldn’t believe it. I was in the room with the Mufasa of Montana. For a second I wondered if I was going to become part of the wall, but we made it out ok.

Ohhhhh Montana. Go there someday.

— Dave Patterson