Arrival in Montana

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We have been in Montana a few days now and although it may seem like a poor excuse but we have been kept busy hiking, biking and running in the wilderness by the best hosts you could ever imagine. So lets go back to the beginning and get our blogs up to date.

We arrived in America with the typical serious and rather unfriendly welcome from the US immigration. Matt had a rather interesting conversation that almost even resulted in being given a smile.
Imigration officer (IO)-"Mr Codd, You say you live in Australia but you are a resident of NZ. This is not right."
Matt-"Its a long story but i am a resident of NZ and I do intend to live in Australia."
IO-"Mr Codd, this is a simple question. All we need to know is where you live? Where is your bed?"
Matt-"I can explain if you give me a second but I don't have a bed."
Even more serious IO-"Look this is not a joke. Just tell us where you live?"
Matt-"Well I have lived in the UK for 8 years but I currently have no possessions, no job, or no intention of living there again."
IO-"What?, I need a straight answer"
Matt-"Well my possessions are in a box in Australia if that helps. Hence I have Australia on the form!"
Leanne to the rescue.
Matt-"This is my new wife who does have an Australian passport."
IO to Leanne-"Does your mother like him?"
Leanne-"What?? Yes?" (Unaware of the previous conversation)
IO-(Almost but not quite cracks a smile) "Well your mother has to like him"
IO-"So why are you heading to Bozeman Montana?"
Matt-"My sister lives there but thats another story if you would like me to tell you."
IO-"Goodbye Sir."

Dallas was a great airport and it was strange to be back in an English speaking country where you can flush paper down the toilet. Luckily in America its not too strange to pass the odd "Hola" and "Si" so we had time to rewire our brains. From here we had another internal flight to Salt Lake City where we connected to a 5 hour shuttle to Rexburg that was just driving reach (3hours) of Sarah and Joes place. Lucky we have nice family to pick us up.

The 5 hour shuttle was not drawn out at all and ended being quite entertaining as everyone in the shuttle spent time talking to us, asking us question of our trip and filling us in on what we were driving past. Being in Salt Lake, it can't be a surprise that over half the shuttle were Mormon or as they like to be know as LDS "Later Day Saints" (not LSD) and they provided plenty of interesting conversation. A slight mix up at our drop off point by the shuttle meant we waited outside a university for 45mins while Sarah and Joe waited outside the drop off point that they had arranged. Being 9.30pm and still 3 hours to drive we felt bad for Joe who had to drive but we found the wait quite interesting. Such a contrast to what we had seen. This was a very quiet typical American town. There was a folk and flag dance festival at the university and as we sat there with our backpacks half a dozen people stopped to chat (and maybe work on converting us).

The final 3 hour drive to Sarah and Joes went quickly as we chatted away and caught up but the highlight has to be the Mountain Lion pouncing across the road metres in front of our headlights, we were definitly heading into the wilderness.

Sarah and Joes house is a very large family home. We felt a little bit lost taking over the whole bottom floor. This is truly 5 star accommodation with a massive king size bed and we don't plan on checking out of this resort in a hurry.

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Photos

Rexburg
Where Matt almost turned to LSD (or LDS??)

Utah Blue
Not a cloud in the sky

Comments

[T]

Geez you're a smart ass Aussie, Matt! At least you didnt bore the officer to death with our Palmy North stories....