Not Quite Flying Solo

Amie makes the world’s most decadent morning beverage: hot coffee blended with coconut oil.

At first, I was all “Uh, what?” And then she made me one, and I was like, “Uh, yes.” I wasn’t even hungry until about 1:30 p.m. I think she’s on to something here.

Max is going to read this and lecture me about the importance of breakfast. I can feel it coming. I drive her crazy by only drinking coffee for breakfast. In my defense, though, I only think it’s breakfast if it’s a latte. Calories are calories are calories, and milk has a lot of calories! So does coconut oil. I think the cup Amie made me had about 140 calories.

Most of our day was spent in the car. We were on the road by 8 a.m., and it took us almost three and a half hours from Amie’s apartment to parking at the festival. And our return trip was a little under three hours to get back to Amie’s.

Worth it.

If you read Day 19, then you know that Amie and I drove halfway across Montana today to see one set and one set only at Red Ants Pants Festival: Supaman. We would have loved to stay for the other artists, but we didn’t plan far enough in advance for that kind of indulgence.

Why do you choose to hide / When you was born to fly?

“Why” Supaman

We made to White Sulphur Springs — I’m pretty sure I nearly scared Amie to death with my driving at least once on the way to the festival — and the Red Ants Pants Festival gate with about fifteen minutes to spare before Supaman was scheduled to go on. Fifteen minutes was just enough time to get a cherry cider, run into Amie’s friend from high school, and scramble to the barricade of the mainstage as Supaman came on to do his soundcheck.

His performance is a mix of singing, prayer, dance, spoken word, comedy (he rocks those dad jokes), and hip hop featuring live production. At one point, he brought seven audience members up to create a song in real time.

He wears dress traditional to the Mens Fancy Dance, which he described as a contemporary style of Pow Wow culture. His wife and daughter did the beading on his armbands — I think they did all the beading on his regalia, but he was specifically talking about his armbands at the time — and he says they sew prayers into the beading so that he can take his family with him wherever he goes.

I have a couple of videos of him performing in my Montana highlights reel: one of him dancing (the loop you hear playing was recorded live onstage; he doesn’t seem to bring much in the way of pre-recorded material with him), and one of his comedy.

The rest of the festival was packed full of vendors and a side stage, and we couldn’t help but dally a little before leaving. We got something to eat at one of the gazillion gourmet food trucks.

And took a look at some of the art on display.

Three Buck Truck Jim Dolan

So worth the 6+hour round trip.

Amie tweeted at Supaman while we were still at the festival, and when she got off work tonight, she saw that he had liked, replied to, and retweeted her message.

I was all heart eyes when she sent the screenshot to me.

After an epic day, I dropped Amie off at home so she could book it to her shift, and then I headed over to pick up Tako. On the way, I made a much-needed pitstop at Target to gather supplies. (Picking up even small items is kind of hard with a dog on a road trip. I should probably add this to the Road-Tripping With a Dog post.)

Then Tako and I were off north again, this time to Kalispell. We were chased by a rainstorm the entire drive.

But it never caught up to us, and then it took a detour to the other side of the lake.

I arrived at the La Quinta in Kalispell a little after 8 p.m. We splurged on a hotel room for last night because I thought we would be arriving after dark, and I didn’t want to deal with the inevitable “Is this the AirBnB’s driveway?” confusion after such a long day.

Our room was absolutely huge. Ginormous. I should have known something was off, but I was so tired I didn’t question it. I jumped in the shower, threw on my pajamas, answered a few emails, and was about to do the whole bed thing when the front desk called. I’d been given the wrong room because someone else with my last name and first initial had also reserved for tonight.

I had, of course, completely spread out in the room. I had pulled apart my bad of hiking clothes trying to find a specific pair of socks, and my electronics were all plugged in to charge for the night. I had touched or mussed eeeeeeeverything in the room.

I scrambled to put everything back in my bags and, in the chaos, left Tako’s breakfast behind, which the maid who swung by to quickly clean threw away. Bye bye, breakfast. The hotel gave us a handful of breakfast links to replace it, though, so I think Tako is pretty happy with the whole situation.

—

In dog news, Tako got to spend a day with some super cool dogs and humans over at Dog Logic Inc. If you’re in the Missoula area, I can’t recommend them enough. They took Tako very last minute — I brought him & his vaccine records in for the behavior test yesterday, my friends — and he had a freaking ball.

 

High

SUPAMAN. Also, Amie, our friend Maggie, and I already have plans to come back for Red Ants Pants Festival 2019.

 

Low

Nope. Sorry. Today doesn’t get one.

 

Breakdown

Driven: 3340mi

Hiked: 41mi

Written: 4k

Listening to: “Why” Supaman