BYGTWSO!-Day 15

This is Oliver, my dad's dog. My dad is Oliver's human. They would happily die for each other. Oliver is a very suspicious fellow. Even after spending two nights in his home, he still looked at me with absolutely zero trust. If Dad goes upstairs, Oliver must follow. "My job is to guard Gary at all times," Oliver says, retreating from the room. I tried to warm up to Oliver by giving him dog treats. He stretched waaaaaay out to cautiously accept, but nothing further than that happened in our relationship.

This is Hauser Lake near Helena. K and I had to kill some time while vacating the premises. A realtor showed Dad's house (his wife is already working in another state with a new job) and Dad had to see the insurance person, so we drove around, saw some antelope, and stopped here. While here, a complete stranger stopped to chat with us saying, no kidding, "I just wanted to harass some people who aren't from around here." We met Dad for lunch in town. By the time we got back, the house had sold!

Only in Montana do you see a bighorn sheep and a mountain goat on the carousel. We spent time at the Capitol and we took a historic trolley train tour around the city.

So...my dad used to be The Great White Hunter. He grew up hunting and then expanded to several states and Canadian provinces and also went on three African safaris. I grew up with lots of stuffed animal trophies hanging in the house. I also grew up eating wild game. At one point, my dad built a museum and people paid money to come look at his hunting trophies. I remember the Amish taxidermist he used a lot in Ohio--their kids were fun to play with. Sometimes we would go down to their home in Ohio and they would come up to our home in Michigan. My dad has been selling some of his trophies, but he still has a ton left. Since he's moving, I thought I would snap a few pics--there's a great story behind every one of these things.

When we left Dad's, we drove over Stemple Pass, a dirt road going into Lincoln where we used to live. K is in love with the Hi-Country Beef Jerky place, so we dropped some money there and then we stopped at the Forest Service so he could buy "their new map." I took a picture of the Forest Service building, not because it's pretty, but because it's where I took Hunter's Safety when we first moved to Montana. Dad wanted us to all get deer tags to help fill the freezer.