Swing Vote: Montana = success!

We did it! Hurray!

I’d like to extend an official welcome to the StealingFaith.com visitor from Laurel, Montana. You have resurrected my faith in the Swing Vote process.

I thank you from the bottom of my heart, because I was pretty sure this Swing Vote was going to be a bust. And I was grieving.

But you turned my sadness to dancing. Now, you just need to comment and tell us about your state from a resident’s perspective.

So go ahead and get on that, please.

I’ll start with a little fact about Laurel, Montana. They have “Hometown Pride – City Wide” according to the city website.

“Within one hour’s drive, we offer blue-ribbon trout fishing, the Beartooth Wilderness, hiking, biking, sight-seeing, and skiing. We are located just 15 miles from the largest municipality in the region and 114 miles from Yellowstone National Park. The City of Laurel is a great place to live.” That’s the blurb from the mayor.

I’m guessing they like their outdoor activities. And that the residents invest in a lot of cold weather clothing.

Neoprene, Goretex, down jackets and such.  We will consider moving to Laurel immediately.

I learned that there is a Smokejumper Center in Missoula. And that immediately took me to the Nicholas Evans book about smoke jumpers and I needed a pregnant pause in remembrance of how hard I cried while reading that novel.

Between that and the Notebook I’ve had to swear off Nicholas-authored books forever. My constitution just can’t handle the deep, heaving, ugly, snot-filled sobbing.

I can’t do it.

However, I can promise I’m going to visit Montana as soon as the opportunity presents itself. The photography that shows up with a search of “Montana” on Google images is stunning, you should check it out. And since I love mountains so much I think it would be a good thing for us to check out the state whose name means “mountain” in Spanish.

I’m going to sign off tonight because I’m getting up before the birds tomorrow and I need some beauty rest if that’s going to take place in a fashion that is at all useful and friendly.

But I promise you’ll want to stop by tomorrow because I’m planning to offer some insightful advice on how to negotiate the local small-town festival.

And I will mock my neighbors. Because I’m just that friendly.

What are the three words you would use to describe Montana?